Decision details

The reasons for the decision are:

MMU are recognised experts in the youth justice policy field and host the world leading Manchester Centre for Youth Studies.

MMU led a previous knowledge transfer partnership which developed the participatory youth practice approach which is central to this project and therefore GMCA and MMU developed a joint bid to Innovate UK for a further Knowledge Transfer Partnership.

The key objective of this project is to develop new policy and practice which foregrounds the 'voice of the child' within justice interventions. This will help to divert children away from entering the Youth Justice System and break the cycle of reoffending, reducing costs and pressure on services across the region.

The main area of focus is developing an evidence-based model for organisational culture and process change that enables a critical system evaluation for service re-design across the five key areas of police custody, out-of-court resolutions, early intervention and prevention, resettlement, and sentencing.

The project will be the first attempt to harness the evidence base regarding embedding and evaluating a child-centred organisational strategy, proposing a model of better practice to transform Youth Justice outcomes.

£150,281 is provided to MMU over a period of 3 years for the delivery of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership. This will fund a Knowledge Transfer Associate who is employed via MMU and seconded to the GMCA to lead the project.

This will be match funded via Innovate UK – who provide funding for the research aspects of the project and the academic supervision.