The Care Leavers Association and Criminal Justice: A Decade of Activism

For two years, Jim and Sam members of The Care Leavers Association and those we have worked with have been compiling an audio-visual set of reflections on the work we conducted between 2010 and 2020 with regard to looked after children and care leavers becoming involved with the criminal justice system. We hope these reflections will perform two useful functions: 

• Act as a resource for anyone who works in the criminal justice field who wishes to understand some of the experiences of the care leavers who all too often end up in the criminal justice system. We particularly want practitioners to be able to take stock, learn lessons and move forward in trying to improve the lives and prospects of care leavers who enter the criminal justice system.  

• Outline the work of The Care Leavers Association during that time. In particular, we want to commemorate and celebrate the work of Darren Coyne, who was a project worker with the CLA during that decade and who had a major positive influence through his work in relation to both criminal justice and access to child care records. Darren had been in care as a child and had also been in the youth justice system. His dynamism and rare abilities and qualities were central to the success of our work during that decade. You can learn more about Darren’s work with us here: https://www.careleavers.com/?s=Darren 

Please click on each subheading below…

What have we done?

There were a number of landmark publications, events and initiatives during the decade from 2010 to 2020. We discuss these separately here: https://www.careleavers.com/what-we-do/criminal-justice-project/ 

For this particular, project, with have worked with a number of people whose contribution deserved to recognised by name. 

From within the CLA: David Graham (CLA National Director), Dr Jim Goddard (Chair of the Board of Trustees), Sam Davey (CJS Project Worker), Bret Milner, Emmanuel, 

From outside the CLA: Becky Clarke (Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Manchester Metropolitan University: https://www.mmu.ac.uk/research/research-centres/rcass/staff/profile/becky-clarke), Laura, Aisha, Andi Brierley, Helen Latham, Paul Pandolfo.  

Thanks, in particular, to Sam Davey for editing of the audio and video clips and to Toya Dunscombe for help with making the contents accessible via the CLA website.   

What we are doing?

From now and throughout 2025, we will be issuing the results of this work through the Care Leavers Association website. Each month, we will be putting up fresh audio or video clips, with commentary. We aim to build a databank of our reflections and activities. We welcome feedback and discussion and plan to engage with wider audiences on the back of this work.  

For now, we are starting with the contents of an interview that Becky Clark conducted with two women who worked with Darren during his time with the CLA. We do this in two parts. The first four clips reflect mainly on their early experiences. The following three clips, which we will put up in January 2025, focus on their later experiences and their reflections on their experiences as a whole.  

Podcasts with Becky, Laura and Aisha