716 Medway Youth Justice Plan 2022-24 PDF 236 KB
This plan (attached at Appendix 1) is a completely new plan
(as opposed to the ‘Refreshed’ Plan submitted last
year. The Format of the plan follows guidance and headings provided
by the national Youth Justice Board in April 2021, detailing best
practice in the Youth Justice Plans completion.
Additional documents:
Minutes:
Discussion:
The Youth Offending Team
Manager introduced the report which set out priorities and
arrangements for the next two years to ensure continued delivery of
the Youth Justice Partnership across Medway.
Members raised several
questions and comments which included:
A comment was made that
following a visit to the service and learning more about the work
that was being carried out, the priorities around issues with
identity were striking. The work being done to support young people
in understanding social context and forging their own identity
amidst deep issues of social anxiety was commendable.
- Budget
- it was commented that the budget for the service
had increased significantly but the number of young people being
supported remained relatively low. The
officer stated that the cohort of young people supported was fluid.
At present 70 young people were being supported. All of them had
extremely complex and challenging needs hence the increase in the
budget.
- Data
- concern was raised at the data presented which was
12 months old and it was questioned how records and tracking could
be maintained with data sets that were out of date. The officer
stated that the re-offending data was produced by the Youth Justice
Board which had a complex system of gathering and tracking data
from the National data set. The issue with data was a concern for
all partners and was a regular topic of discussion at the local
level.
- Female
Offenders – in response to
questions regarding the lack of targeted support for female
offenders despite a request for a Girls’ Strategy at the time
of inspection and a lack of intervention for girls in alternative
pathways away from crime, the officer acknowledged that most of the
intervention in place was targeted towards male offenders. Whilst
instances of reoffending in the female population were low, it was
agreed that more intervention and a responsive approach to tackle
female offending or reoffending was needed.
- LGBT
– the lack of representation of intervention
for LBGT offenders in the report was referenced and the officer
acknowledged this and said that the National data tool did not
capture data by LGBT offenders, this had been raised with the
inspectorate.
- Referrals – in response to a
question on what the solution should be to address a lack of
referrals when the police took no further action against a young
person, the officer said that low referral rates were an issue that
the partnership board closely monitored. The service was trying to
identify why the police had a low referral rate and find ways to
build relationships and encourage them to refer when they were not
taking action against young
people.
Decisions:
- The Committee noted
the report.
- The Committee
recommended the Cabinet to recommend Full Council to approve the
Medway Youth Justice Partnership Strategic Plan 2022 – 2024
attached at Appendix 1 to the report, including its priorities and
themes and details of its consultation process (attached at
Appendices 1 and 2 to the Strategic Plan).