Say Yes, Winter 2008: Seeds of a fresh start for juveniles in custody (2)

Two boys play ball in an alley at a detention centre

Photograph by Oğuz Sağdıç
© UNICEF Turkey 2008

A programme is born

Ardıç is the Turkish word both for the thrush and for the juniper tree. The seed of the juniper must be swallowed by the thrush and spend some time inside its body if it is ever to flourish as a tree. The Ardıç Programme seeks to improve services and opportunities for children temporarily deprived of their liberty, so that they can rejoin society once freed, with a reduced risk of further contact with the law. The programme has two strands: the training of guards and directors, and the development of activities and materials for psychosocial personnel working with children and their families.

Guards and directors learn about the law, communications skills, personal development, criminal psychology, how to deal with negligence and abuse and a range of other topics. The activities for use by psychosocial personnel cover issues such as good parenting, anger management and sexual abuse.

Ardıç: Who said what?

The difference in behaviour, attitude and communication which has emerged between those who have taken part in the training and those who have not demonstrates that this education has to be given to all the staff of the institutions.

Director of Institution

The use of interactive training models prompted personnel at all levels to start asking themselves, What can I contribute to this process?

Director of Institution

The Ardıç Education Project was very different: I noticed that all the personnel of the institutions were included.

Director of Institution

Our approach and attitude to the children have changed.

Administrator

Another benefit of this work has been to eliminate the difference between institutions and establish common standards among them.

Social Worker

The inmates are not our enemies but people in our field of duty to whom we must provide a service.

Guard

If I have a problem I share it with the chief guard. He’ll sort it out. They didn’t make him chief guard for nothing.

Detained Child

The institution is better than home: no beatings, no swearing.

Convicted Child

When the first meetings were held in late 2003, Ardıç was merely a project. After exhaustive needs analysis, drafting, testing, revision and extension, key personnel were educated as trainers and the two strands were put into practice. As of 2008, responsibility for implementation and supervision has been taken over entirely by the Ministry of Justice, using its own budget. The programme has been included in in–service training, and has become compulsory for all those working with children in custody.

Ready to help

Guards and directors have responded well to the training sessions. Some even report that their relations with their own children have improved. At the Ankara detention centre, guards and residents communicate more respectfully. Incidents of residents climbing on the roof and cases of self–mutilation — a common form of self–expression particularly among children with past or present addictions to drugs or other substances — have declined. There is a climate of trust, says director Seyitoğlu, attributing this partly to the Ardıç Programme, but of course we can do better still.

Psychologists and social workers at the institution have gained in knowledge and confidence — for example when it comes to their approach to sex offence suspects. None of us had received any such training before, says one. They are especially grateful for the standardised materials. We used to do one–to–one interviews and interviews with the children’s families, but at the same time we used to ask ourselves: What else can we do?, says a senior staff member who is also a trainer for the Ardıç Programme.

So we were really happy to learn that there was a training programme on anger management and so on. And soon we will have the published material in our hands and we will be in a much better position to help the children, the families and the personnel.

What comes next?

As the thrush flies to all corners of the country, all the experts agree on two points. First, it would be much better if children did not come into contact with the law at all. Second, the issue cannot be tackled by the security and justice services alone. Legal rigidities or the hand of fate may explain why some youngsters end up ‘inside’, but in many more cases the blame lies with poverty, unemployment, migration, street life and addiction, with parents who are unable to cope and with adults who exploit children for criminal ends. All these are problems which require economic and social solutions.

In the meantime, fewer children need to be deprived of their liberty for so long. The 2005 legislation provides for alternative measures in place of detention and for probation orders in place of custodial sentences. Putting these arrangements into practice is easier said than done. Nevertheless, progress is being made and UNICEF is lending its support.

But that’s another story.

A vote of thanks

Kenan İpek,
Director General of Prisons and Detention Centres

The Ardıç Programme, which we have developed with UNICEF and the financial support of the EU, is not a project simply imported from another country. Turkish academics and Justice Ministry professionals also worked very hard to create a programme that addressed our needs and could be implemented in our conditions. More than 300 professionals have been educated. Now we are ready to implement the programme in our training centres and spread it to all our institutions. All this has involved the labour of far too many people to mention by name. But I would like to thank them all for their tireless efforts.

The success of the programme will only become clear over time. Are children offending again after they are released? We will be keeping an eye on this, drawing comparisons with other countries and sharing the outcome with public opinion. Of course, one programme is never enough and we aim to go on improving the training and resources available to our highly–committed guards and expert personnel. We will also persist with our efforts in the very important area of physical infrastructure.

Both the present government and previous governments have been very supportive of our work for children in conflict with the law. Whenever we have requested anything from the Ministry of National Education (MONE), they have never turned us down. The development of civil society organisations in Turkey in recent years is also very pleasing. I am grateful to all of them.

Our social structure too is generally supportive — you can tell this from the number of prison visitors. Re–offending rates are relatively low. However, there are some socio–economic environments where crime is higher. Families and society have their duties to fulfill. A young person released from custody has to have a home to go to, and needs to be protected from the wrong sort of attention. Some people think, “These are all glue–sniffers; there is nothing you can do for them.” If we all dodge our responsibilities in this way, nothing will get any better.

Say Yes would like to thank the Ministry of Justice and the directors, personnel and residents of the Ankara Child and Youth Closed Penal Institution and the Ankara Education Home for all their kind assistance during the preparation of these articles.

The Ardıç Programme has been financially supported by the European Union.

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SAY YES, WINTER 2008

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