The FOCUS project aimed to ensure that children in contact with the law, as victims and suspects or accused, benefit from individual assessments of their needs as required under EU law.  FOCUS promoted the implementation of robust and multidisciplinary individual assessment practices, including in restorative justice processes. 

Child Circle was delighted to work with project coordinator Terre des Hommes in Budapest, SAPI in Bulgaria, Terre des Hommes Greece, DCI Netherlands, Terre des Hommes Romania and the Child Rights Centre Serbia to improve children’s experiences in justice proceeding by exchanging good practices, training professionals, developing and piloting tools to enhance national processes.

Child Circle’s role focused on developing key standards and resources for individual assessment processes to contribute to the training and pilot activities in the project.  We accumulated the knowledge and learning from the project in the mutual learning paper and recommendations for progress.

With Terre des Hommes, we also organised the FOCUS webinars exploring the impact of COVID-19 on children in criminal justice proceedings, the professionals working with them and the criminal justice system itself, all of which have come under considerable pressure in recent times.