The Youth Justice Summit 2019

The Youth Justice Legal Centre’s Youth Justice Summit 2019 will focus on the theme of “Children in the Criminal Courts”.

Now in its third year, the annual Youth Justice Summit brings together professionals from across the youth justice sector to raise standards in youth justice advocacy, improve the status of this area of work and to support a growing community of specialist youth justice lawyers.

The Summit will take place on 17th May 2019 and will be delivered in association with The Dickson Poon School of Law at Kings College London.

The keynote speakers for the summit have been announced today, they are: Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, leading cognitive neuroscientist; Professor David Ormerod, Criminal Law Commissioner; and Max Hill QC, Director of Public Prosecutions.

The Summit will feature sessions on a diverse range of topics, including child and adolescent brain development; child terrorist: an oxymoron; reducing custodial remand of children; the impact of turning 18 in the criminal justice system; psychologist or psychiatrist: instructing the right expert and understanding the welfare principle in criminal cases.

Tickets for the Summit can now be booked here

The Youth Justice Legal Centre is part of the charity Just for Kids Law.

YJLC19 will include practical workshops and panel discussions on topical issues:

• Litigating child and adolescent brain development – bringing the science into the courtroom
• No child in cells – community care duties owed to children, ensuring children always have a bail address;
• Turning 18: timely justice – how to ensure defendants who offend as children but are tried as adults get a just outcome;
• School exclusions as a pipeline to the criminal justice systems: how do we break the cycle?
• Psychologist, psychiatrist, intermediary – instructing the right expert;
• Child Terrorist – An Oxymoron? Ensuring children who are groomed or trafficked are treated as victims not suspect
• Children in adult courts – putting the Criminal Practice Direction into practice and facilitating effective participation through modifications, adaptations and special measures and more. We will also be presenting the 2019 Youth Justice Awards, which recognise lawyers who are doing outstanding but often unsung work in this vital field.