Exploring the Potential for Relational Policy for Youth Justice in Ireland

The Centre for Crime, Justice and Victim Studies and RATIO invite you to a participatory conversation with Dr Michael Little, Dr Sean Redmond and special guests

Exploring the Potential for Relational Policy for Youth Justice in Ireland

Appeal Court, Glucksman Library,

University of Limerick

Monday, March 4th 6pm to 7pm (Registration will begin at 5.30pm, attendance is free but places are limited)

Dr Michael Little is the Director of ‘Ratio’ and previously was co-director of the Dartington Social Research Unit, an independent charity bringing science to bear on policy and practice in Europe and the United States. With Ratio Michael explores the way social connection influences human development. Three stands of the work explore one to one relationships between helper and helped; the reasons why some communities foster healthy relationships and others do not; and the optimal balance between public systems and civil society.

Dr Sean Redmond is Adjunct Professor of Youth Justice, School of Law, University of Limerick (UL) and a civil servant with the Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DCYA). Sean is leading a project to develop the evidence base to improve youth crime policy programmes and practice in Ireland. In his time as lead evaluator with DCYA Sean has championed the importance of relationships as the critical site for the co-production of policy between professionals and young people in the top-down governance of youth programmes and is currently working with practitioners in the youth justice system to re-imagine relationships from the bottom-up.

Ratio is a decade long inquiry into the way relationships influence human development. Part of its work is to sponsor a conversation around the world about relational social policy. REPPP is a research partnership between the University of Limerick and the Department of Children and Youth affairs dedicated to improving the evidence base for rational decision making in youth crime policy, programmes and planning. The R Word series of podcasts has been exploring a world without organisations, partnerships between citizens and public systems, changing the relationship between state and family, and mutual aid. On March 4th, Ratio director Dr Michael Little will talk to Dr Sean Redmond at the University of Limerick about governance in the context of relational social policy, and disrupting negative patterns of social connection can reduce gang crime. The event will be recorded for an edited podcast on the R word (https://soundcloud.com/user-434237982).

For further information, please contact john.reddy@ul.ie