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April 2012 - Scottish Government impressed by
Edinburgh Study's data linkage procedures
Scottish Government held a major conference recently to mark the launch of a
consultation exercise on Scotland's proposed new Data Linkage Framework.
Speaking at the conference, study co-director Susan McVie highlighted the
impressive range of data collected as part of the Edinburgh Study. She
strongly emphasised the importance of rigorous data protection and
confidentiality mechanisms to protect individual identities and safeguard
personal information. However, she also demonstrated the
significant wealth of knowledge that comes from linking different forms of
data together and which has helped the study to build a much wider picture
of the lives of young people that would otherwise have been possible, which
has contributed to significant policy changes by Scottish
Government in recent years. Susan has been asked to deliver a similar
presentation to internal Scottish Government staff involved in developing
data linkage strategies.
March 2012 - Staff departure
The Edinburgh Study said a sad farewell to Jackie Palmer, our Data Manager,
this month. Jackie has been involved in the Edinburgh Study right from the
start, as part of the Edinburgh Survey Team who were involved in processing
and entering questionnaires from sweep one. She joined the Study team
properly in 2001 and has been a prominent member of the data collection and
processing staff since that time. We will all miss her outgoing
personality and her enormous bank of knowledge. Good luck in your new
job Jackie!!
February 2012 - Seminar paper highlights truancy
and exclusion
Susan McVie presented a paper titled "Implications for Education
of Results from the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime" to
staff and students at the Moray House School of Education on 1st February.
The findings she presented were based on work that she and Lesley McAra have
been carrying out to inform policy and practice within the City of Edinburgh
Council Education Department. Susan highlighted the problems of early
school exclusion and truancy on the longer term outcomes for young people,
especially in terms of their contact with the adult criminal justice system.
She argued for greater efforts to be made to retain young people within
school and to find realistic and flexible alternatives for those who cannot
stay within mainstream education.
January 2012 - Study findings inform LankellyChase
Foundation
On 26th January, Study Co-Directors, Lesley McAra and Susan
McVie met with representatives of the
LankellyChase Foundation, an
independent charitable funder that aims to bring about change to improve the
quality of life of people facing severe and multiple disadvantage. The
focus of the meeting was findings from the Edinburgh Study of Youth
Transitions and Crime, which have showed a strong link between deprivation
and disadvantage and poor criminal justice outcomes, even when controlling
for the effects of serious offending behaviour. The Foundation is planning
to establish a number of projects focused on young people from age 12-21
from severely disadvantaged backgrounds.
November 2011 - Findings on violence presented to
Government
In the first of a series of
research seminars for Scottish Government, Liz Levy and Susan McVie
presented papers to policy makers and analysts based on findings from the
Edinburgh Study about violence. Liz was presenting findings from her
analysis of the study data, conducted while on secondment from Government,
on young people's involvement in serious violence. Susan talked about
the findings published in September 2010 about young people's involvement in
gangs and knife crime. The aim of the seminar series is to make policy
makers and analysts within Scottish Government more aware about the findings
from the Edinburgh Study and about it's potential as a valuable source of
information about transitions in young people's lives over time.
October 2011 - Keynote address to 'Include Youth'
At a major conference in Belfast
this month, Study Co-Director, Professor Lesley McAra, gave a keynote
address titled Getting the 'right' Youth Justice based on the
findings from the Edinburgh Study. The paper explored the implications
for policy and practice of the recent review of youth justice in Northern
Ireland, commissioned by Ministers and led by Kathleen Marshall, John Graham
and Stella Perot. The Edinburgh Study was part of the evidence base drawn on
for this review (both by the review team itself and by groups such as
Include Youth in their submissions to the review). Professor McAra
argued that although the review report had made some of the 'right' moral
choices it was politically timid. The key challenge for juvenile justice
policymakers and practitioners was to develop a system which offered
services proportionate to the child's needs but which also maximised
diversion from criminal justice. In order to rise to this challenge the best
interests of the child are required to be placed at the heart of
decision-making. For more information, and to see the conference
twitter feed, go to Include Youth.
September 2011 - Whole Systems Approach to youth
justice launched
On Wednesday 28th September, Kenny
MacAskill, Cabinet Secretary for Justice, launched the new Whole Systems
Approach to youth justice in Scotland. The launch, which took place in
Dumfries and Galloway, stressed the importance of local authorities taking a
partnership approach to tackling youth crime and ensuring that streamlined
and consistent planning, assessment and decision making processes be put in
place for young people who offend, ensuring they receive the right help at
the right time. The ethos of the Whole Systems Approach
is based on findings from the Edinburgh Study that
stress that many young people could and should be diverted from
statutory measures, prosecution and custody through early intervention and
robust community alternatives. The
Scottish Government website provides further information about the Whole
Systems Approach, including a range of guidance documents and toolkits aimed
at practitioners.
Go to News Archive
Website last updated:
7 February 2011 (SM)
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