A NATIONAL INSPECTION REPORT has praised the performance of Sunderland Youth Offending Service (YOS).
Based at Lambton House, Sunderland YOS works with community safety partners to prevent young people offending and re-offending and with the victims of crime.
HM Inspectorate of Probation, which is responsible for monitoring the performance of youth offending services across the country, visited the city in February 2016. It has published its report today (Wednesday 9 March).
Among the conclusions were how the Sunderland YOS: “was supported by an experienced, committed and motivated team who knew their cases and families well, that the service had a commitment to the ‘Strengthening Families’ Initiative and benefited from mature embedded relationships with key services, including ‘impressive’ links with health.”
Sunderland City Council’s Portfolio Holder for Children’s Services, Councillor Pat Smith said: “The strength of our Youth Offending Service is clear commitment and dedication to making a difference for the young people in the city. This has shone through in this inspection and contributed to its continuing excellent performance.”
Sunderland YOS was established in 2000. It has developed strong partnerships across the city and this has allowed it to: significantly reduce the number of young people in custody, those who offend, and lower the numbers of young people coming into the criminal justice system for the first time.
Positive partnerships particularly over the past few years with health and the police have supported the service’s performance.
The service’s Liaison and Diversion Project has been in place for five years. It is seeing improvements in identifying and meeting the health needs of young people in the city and diverting young people from a life of crime.
People like ‘John‘ who was arrested for theft, was assessed through the Liaison and Diversion scheme. This identified he had mild to moderate emotional health difficulties and speech problems in relation to a stammer.
The team discovered ‘John’ was due to attend an interview as an apprentice, but his anxieties were aggravating his stammer. With the consent of ‘John’ and his family he was referred to the Speech and Language Team (SALT) for help, who with the support of the Youth Offending Service worked with the training provider to inform them of his speech difficulties.
With coaching and support provided through the Liaison and Diversion project and SALT ‘John’ was successful at interview, the police took no further action, and he has not offended since.
A parent also recently commented after being involved in the project: “You feel you have nobody. Children with problems need help – he [my son] could have a bright future, I want him to and I couldn’t see the way. But now he can have a bright future.”
The Liaison and Diversion project has been highly commended in the inspection report and has received national recognition.
Lord Bradley, who identified the need for early assessment of health needs on behalf of the Government, identified Sunderland’s project as a model for national consideration.
Close working relationships with the Office of the Police Crime Commissioner and Northumbria Police have also led to the development of the ‘Strengthening Communities’ joint initiative.
This initiative works with those responsible for, or likely to commit anti-social behaviour in the future, to help them consider the implications of their behaviour for themselves and their victims.
By working with a young person and their family together, improvements in their behaviour can be achieved and prevent them from coming to the attention of the police.
The initiative has recently helped a group of young people identified as causing problems at a recent local football match, through focused meetings supported by the YOS and the Neighbourhood Football Policing Team, to understand the impact of their behaviour for themselves and the public.
The HMI Probation report describes Sunderland YOS key strengths as; “Having case managers who demonstrated tenacity and persistence” and “an impressive ‘Strengthening Families initiative’ with practitioners who were able to support struggling parents and strong effective partnerships where intelligence was shared and acted upon.”
Sunderland Southern Area Command Temporary Superintendent, Sarah Pitt said: “Last year we launched Operation Gryphon across Sunderland which is our response to ensuring anti-social behaviour remains low across the city and that our communities feel even safer.
“Anti-social behaviour can have a detrimental effect on the quality of life for local communities, in particular those who may be more vulnerable or elderly which is why projects like this that allow us to adopt a partnership approach are incredibly important.
“By working together we can ensure victims have the support they need and that appropriate action is taken to prevent reoffending.”