Services for young people

Memorandum submitted by the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales

Introduction

1. The Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (YJB) welcomes this inquiry and the opportunity to submit written evidence. We would be pleased to provide any further information that may be of assistance.

Engagement and links with the criminal justice system

2. This inquiry is seeking information about the provision of services outside the school day to young people (age 13-25).

3. It is important, when considering changes to out of school provision to ensure that the needs, ability and understanding of vulnerable young people are taken into account. As part of this it is important to note that many of the most vulnerable young people within our communities have disengaged from education and training and so also do not participate in, or benefit from extended school services.

4. The association between engagement in education, training and employment (ETE) and offending behaviour is widely recognised. YJB data for 2008/09 found that 28% [1] of all young offenders in the youth justice cohort were not engaged in suitable education, training or employment, compared with the national average of around 10% of 16-18 year olds.

5. An audit of young people involved with YOTs published in 2003 showed :

· 25% of young people have SEN (60% with statements)

· 42% currently or previously experienced school exclusion

· 41% regularly truanting

· 42% underachieving at school

· 80% of the custodial cohort do not have the skills for employment

6. Furthermore, a study in the North East with the region’s YOTs showed that over 40% of young offenders also have an identifiable learning disability or difficulties (2006).

The relationship between universal and targeted services for young people

7. All services working with children and young people have a role to play in preventing youth crime and anti-social behaviour. Children and young people at risk of entering the criminal justice system are likely to have multiple risk factors and an absence of protective factors that may make them suitable for receiving support from a range of services.

8. The ideal would be to have a broad range of wrap-around services available and accessible to all young people depending on their needs, abilities and interests. However, t he reality can be quite different . O ften there is insufficient cohesion between services serving the same area or young people which can mean that providers are unaware of what others are offering and so cannot refer young people on when another service would be more suitable . T here can also be duplication of purpose which often require s young people to undertake different assessments and each provider develops their own working practices in isolation.

9. Many services are available as mainstream services, however a cc ess to this provision is often inconsistent and can be badly promoted to vulnerable young people . This often means that young people often access them for the first time as part of a targeted intervention.

10. Within the youth justice cohort it is often the case that young people have previously had contact with a number of different agencies for a multitude of different reasons. There can be insufficient cohesion or communication between services and this can lead to young people falling through the gaps between services . Some areas have combated this problem by having a local area hub which acts to coordinate services, information transfer and communication. This is particularly valuable in a youth justice context.

11. As noted it is important when considering changes to out of school provision to ensure that the needs, ability and understanding of vulnerable young people are taken into account. Targeted and mainstream services should therefore work together to ensure that services for young people at risk of, or already involved in, offending are co-ordinated. Where young people do offend, services have a role to play in ensuring they, and their families, are supported both before and after their contact with the formal youth justice system. As part of a co-ordinated overall approach targeted youth crime prevention services need to sit closely alongside services which aim to prevent other negative outcomes for young people, and they have often evolved locally in this way.

12. One of the key challenges is ensuring the right support is available in the right place at the right time and with the right level of intensity. Vulnerable young people rarely follow a linear progression in and out of services so it is important to ensure that services are able to work flexibly with young people. Often the young people who have the most to gain through effective service provision are also the least likely to access them due to a wide range of personal and social reasons. The effective deployment of relevant out of school provision can effectively divert a young person from disengaging with education causing disruption (at school and/or within the community) and prevent them from becoming offenders.

13. The involvement of locally-managed YOTs at the heart of youth crime prevention activities over the last twelve years has meant that young people who have offended, or have been on the cusp of offending, have been better able to access the support and services they need to help them avoid future offending and lead positive, crime-free lives.

14. It is important that a range of services are made available, and not only connected to or available through local schools. For a number of reasons significant numbers of young people would not choose to take part in activities outside school time if they were perceived to be an extension of the school day.

15. An example of targeted work with young people in the youth justice system to support their re-engagement in education and training is the Keeping Young People Engaged (KYPE) programme. The YJB provides grant funding to YOTs for KYPE to allow them to deliver targeted interventions as part of a young person’s resettlement plan for young people on release from custody to improve their engagement in education, training and employment upon release. The grants should be used to provide direct support and advice to assist young people back into mainstream education or employment and to provide ongoing support and mentoring to ensure that placements are sustained.

16. The impact of this approach on improving engagement in education has been an overall increase of around 10% in the number of young people in the youth justice system getting into education, training or employment since 2006. (Some examples of KYPE interventions can be seen at Annex B).

Targeted prevention services for young people

17. Over the last 12 years the YJB has been at the forefront of developing robust, targeted programmes and interventions for young people at risk of offending alongside national and local partners such as police, local authorities and third sector organisations. Targeted youth crime prevention activities – including Youth Inclusion Programmes (YIPs), Youth Inclusion and Support Panels (YISPs) and a range of parenting interventions - work with some of the most at-risk young people and their families, and contribute to local and national strategies aimed at preventing young people from entering the criminal justice system and helping them to achieve positive outcomes. Further information about the range of YJB-developed prevention programmes, and the young people targeted by these services, can be found at Annex A.

