Learning disability nursing in the criminal justice system: achieving justice for all – understanding need and enabling change for young people in the youth offending team and resolution and understanding for victims
| Published date | 09 March 2015 |
| Date | 09 March 2015 |
| Pages | 15-22 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JIDOB-05-2015-0010 |
| Author | Karina Louise Hepworth,Helen Williams |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Learning & intellectual disabilities,Offending behaviour |
Learning disability nursing in the criminal
justice system: achieving justice for
all –understanding need and enabling
change for young people in the youth
offending team and resolution and
understanding for victims
Karina Louise Hepworth and Helen Williams
Karina Louise Hepworth is
Senior Nurse Specialist,
Learning Disabilities at the
Kirklees Youth Offending Team,
South West Yorkshire
Partnership NHS Trust,
Huddersfield, UK.
Helen Williams is Operations
Manager at Kirklees Youth
Offending Team, Kirklees
Council, Huddersfield, UK.
Abstract
Purpose –The learning disability nursing role in the multi-professional Youth Offending Team (YOT) enables
the recognition, acknowledgement and understanding of the needs of people entering the Criminal Justice
System (CJS) and provides a platform to ensure appropriate identification, assessment, planning and delivery
of care ensuring successful completion of the Order and subsequent recidivism and reduction in reoffending.
The purpose of this paper is to share the experience of working with young people who have committed
a crime and are found to have unmet or undiagnosed additional needs.
Design/methodology/approach –This paper seeks to consider how learning disability nursing skills
compliment the range of expertise in the multi-professional YOT and discusses the case of a young woman
and her experience of the CJS from pre-sentence to completion of the Order.
Findings –Working together enables effective care delivery to ensure the needs of the person are
recognised, understood and acted upon and achieves a balance between welfare for the person and justice
and understanding for the victim.
Originality/value –This paper’s value is to demonstrate that recognition of need enables the appropriate
intervention and delivery of care. Through working together a reduction in young people returning into the
CJS as well as building skills and understanding in staff working with young people with additional needs can
be achieved.
Keywords Care delivery, Offending, Autism, Young people, Learning disabilities, Restorative justice
Paper type Case study
Introduction
Over the last quarter of a century care for people with a learning disability has changed from
institutional care to care within people’s own homes in the community with learning disability
nursing roles and skills developing into new and emerging areas of practice, one of which is in
the Criminal Justice System (CJS). The learning disability nursing role is a developing one as the
evidence builds and the needs of people with learning disabilities are more recognised and
services evolve to try to meet those needs to ensure fair access to justice. Health is a statutory
Received 5 May 2015
Revised 1 July 2015
Accepted 20 July 2015
This paper is testament to a young
person and their family’s
willingness and commitment to
want to tell others about their
experience of accessing services
and the criminal justice system.
They wanted us to share their
story and the authors hope that
justice has been done to what they
wanted to say. Names and some
of the facts in the case have been
changed to ensure anonymity.
DOI 10.1108/JIDOB-05-2015-0010 VOL. 6 NO. 1 2015, pp.15-22, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 2050-8824
j
JOURNAL OF INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES AND OFFENDING BEHAVIOUR
j
PAGE15
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