Young people ‘felt heard’ after meeting judges in care proceedings pilot

The Young People’s Participation Pathway (YPPP) was designed to address what researchers describe as a long-standing “participation gap” in family justice, where children and young people are usually represented indirectly through professionals and often feel excluded or disempowered. The pilot sought to test whether structured, judge-led meetings could be embedded into existing court processes and whether they could improve young people’s experiences of care proceedings.

Running from August 2024 to July 2025 across two local family justice board areas, the pilot involved 24 young people aged between 10 and 17 across 19 cases. Together, these cases represented around 26 per cent of those eligible in the participating areas. The initiative was delivered without additional financial resources and built on earlier work, including the Adolescent Court Project in Coventry and Warwickshire.

An independent evaluation by Rubric Social Research Ltd drew on interviews with 41 participants, including young people, judges, social workers, team managers, legal representatives, parents and other children’s social care professionals. The findings suggest that, for many young people, meeting judges made a meaningful difference.

Most of the young people involved said they valued the opportunity to meet the judge, felt listened to and appreciated being treated as individuals rather than just as “cases”. Meetings helped to demystify court processes and, in many instances, reduced anxiety about what was happening and why.

One young person described how the experience changed their feelings about the proceedings: “I wasn’t frightened of the outcome anymore. The judge explained the outcome of the session was for my best interests and it was to look after me and safeguard me and that made me feel more at ease… I felt I could put all my trust in her because I knew she’d do something good for me.”

Although the meetings did not alter the overall direction of proceedings in most cases, there were examples of small but meaningful changes being made as a direct result of what young people said to judges. These included arrangements around access to pets, treasured personal items and contact with siblings. Professionals involved felt that these changes, while modest, demonstrated that young people’s voices were being taken seriously.

The evaluation also found that some young people were better able to accept difficult decisions after meeting judges, even when outcomes did not align with their wishes. Interviewees suggested this was linked to young people feeling more involved in the process and having greater trust that they and their parents were being treated fairly.

These findings echo international research showing that children generally want to meet judges and believe it makes judicial processes fairer when they are heard directly.

However, the pilot also revealed significant challenges and variations in practice that would need to be addressed if the model were to be rolled out more widely.

While there was broad support in principle for the idea of young people meeting judges, professionals and parents held differing views about how workable and appropriate it was in practice. Social workers and team managers were generally positive, describing the pathway as empowering for young people and manageable within existing workloads – a finding the evaluators noted was surprising given the high pressure on frontline staff.

Several social workers said the YPPP enabled them to play a more active role in supporting young people through the court process, helping to create a sense that decisions were being made “with” young people rather than “to” them.

Judges, by contrast, expressed mixed views. Some were passionate advocates for direct participation, while others felt uncomfortable about what they saw as a blurring of role boundaries. A number of judges reported difficult experiences in meetings involving challenging behaviour or conflict, which left them uncertain about the model’s workability.

Despite these differences, there was general agreement among judges that giving children a voice was important. One judge reflected on the value of focusing on what mattered most to young people: “If they haven’t got their XBox or their musical instrument or they’re missing the family dog, [these things are] massively more impactful than I think we realise ... and these small things give a bit of hope. But also show that there is reflection from professionals on what the child is worried about and bothered about.”

Parents interviewed outside the pilot areas were unexpectedly supportive of the idea in theory, with several suggesting that multiple meetings with judges could help to reduce confusion and mistrust.

In practice, however, implementation varied widely. Although the original model envisaged up to six meetings per young person, most met judges only once to three times. This was due partly to young people’s preferences and partly to professionals questioning the value of further meetings while proceedings were ongoing.

The pilot also tested the use of a “MyPlan” document, designed to help young people prepare for meetings and articulate their views. Feedback on this tool was mixed. Some young people found it helpful, while others barely remembered it. Many professionals felt it was not sufficiently young-person-friendly and that its quasi-contractual design created barriers to meaningful engagement.

The evaluation found that the success of the pilot often depended on individual champions rather than on sustainable systems. This raised concerns about scalability, particularly in the absence of additional resources.

Another significant gap was the absence of Cafcass guardians from the formal design of the pilot. Their exclusion led to role confusion and gaps in representation, despite their statutory responsibility for advising courts on children’s best interests. The evaluators concluded that any future model should include Cafcass as a core partner.

The report makes four key recommendations. First, it calls for meetings with judges to be offered more routinely where appropriate, noting the clear value for young people in terms of feeling heard, building trust and understanding proceedings. It also highlights the need for training and support for judges to help them manage this form of participation confidently and safely.

Second, it argues that meetings should be integrated into existing structures within local authorities and courts, such as planning panels and case management processes, to reduce administrative burden and improve sustainability.

Third, it recommends that tools like MyPlan be co-designed with young people and practitioners to ensure they are visually accessible, meaningful and genuinely supportive of engagement.

Finally, it calls for increased judicial dialogue and training to clarify judges’ roles and expectations when meeting young people and to support cultural change within the judiciary.

For social workers and other professionals in children’s services, the findings provide both encouragement and challenge. They underline the potential benefits of more direct participation for young people in care proceedings, while also highlighting the practical, cultural and resourcing barriers that would need to be overcome to make such approaches routine.

As family justice continues to grapple with how best to centre children’s voices, the YPPP offers a glimpse of what might be possible – and a reminder, as one young person put it, of the reassurance that can come from being seen and heard by those making life-changing decisions.