Saturday, 6 September 2008
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:
These objectives are to achieve the principal aim, which is to prevent youth offending.
The Youth Justice Plan 2005-2006 lays out how Doncaster YOS and its partners are to achieve this aim and how its progress will be measured against 13 performance indicators. These are:-
Measure 1 Reduce the number of children and young people entering the youth justice system for the first time (by 5% by 2008).
Measure 2 Reduce re-offending rates for pre-court disposals, first tier penalties, community penalties and custodial penalties (by 5% by 2008).
Measure 3 Increase the proportion of final warnings supported by interventions (target - 80%).
Measure 4 Reduce the use of the secure estate for remands and custodial sentences (target - 30% for remands, 6% for sentences).
Measure 5 Use of restorative justice processes and victim satisfaction (target - 80% of interventions to involve restorative justice, 75% of victims to be satisfied).
Measure 6 Parental involvement in, and satisfaction rate with, statutory and voluntary parenting programmes (10% of all interventions to include parenting, 75% of all parents to be satisfied with the intervention).
Measure 7 ASSET assessment completion rate for young people subject to community disposals and custodial sentences (target - 100%).
Measure 8 Pre-Sentence Reports to be completed within National Standard timescales (target - 90%).
Measure 9 Initial training plans for young people subject to Detention and Training Orders drawn up within timescales prescribed by National Standards (target - 100%).
Measure 10 Young people known to the YOS to be in full-time Education, Training and Employment (target - 90%).
Measure 11 Young people known to the YOS to be in appropriate accommodation (target - 100%).
Measure 12 Youth offenders with mental health problems to be speedily assessed for treatment (target within 5 working days for acute cases and 15 working days for non-acute cases).
Measure 13 Youth offenders with substance misuse problems to be assessed within 5 days and to receive any necessary treatment within 10 days.
Who else supports the Youth Offending Service?
In meeting these aims and objectives the Doncaster Youth Offending Service is supported by:
The Children’s Fund, 25% of which is to be spent on youth crime prevention. This funding is being used to develop a Youth Inclusion Support Service which identifies and receives referrals on children aged 8-13 at risk of offending. This service assesses the children’s needs and offers a range of interventions including volunteer support, family group conferencing, parenting programmes and positive activities to reduce that risk.
`Remedi` the restorative justice and mediation initiative that 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.
National Regeneration Fund (NRF) which provides funding for preventative work within the Youth Inclusion Programme (YIP) and Youth Inclusion Support Service (YISS).
National Development Council (NDC) which provides funding on a matched basis with the European Development Fund to allow work in Central Doncaster with children identified as at risk of offending.
The Youth Offending Service:
In order to meet the needs of Youth Offending Services in fulfilling their responsibilities, it is necessary for Doncaster Youth Offending Serivce to share relevant information with its service members, from different parent agency backgrounds and with other agencies.
A copy of the attached leaflet will be distributed to allow this process to take place.
Below is the final report of the Doncaster Youth Offending Service carried out in 2005.
