Framing ‘drug prevention’ for young people in contact with the criminal justice system in England: views from practitioners in the field

ABSTRACT

Drawing on the work of Rein and Schon (1993. “Reframing Policy Discourse.” In The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning, edited by F. Fischer, and J. Forester, 145–166. London: UCL Press., 1996. “Frame-Critical Policy Analysis and Frame-Reflective Policy Practice.” Knowledge and Policy: the International Journal of Knowledge Transfer and Utilization 9 (1): 85–104), we explore the ways in which ‘young people’, ‘vulnerability’, ‘risk’, ‘prevention’ and ‘prevention practice’ were defined and framed by practitioners engaged in the design, delivery and commissioning of drug prevention interventions for young people in contact with the criminal justice system. We argue that practitioners describe their work in terms of both a preventative frame – based on a ‘deficit’ model – and a transformative praxis frame, more in line with an increasing shift towards ‘positive youth justice’ where practitioners aspire to actively involve the young person in a process of change. The implications of those, often competing, frames are discussed in relation to the development of prevention approaches and the challenges in designing drugs prevention for this group of young people. The paper is based on interviews and focus groups with thirty-one practitioners in England and is part of the EU funded EPPIC project (Exchanging Prevention Practices on Polydrug Use among Youth in Criminal Justice Systems 2017–2020).

KEYWORDS:

• Drug prevention
• young people
• criminal justice
• practitioners
• framing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Karen Duke http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2567-4218

Helen Gleeson http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0505-5281

Notes

1 This paper is part of the project 768162 / EPPIC which has received funding from the European Union’s Health Programme (2014–2020). The content of this paper represents the views of the authors only and is their sole responsibility; it cannot be considered to reflect the views of the European Commission and/or the Consumers, Health, Agriculture and Food Executive Agency or any other body of the European Union. The European Commission and the Agency do not accept any responsibility for use that may be made of the information it contains.

2 For more information on the project, see: https://www.eppic-project.eu.

3 In the UK, the local authority has legal responsibility for children under 18 when they are made the subjects of care orders. Looked after children could be living with foster parents, in residential children’s homes or in residential settings such as schools or secure units. (NSPCC 2018).

4 Asset refers to the risk assessment tool used by UK practitioners. It gives young people risk scores which places them into risk categories (i.e. standard, enhanced and intensive) which corresponds to the type of intervention they will receive in relation to the frequency, intensity and duration of the intervention.

5 In the UK, a ‘pupil referral unit’ or short stay school provides education to children who are excluded or not able to attend a mainstream school.

6 Tier 1 interventions include provision of drug-related information and advice, screening and referral to specialised drug treatment. Tier 2 includes provision of drug-related information and advice, triage assessment, referral to structured drug treatment, brief psychosocial interventions, harm reduction interventions (including needle exchange) and aftercare. Tier 3 include provision of community-based specialised drug assessment and co-ordinated care- planned treatment and drug specialist liaison. Tier 4 include provision of residential specialised drug treatment, which is care planned and care co- ordinated to ensure continuity of care and aftercare (NTA 2006).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by 3rd EU Health Programme (2014–2020) (Chafea) [grant number Project 768162].