--- title: "De-escalation training for youth justice staff" description: "Intake, mediation, a disclosure nobody saw coming, the doorstep. In youth justice, force used by an officer who was never trained is unlawful force." canonical: https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/industries/justice-community-services --- [Our Work](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work) / [Industries](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/industries) # Justice and community services run on conversations that go wrong quietly. A young person who will not look up. A disclosure nobody was ready for. A doorstep that has to be recovered in the first thirty seconds. These are high-consequence conversations that are difficult to rehearse safely, because the only practice available is usually on a real person having a bad day. Key takeaway A justice scenario should let practitioners rehearse a difficult exchange without putting a person seeking help under pressure. PTR would build it with the people who know that setting. ## The standard for a justice build PTR would shape justice and community services practice around intake, mediation and disclosure, with practitioners and people with lived experience defining the boundaries. The [Central Coast Council disability-awareness project](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/case-studies/central-coast-council-disability-awareness) provides an adjacent example of co-design. A justice build would need its own scenarios, review and facilitated debrief. > "For instance, our simulations allow users to experience what it feels like to be discriminated against, to navigate life in a wheelchair, or to practice de-escalation techniques in response to microaggressions." Simon Lowe CEO, People Tech Revolution. [The Cusp of a Revolution, Global Best Practice Group, October 2024](https://globalbestpracticegroup.com/airevolution/) ## What practice looks like in justice and community services Intake, mediation on country, the doorstep and the after-hours desk. Sitting with someone until the conversation is ready. Mediation on country, at the pace it needs. A youth worker sits sideways, not squaring up. A woman keeps her coat on, folder closed. The doorstep, and stepping back rather than forward. The after-hours desk, and not reaching across it. Papers squared, and the question not yet asked. Four adults sit in a peer support circle. A mother and daughter share a visits room. The witness position, and the first question. ## Questions a service asks before it starts The questions that come up early, answered in the words they get asked in. Sitting opposite someone, on a hard day. ### Do workers need headsets? No. The same exchange runs typed before the hearing, or spoken out loud into an empty room, on whatever the service already has. The headset is the deepest version of the practice, not the way in. ### When would a caseworker fit this in? In the hour before anyone arrives, or at the table before the papers open. One exchange is short enough that it does not need to come out of anybody's caseload. Two people on the same step, sitting apart. ### Is this a program that replaces our mentors? The opposite. The mentoring would run the room and the headset would run the rehearsal. The relationship is the thing that changes behaviour; the practice is what gives it something to work on. ### Young people we work with will not sit through training. Why would they do this? Because it is not training as they have met it. A young person meets a future self in the scene and gets to choose differently, on a sofa, before the day it counts. That is a very different offer from a room with a whiteboard in it. Leaning in, at a front desk. ### Does this only suit youth justice? No. The scenarios run through what a shift in community services actually turns on: an intake, a mediation with an Elder present, a disclosure nobody saw coming, a doorstep, and the front desk late in the day. Each is built in the room it really happens in. ## The hour before anyone arrives A justice build would make space to rehearse before a difficult meeting. Practitioners would help choose the setting and decide when written or spoken practice fits. Working through it at the bar table. ### At the table, before the papers open Written practice could help a practitioner examine how to put a hard question to somebody who is frightened or angry. The build would use approved language and escalation guidance. Speaking it to an empty gallery. ### Then out loud, to the empty gallery Spoken practice would give a practitioner room to try an explanation aloud and review it with a colleague before using it in a hearing. ## More training moments in justice and community services Legal aid rooms, park stalls, classrooms and a corridor pause. A duty lawyer alone in an interview room. A corrections officer pauses in the corridor. A facilitator leads a conversation around the table. A legal aid worker speaks with park visitors. A lawyer and interpreter meet an older woman. A teacher faces two seated participants. A bail support worker sits opposite a man. A wheelchair user answers questions at intake. A charity advisor leans toward an older man. A tenancy advocate speaks with an older man. A community-centre mentor sits with a young man. A family support worker sits with a woman. An intake worker speaks with a young woman. A financial counsellor speaks with an older man. A facilitator follows up with a woman. A wheelchair user talks options with a lawyer. A caseworker meets a woman in the courtyard. ## Through the headset in justice and community services A courthouse foyer, a legal aid reception, a mediation room, a drop-in centre. A young woman waits in the courthouse foyer. A man waits at the legal aid counter. A woman waits alone, glancing at the door. A man stands behind the drop-in centre desk. Two people sit apart in a mediation room. A man sits apart from a counsellor. Two women sit apart in a victim-support office. A man faces an officer behind the counter. ## Before the room fills Court and community services turn on what gets said to someone who is frightened or angry. That can be practised at a screen, without booking a room or a headset, or face to face in [VR de-escalation training](https://peopletechrevolution.com/training/vr-de-escalation-training). Working out the wording in writing. ### Typed, before the hearing A written run is a place to find the plain sentence: what a person is being told, what happens next, and what they can do about it. Saying it before anyone is listening. ### Spoken, into an empty room Delivering the same explanation out loud, with nobody in the gallery, shows where the sentence gets long and where it stops being understood. [AI practice partners](https://peopletechrevolution.com/ai/ai-roleplay-practice) Working in justice or community services? [Open the contact form](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/industries/justice-community-services#contact) Ask our CEO Simon Lowe’s Digital Twin a question Related PTR work The Central Coast Council disability-awareness project shows how lived experience can shape a scenario. Justice practice would need the same attention to whose perspective is represented and how the conversation is reviewed. [Our approach to immersive training](https://peopletechrevolution.com/xr) · [The PTR VR Library](https://peopletechrevolution.com/xr/ptr-vr-library) · [Case studies](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/case-studies) · [All industries](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/industries) ## People shaping ideas in the room Two people wearing headsets. Practising an address at the courtroom lectern. A trainee rehearses speaking to the court. The rules behind this work ## Where de-escalation is written into law rather than recommended Justice and community services sit closest to the instruments that name the method, not just the topic. ### [Nevada](https://peopletechrevolution.com/learn/standards/nevada-workplace-violence-training) Practise the techniques with the colleagues you work with, debrief every session, and keep a record of each one. ### [Schools and youth settings](https://peopletechrevolution.com/learn/standards/school-de-escalation-training) Eight hours a year across five areas, and the one a regulator will not let you deliver online. ### [What the record has to show](https://peopletechrevolution.com/learn/standards/workplace-violence-training-records) The five fields a training record must carry, and four different retention periods. ### [Every US rule, in one place](https://peopletechrevolution.com/learn/standards/workplace-violence-training-united-states) The accreditor, the federal rules and the states, read at the instrument.