What we do

What we do

• Assessment and supervision of young offenders who are sentenced to any kind of order by the Court
• Early intervention and prevention programmes
• Final warning interventions
• Family group conferencing
• Restorative justice conferencing, victim awareness and victim support sessions
• Parenting interventions
• Substance misuse interventions
• Physical and mental health assessments/screening/interventions
• Youth Inclusion Support Programme (YISP) and prevention plans
• Community reparation
• Education, training and employment services and advice
• Intensive supervision and support programmes
• Educational psychologist services
• Court work and pre-sentence reports
• Bail and remand work

How do we do it?

Prevention

• The preventative work of the youth offending team (YOT)aims to prevent offending and anti-social behaviour by offering voluntary support and to provide a multi agency integrated approach to help young people and their families access mainstream services.
• Referrals can come from any key agency.
• Different initiatives tailored to suit the individual as part of an Integrated Support Plan (ISP)
• Multi agency - Youth Intervention Support Panels (YISPs) 8-17years high-risk young people and families.

Pre-court and court

If a young person offends and is found guilty of their offence they are likely to be issued with either a pre court or court ordered disposal (an outcome). There are many different types of orders and disposals and full information is available from http://www.yjb.gov.uk and follow the link for young people or parents/carers.

Assessment and Reports

• The Asset is the Youth Justice Board's assessment tool for assessing the risk of reoffending. It is used with every young person that is referred to the YOT (ONSET is used for prevention cases) and covers every area of the young persons life
• Children and young people may also be assessed using a ROSH - Risk of Serious Harm and be subject to risk management plans
• The YOT may also be requested to write pre court reports or specific sentence reports
• Depending on the pre court/court order a number of intervention sessions will take place with the young person and their allocated YOT worker/specialist. This forms the majority of the work we do.

Specialist

The YOT has specialist officers providing targeted interventions that include: parenting, substance misuse, education, training and employment, health, bail and remand, victims and volunteers. If you are interested in becoming a volunteer please contact us on 01628 683280.

Court and duty

• Officers within the YOT take part in a duty and youth court system
• The Royal Borough's duty system is in place from 8.45am to 5.15pm Monday to Thursday and 8.45am to 4.45pm on Friday
• Duty roles include handling queries that come into the YOT, providing or acting as an appropriate adult for young people in custody, formulating bail packages and securing placements at young offenders institutions as necessary
• Royal Borough YOT representative(s) attend Youth Court twice per week
• Court officer roles include explaining to the young people the outcome of their appearance booking appointments to meet with young people referred to the YOT, advising the young person to have legal representation, arranging for placements at young offenders institutions.

Performance

The YOT is required to closely monitor their performance to ensure that standards are maintained. This is done via returns to the Youth Justice Board and inspections. The YOT's performance is measured against their performance against targets (National Indicators), minimum standards (National Standards 2004).