18. Evidence-based, targeted prevention activities delivered to young people at risk of offending are an effective means of:

· Reducing the number of young people entering the criminal justice system

· Reducing early reoffending (YIPs typically include in their core group around a third of young people who have already entered the youth justice system)

· Reducing anti-social behaviour using a tiered approach

· Improving the quality of life in deprived communities and reducing victimisation

· Improving the life chances and employability of socially excluded children and young people, and ameliorating family circumstances

19. Drawing upon well-established research, [2] the YJB’s approach to prevention has focused on the risk and protective factors known to be associated with the onset of offending and reoffending. While the presence of these factors alone cannot be said to cause offending, where they ‘cluster’ in a young person’s life an individual’s likelihood of being involved in offending behaviour increases. The YJB’s approach to prevention and early intervention has therefore been based on the guiding principles that interventions should be tailored to a young person’s individual risks and needs, and that individuals at higher risk of offending should receive greater levels of support.

20. One of the guiding principles behind the YJB’s approach to prevention has been that youth crime prevention should be fully embedded as part of broader local strategies to prevent poor outcomes for young people, drawing together crime reduction and children’s services at the local level to ensure the spectrum of local prevention services are able to reach those young people on the cusp of being drawn into offending. The YJB has worked to bridge the gap between criminal justice and wider children’s services. YOTs, with their multi agency membership, remain well placed to work with local partners to ensure services are co-ordinated and focused on this group of young people.

21. There is also a growing body of evidence that suggests a ‘whole family’ approach to working with young people and their families/carers can be more effective, both in terms of outcomes as well as cost, than working with young people in isolation. The YJB supports the principle of multi-agency support for families who have multiple risks and needs and has worked with central government and YOTs to support the integration of targeted prevention programmes such as YISPs and parenting interventions with Family Intervention Programmes (FIPs). Many YOTs have been involved in the delivery of youth crime FIPs, which work with some of the most challenging and hard-to-reach families to provide intensive, ‘wrap-around’ services. This ‘whole family’ approach towards working with at-risk families is becomingly increasingly popular at the local level – for example, Brighton and Hove YOT have piloted Functional Family Therapy (FFT), a targeted prevention programme that delivers flexible, intensive support to at-risk young people and their families through home and community-based sessions, with extremely encouraging early results. FFT has a strong international evidence base and has been estimated to save up to $14 for every $1 invested.

The relative roles of the voluntary, community, statutory and private sectors in providing services for young people

22. Approximately 50% of YIPs in England and Wales are delivered by third sector organisations. While many YIPs are delivered by national organisations such as Catch22 and NACRO, a number are run by smaller, locally-based community organisations, some of whom have been running these programmes for a number of years. The involvement of third sector organisations in the delivery of targeted youth crime prevention programmes has been one of the key factors in their success. Another success factor has been the involvement of children and young people themselves in the design of the services, giving them a stake in the activities and interventions offered.

23. Many YIPs also involve volunteers in the delivery of their services, including parents as well as young people themselves. Some YIPs have also set up successful mentoring schemes which can involve young people who have previously attended the YIP coming back to volunteer their services and work with the young people currently attending the programme. There have been examples of young people gaining employment opportunities, either with the YIP or through a placement, as a result. Some YIPs have also set up Neighbourhood Steering Groups in addition to their management groups, to ensure community views are incorporated.

24. There are approximately 7,000 volunteers working in the youth justice system, most of them working in the community. 5,000 of these are trained volunteer members on Youth Offender Panels with the remaining volunteers undertaking tasks such as mentoring, acting as appropriate adults, overseeing reparation, helping sort out accommodation issues young people in the criminal justice system face, and delivering employment and literacy projects.

Training and workforce development

25. A key consideration when working with volunteers is the level of appropriate training. YJB has sought to address this by extending training resources to volunteers. The YJB currently has an electronic internet based learning platform called the Youth Justice Interactive Learning Space (YJILS) which is available to all youth justice volunteers. We currently offer registration to YJILS to all youth justice volunteers and all the modules for the Youth Justice Degree can also be accessed with the Open University.

26. With the possible expansion of the number of service providers, it will be important to ensure that where training is required, it is transferable as far as possible. While providers should be at liberty to decide what training to offer, volunteers and wider staff need to be assured of the value of what they are undertaking. And rather than being service idiomatic, training should as far as possible provide recognisable skills which are transferable to other organisations and roles.

Value and cost effectiveness

27. The YJB provides direct grants to youth offending teams annually to fund targeted youth crime prevention activities. In 2010/11 the YJB provided £31m to YOTs for this purpose, approximately £10m of which is spent on YIPs, £11m on YISPs, around £4m on parenting services and over £1m on local YOT prevention staff. An estimated 20,000 young people are engaged by these programmes each year.

