Youth justice service

Preventing young people offending

We work with the community and local agencies, such as the police and schools, to help keep young people, aged eight to 17, out of trouble.

If you're worried that you might be getting into trouble, or you're a parent worried about your child getting into trouble, you can get support through the Early Help offer.

How we help young offenders

If you're a young offender, we can offer you, and and your parents/carers, support across a range of issues, including:

  • problems with drugs and alcohol
  • support with emotional and mental health issues
  • assistance in looking after young people and parenting them well
  • help in going to school and in achieving
  • help in understanding more about your learning, communication and how to do better at school or college

Every young person we work with has their own worker.  We call these people ‘case managers’.  Their job is to help understand what changes you want to make and suggest how we can help you achieve those changes.  We might also suggest some changes we think would help you.

Most young people we work with undertake reparation.  This is an activity that provides some contribution from you to the community or the person affected by your offence.

We're also keen to help young people consider the impact of what they've done, and say sorry to the person who they committed the crime against, and we'll work with you to agree the best way to do this.

We'll see you at home at least once a month.  We may also meet with you at our office, your school, an I Know I Can (IKIC) centre, or another community venue.  Tell us if you're worried about getting to the venue we've arranged to meet you.

At the meeting, we'll talk about the things we've agreed to work on in your plan.  Sometimes, this will be a conversation about a specific piece of work; sometimes we'll just check in with you to see how you're doing.

When we ask you to come for an appointment with us, or with anyone else who's supporting you, it’s really important that you come.  If you can’t come, you need to ring us to let us know.

About the service

Youth Justice services work with young people, parents/carers and those affected by crime, to prevent further offending and repair harm done.

Our role is to work with young people to support them and their families to make a successful journey to being an adult.

Within the service, we have a range of practitioners who work with and support young offenders, including:

  • probation officers
  • social workers
  • police officers
  • youth justice practitioners
  • mental health workers
  • education welfare officers and education mentors
  • drug and alcohol workers
  • parenting workers
  • victim liaison officers
  • family mediators

We also work particularly closely with the charities Remedi and Lifeline.

Each year we produce a Youth Justice Plan.

We're inspected and assessed by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation and you can access their latest report here.