Why Me?: A Programme for Children and Young People Who Have Experienced Victimization

The experience of victimization often leaves a child or young person frightened, lacking in confidence, or emotionally vulnerable and they can turn to crime in response to being a victim. Coming to terms with what happened and understanding their feelings and reactions is therefore vital to a full recovery.

Why Me? is a programme designed to help children and young people recover from the experience of victimization, through use of exercises, activities and a DVD. These explore the young person's feelings both when they were victimized and afterwards, their needs, their personal strengths and encourage them to think about their support network. Activities include drawing, making graphs, writing letters, and thinking about how the children feel about what happened and their recovery. The book also includes guidance for adults working with young people and case examples that demonstrate how best to use the programme. The DVD contains real-life stories of young people who have been victimized and supports the exercises in the book.

Why Me? is an essential resource for any adult who may encounter a child or young person who has been victimized, including social workers, youth workers, teachers, police, education welfare officers and victim support and witness service workers.

Shellie Keen manages a Family Intervention Project and was formerly Project Manager of the Oxfordshire Young Victims of Crime Project, UK.

Tracey Lott is Volunteer Manager for Victim Support in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.

Pete Wallis is Senior Practitioner (Restorative Justice) for Oxfordshire Youth Offending Service UK and a founding member of the charity SAFE! Support for young people affected by crime. He has written and co-written several books on restorative justice and related topics for JKP.