‘Do you really want me to tell ya!’ critical learning in engaging young people in contact with the justice system as peer educators with social work students

Abstract

This paper outlines and evaluates an active and experiential learning project, which gave young people involved with the justice system, a voice as peer educators engaging with social work students outside of the traditional educational institution. The project had two key interconnecting elements. Firstly, by engaging a hidden population of young people in a realistic and meaningful way, it enabled them to share their experiences, and allowed students to understand the complexity of what it means to be socially excluded. Secondly, through this active participation process the young people began to see education as a desirable goal.The project took place over three months and included 10 social work students and 13 young people involved with the justice system. Creative use of multimedia facilitated production of a learning resource to capture the young people's lived experiences with statutory social work and justice systems. Young people were fundamentally challenged in their beliefs about themselves being involved in education to achieve a qualification. Students were challenged in their creativity and versatility responding to the task, when collaborating with 'hard to reach' young people. They were furthermore challenged in terms of their attitudes and assumptions in relation to offending and social justice.

Systematic Review of Service User and Carer Involvement in Qualifying Social Work Education: A Decade in Retrospect

“…There were some examples of the creative use of digital media to capture the experiences of marginalised groups (e.g. O'Shea and McGinnis, 2020) and encounter methods such as a World Cafe (Terry et al, 2015), though most used classroom methods. This does not appear too different from the previous review.…”

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“…Las investigaciones empíricas corresponden a experiencias metodológicas educativas (n=5) y análisis de proyectos institucionales (n=4) que se desarrollan desde un enfoque cualitativo y utilizan métodos de investigación variados: García y Ciges ( 2019 Respecto a la situación geográfica de los estudios empíricos, se analizan situaciones educativas específicas ocurridas en aulas de educación formal (Silva et al, 2020;LaDuca et al, 2020;Nganga, 2019;O'Shea y McGinnis, 2019;García y Ciges, 2019;Paone et al, 2018;Tilley, 2016;Wehbi, 2015) y de educación no formal (Sava y Marín, 2017).…”

“…La educación que utiliza el pensamiento creativo con el objetivo de descubrir alternativas para un mundo más justo se practica desde distintos enfoques. En los artículos que exponen experiencias, los docentes que fomentan la creatividad de los y las estudiantes toman distancia de una "enseñanza tradicional" y desarrollan explicaciones para defender metodologías no masificadas que suponen una renovación del proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje (Silva et al, 2020;Nganga, 2019;O'Shea y McGinnis, 2019;Paone et al, 2018;Wehbi, 2015;Sava y Marín, 2017).…”

Lessons Learned in Meaningful Collaboration With Justice Involved Young Adults

“…Our action learning project involved a group of undergraduate social work students and a group of justice-involved young adults (see O'Shea & McGinnis (2020) for a detailed discussion of the project). Students self-selected into the project from the second-year undergraduate cohort, the young adults were recruited through criminal justice/voluntary agencies and the prison service.…”