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Description
Young offender centers operate on the basis of a regulation of 2001, which has not been reviewed for twenty years. The regulation is not suited to young people today and does not provide for any rules on prevention of discrimination or improving young people''s awareness of the law. At the same time, discrimination in Poland is becoming a more serious problem, and the perpetrators are very often young people of a low level of awareness. The Ombudsmen for Children stated in 2018 that new, effective methods need to be devised for working with difficult juveniles in young offender centers. There is a huge need on the part of custody officers for new methods and tools. The aim of the project is to provide training for 30 custody officers at 15 young offender centers in Poland (two persons from each center). The training will concern the tools and methods for aggression replacement training, including moral reasoning training, which has been proven to be effective all over the world. Custody officers will be given an international aggression replacement training coach certificate. The persons who do the training will introduce the tools described above for working with young people who have a low level of awareness of their rights and who commit acts of discrimination towards others. In addition, young offender centers will begin working with local organizations and activists on a joint campaign to combat discrimination and defend human rights in their communities. This will be summarized in its entirety at a conference that combines the custody officer community and organizations and scientists from all over Poland. A Best Practice Bank will be published and distributed to all young offender centers in Poland, and will be material for use in advocacy measures with respect to government institutions such as the Ministry of Justice.
Summary of project results
Probation centres are institutions that carry out preventive, caring, educational and resocialisation and therapeutic activities for minors. Juveniles are placed in the centres on the basis of court decisions in connection with non-compliance with compulsory education, peer violence, aggression, criminal acts. There are 97 youth probation centres in Poland. Meanwhile, the law on the operation of probation centres in Poland is outdated (2001) and inadequate to contemporary challenges. It lacks, inter alia, provisions on counteracting discrimination or legal education of youth. At the same time, probation officers working in crisis centres lack effective and attractive tools in the field of counteracting violence and discrimination among youth (Ombudsman for Children, 2018).
As part of the project, 28 male and female educators from 14 probation centres in Poland took part in the certified ART-TZA Aggression Replacement Training. Subsequently, thanks to the knowledge and competences gained, those taking part in the training carried out social microcampaigns in partnerships with local institutions. The campaigns, which were often themed specifically around the prevention of violence and discrimination, targeted young people from the centres, local young people and the local community more broadly. A total of nine such campaigns were conducted. At the end of the project, the Grantee organised a conference in Warsaw attended by 80 people working with young people experiencing various difficulties. A good practice brochure was also published and distributed to institutions working with youth.
Through participation in the project, male and female educators improved their skills in working with young people, including responding to discrimination and working with perpetrators of prejudice and hate violence. Young people supported by probation services developed their social competences, gained knowledge about the phenomenon of discrimination and increased their sensitivity. The final conference was a networking event for male and female educators from probation services, organisations and institutions working with young people. The publication produced as part of the project is intended to be used in future as material for advocacy activities aimed at changing the law on the operation of probation centres.