Doncaster Youth Offending Service

What is the Youth Offending Service?

Doncaster, along with all other areas, is required to have a Youth Offending Service (YOS) in line with the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which requires each area to have a team of staff seconded from different agencies working together to reduce youth offending.

Formed in 1999, Doncaster YOS has staff from a variety of professional backgrounds including Social workers, Police officers, Probation officers, Health advisors, Education officers, Drugs workers, Accommodation officers and Connexions staff.

It is well known that children and young people offend for a variety of reasons – social and family problems, peer group pressures, social exclusion, truancy, drug problems – and therefore if young people are to be prevented from re-offending they need the input of staff with a variety of knowledge and skills to assist them to make the right life choices.

No single agency has all the solutions to youth offending, but by working together, sharing knowledge, skills and experience, staff from the different agencies and professions can reduce it.

The development of YOS in each part of the country is being overseen by the Youth Justice Board, which has set the following objectives:

• Swift administration of justice
• Confronting young people with the consequences of their offending
• Interventions to tackle risk factors
• Punishment proportionate to the seriousness of offending
• Encouraging reparation to victims
• Reinforcing the responsibilities of parents           

These objectives are to achieve the principal aim, which is to prevent youth offending.

The Youth Offending Service (YOS) Strategic Plan lays out how Doncaster YOS and its partners are to achieve this aim and how its progress will be measured against 3 national indicators. These are:-

• Rate of proven re offending  by young people in the youth justice system – The number of further proven offences committed per 100 young people in the cohort of January – March 2009 with 12 months of the initial substantive outcome.

• Young people receiving a conviction in court who are sentenced to custody – The percentage of custodial sentences issued to young people out of all sentences issued to young people in court.

• First-time entrants to the youth justice system aged 10-17 –The number of first-time entrants to the youth justice system, defined as young people aged 10-17 who received their first substantive outcome, per 100,000 young people aged 10-17.

Who else supports the Youth Offending Service?

In meeting these aims and objectives the Doncaster Youth Offending Service is supported by:

Voluntary Organisations one of which provides direct reparation between young offenders and the victims of crime where appropriate. There is also an indirect reparation scheme which oversees reparation to the wider community by the young offender.

The Community Justice Centre which provides life-skills and offence-based programmes for young people subject to a range of court orders.

The Youth Mentoring Scheme, which recruits, trains, deploys and supervises volunteer mentors who provide young offenders with a positive adult role model, counter-acting the negative peer group pressure to which many young people are prone. 

Activities

The Youth Offending Service:

• Works closely with other agencies to prevent young people from offending in the first place. Much of this work is carried out through the Youth Crime Reduction Group which reports to the YOS Management Board and the Safer Doncaster Partnership.
  
• Assesses and provides an intervention package to advise and assist young people who are given a Final Warning by the police.
  
• Supervises young people remanded to local authority accommodation or placed on Bail support.
  
• Prepares pre-sentence reports and other court reports to provide magistrates and judges with the information they require to pass the appropriate sentence.
   
• Provides responsible officers for the supervision of young offenders given custodial or community sentences by The Youth and Crown Courts.
   
• Works closely with other agencies to reduce anti-social behaviour by young people in local neighbourhoods.
  
• Trains and supports people in local communities to become Community Panel Members, responsible for drawing up contracts and overseeing the intervention with young people placed on Referral Orders following a first court appearance.
   
• Provides intensive supervision and surveillance of the most serious and prolific youth offenders following release from custody or as an alternative to a custodial sentence. 
  
• Provides two additional services dedicated to worked with young people and their families identified as 'at risk' of offending. These are YISS (Youth Inclusion Support Service) and YIP (Youth Inclusion Programme).

Information Exchange

In order to meet the needs of Youth Offending Services in fulfilling their responsibilities, it is necessary for Doncaster Youth Offending Service to share relevant information with its service members, from different parent agency backgrounds and with other agencies.

A copy of the leaflet, that is attached to this page, will be distributed to allow this process to take place.

Final Inspection Report on Doncaster Youth Offending Service (YOS) 2010

Attached to this page is the final report of the Doncaster Youth Offending Service carried out in 2010

(Later editions will be added when available.)