The ability to identify and remove barriers
Barrier Removal
As has been explained in Section 2.3 and Section 2.4 of this resource, a rights-based approach demands that all involved in delivering or facilitating access to justice by children with mental disabilities identify existing or potential disability-related barriers to access that a child might encounter and then act to remove them. The test of whether barrier-removal has been successful is the enjoyment of access to justice by children with mental disabilities on an equal basis with others.
Pre-emptive action
Barrier-removal involves pre-emptive action to develop and promote accessibility, such as producing information in ‘easy-read’, through the reform of policies, procedures and practices or via awareness raising or staff training and development. It is important that persons with disabilities are involved in this process. For example in the UK, staff with learning disabilities from the organisation CHANGE ran workshops with Prisons, Police, Probation and Courts staff to find out what information people going through the Criminal Justice system needed to know. CHANGE also worked with people with learning disabilities who have been through the system to find out what they thought. Through doing so they developed a bank of images to make information about the criminal justice system more accessible to people with learning disabilities.
Providing Reasonable Accommodations and Support for Individuals
It also involves understanding when and how to make responsive, bespoke accommodations and providing support to individual children, such as engaging an interpreter or using innovative approaches to eliciting the views, will and preferences of children who communicate in different and sometimes non-verbal ways.
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Identifying barriers and solutions
Children with mental disabilities and their families are usually experts in their own strengths and support needs and will know if having support will help them. If they think that they need support, they will know what sort of support will be best for them. In some cases, it might not be appropriate to ask parents, family members, friends and carers for their view. For example where the parents, family members, friends or carers are suspected of being involved in the alleged crime.
In terms of identifying potential barriers, below are some basic questions to consider:
- How can we ensure that the information we provide is accessible to children with mental disabilities?
- How can we ensure that we are able to communicate effectively with children with mental disabilities?
- Are the premises from which we operate accessible to children with mental disabilities who also have physical or sensory impairments?
- Have we considered whether our policies, practices and procedures might present barriers to children with mental disabilities and the types of flexibilities we can offer?
- Have we considered ways to mitigate and manage anxiety and distress?
- Have we considered ways to mitigate and manage fatigue?