Suffolk County Council Backs Youth Justice Plan with a focus on keeping families together

The plan has a focus on supporting young people into education, training and employment and reducing the numbers of young people offending, supporting the council’s ambition to keep more families together and to keep Suffolk safe.

Each year the Suffolk Youth Justice Management Board produces a Youth Justice Plan for Suffolk. The Board includes representatives from: Suffolk Constabulary; Suffolk Probation Service; NHS Suffolk and North-East Essex and NHS Norfolk and Waveney Integrated Care Boards, and Suffolk County Council. The Youth Justice Service also consults with staff, children, and volunteers.

With the new plan, the partnership is aiming to support more children that the service works with into education, training, or employment. This year the service is running a pilot project with specialist staff to work with education providers and children to support them to remain at, or return to, school or college. The service also offers children short, accredited courses, which have been proven to have positive outcomes for young people and can encourage young people into further training.

Another key theme of this year’s plan is to take a restorative approach to Youth Justice. This is when The Youth Justice service works with victims of youth crime to find out how they think the harm caused to them can best be put right. The service then supports the young person involved to understand how their own behaviours impact on others and to re-engage with their community and society by repairing harm and restoring relationships.

As well as helping to prevent re-offending we know this approach improves outcomes for victims. This year the service is aiming to deliver more restorative approaches including within families where relationships have been fractured by the child’s contact with the youth system.

The plan also outlines how the service will be looking in detail into the reasons why some groups of children are more likely to enter into the youth justice system, to inform interventions which aim to reduce the number of young offenders in Suffolk.

Cllr Bobby Bennett, Cabinet Member for Children and Young People’s Services said: “I am pleased that Suffolk County Council has endorsed the Youth Justice Plan for 2024/25.

“Suffolk’s Youth Justice Service takes a child first approach – children are at the heart of all that we do. The service and the partnership can be most effective if they understand the children and young people they work with, as this means we can deliver the interventions they need to stop offending.”

“This year we have a strong focus on understanding the reasons why young people offend and supporting more young people to stay in education, training and employment. All of this strengthens our ambition of keeping families together and providing the best outcomes for our young people.”

Assistant Chief Constable Eamonn Bridger, Suffolk Youth Justice Management Board Chair, said: “The plan sets out the countywide ambition for better understanding of the contributing factors that cause young people to commit crime. Our partnership activities will ensure we remain focused and effective in reducing offending. Using an evidence-based approach will help to avoid young people becoming criminalised and support the communities of Suffolk to reach their full potential.”

Outcomes will be measured against four national key performance indicators:

• To reduce the numbers of children entering the formal youth justice system for the first time
• To reduce the numbers of children already in the system who reoffend
• To reduce the number of reoffences they commit
• To reduce the use of custody for children.