28. The benefits of investment in effective youth crime prevention and diversion outweigh the costs that accrue once a young person commits crime and enters the criminal justice system. We know for example from Home Office research into the (largely administrative) costs of crime [3] that each episode of criminal damage costs the taxpayer around £500 and robberies incur costs of around £5,000 on average. If one were to add in other costs such as wider victim and offender opportunity costs, the sums would be much higher. Should a young person be sent to custody, the bill to the taxpayer ranges from around £60,000 to £200,000 per place per year.

29. Prevention does range in cost, with the most intensive interventions inevitably requiring substantial investment. Intensive interventions such as Family Intervention (FIP) or multi-systemic therapy are understandably not cheap but there is a large body of evidence which suggests they can result in significant cost-benefits. While there is less available evidence on the specific cost-benefits of UK-based prevention programmes, we do know for example that the per capita cost of engaging young people at high risk of offending on a YIP has been identified as £1,641. [4]

30. Reductions in the number of first time entrants to the youth justice system, the frequency of youth reoffending and falls in the numbers of young people in custody are now reducing the costs to the criminal justice system. In a challenging funding environment, it will be important as far as possible to maintain investment in early intervention and services that can prevent offending and reoffending. As part of this the YJB is currently working with the Ministry of Justice to explore the scope for ‘payment by results’ where effective preventive and intervention work may be rewarded with savings made due to reduced demand on criminal justice services, including the use of custody.

Conclusion

31. The provision of effective out of school services for young people as well as promoting the wellbeing of young people has the potential to contribute to other objectives including the reduction in youth offending. It is important that the needs of more vulnerable young people, including young people at risk of offending or already within the youth justice system, are addressed and there is an appropriate balance of targeted and universal service provision. Effective engagement of young people through school partnerships, external services and appropriate referral should have an immediate positive effect on incidences of crime and anti-social behaviour and problems within the community.

December 2010

Annex A – YJB supported Targeted Youth Crime Prevention Initiatives

Youth Inclusion (YIP)

1. YIP was developed from early work on the "Youth Works Plus" model initiated by the third sector organisations Crime Concern (now Catch 22) and Groundwork. The programme was a significant departure from generic youth work, as it is more focused – both geographically and in the young people it engages – focusing on a core group of young people who are locally identified as the most likely to offend in a defined neighbourhood

2. YIP (13-17) and Junior YIP (8-13) focus on a core group of young people at high risk of offending or who have already begun to offend, and a wider group of young people at general risk. YIP is based on multi-agency identification and persistent attempts at engagement. There are now estimated to be over 130 projects in England and Wales.

3. The independent evaluation of the programme has identified that those engaged by it have lower rates of arrest than those not engaged and the second phase of the evaluation found that YIP exceeded their target on the level of engagement of the ‘core 50’ most challenging young people identified in their project area.

4. Some YIP activities include running open access sessions for over 13s, running programmes during the school holidays in, for example, canoeing, arts, crafts, cookery, supporting young people to apply for provisional driver’s licences and get driving lessons and supporting young people into employment.

Youth Inclusion and Support Panels (YISPs)

5. YISPs aim to prevent anti-social behaviour and offending by children and young people who are considered to be at high risk of offending. YISPs differ from YIPs in their primary purpose i.e. they are designed as panels rather than projects that deliver services, but some do have commissioning budgets and can operate in a similar way to YIP. Panels are made up of a number of representatives of different agencies including police, schools, health and children’s services, aiming to identify and then plan interventions and support for young people at the earliest opportunity. YISP panels have become an integrated part of systems to deal with anti-social behaviour in particular. Parenting support - in the form of contracts and programmes - can also be offered as part of a range of interventions. There are now more than 200 panels in England and Wales.

Safer School Partnerships (SSP)

6. SSP grew from joint YJB and Association of Chief Police Officers work to develop a new policing model for schools and its further development is now shared by YJB, DCSF, the Home Office and ACPO. Launched in September 2002, SSP initially provided a focused approach to address the high level of crime and anti-social behaviour committed in and around schools in some areas. Broader benefits have since been recognised, including improved community cohesion and a stronger sense of citizenship among children. A dedicated school-based officer works within a school or a collection or schools with staff and other local agencies. Police Community Support Officers are also in schools. Addressing bullying, conflict resolution, and mediation are major components. Over 450 Safer School Partnerships exist.

Annex B – Keeping Young People Engaged (KYPE)

1. KYPE is a funding programme run by the YJB. YJB provides grants to YOTs to be used to improve performance on young offenders’ engagement in education, training or employment. It is designed to primarily target young people on Detention and Training Orders or other custodial sentences and assessed as requiring an 'intensive' intervention package to improve their engagement as part of their resettlement plan. The funding has been used in a variety of innovative ways.

2. An example of an innovative use of the funding is in Milton Keynes, where they have used the money to pay for the services of a Speech and Language Therapist (SLT), who assesses the needs of young people, and assists the YOT staff with using communication methods which the young people will understand. All staff within the YOT have received speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) training. The SLT has, where appropriate, contributed to pre-sentence reports and as a result there seems to have been a reduction in the number of young people entering custody.