Children and Young People who offend

The Youth Offending Service is a multi disciplinary Children and Families practice team working with children and young people aged 8 to 17 on a voluntary and statutory basis to address their offending behaviour. The Service is based in the city centre offering a city wide service, with a staff comprising Children and Families social workers, Criminal Justice social workers, project workers and mental health professionals.     

The key aims of the Service is: 

• To provide services to children and young people who offend
• To provide early and effective intervention via the Pre Referral Screening process to address offending at the earliest opportunity
• To provide a Transitions service for 16 and 17 year olds involved in the Children's hearing system and Criminal Justice system
• To take lead responsibility for the development of work regarding children and young people who present a significant risk of harm to others
• To provide reports to Courts and appropiate supervision of Probation Orders

The Youth Offending Service works closely with colleagues in partner agencies such as; Lothian and Borders Police, Scottish Children's Reporter Administration, Criminal Justice, Services for Communities, NHS, Education and the voluntary sector. In the 12 months to April 2012 the Youth Offending Service has meet their time targets for the submission of reports to SCRA and the Criminal Justice system and our partner, Lothian and Borders police continue to consistenly submit their reports to SCRA within the agreed time interval of 14 calendar days. 

We are very interested in feedback and recently surveyed our clients asking how they felt about the service they have received. Below are examples of client feedback and the Youth Offending Service response.

You said: "The worker only wrote what they thought and did not listen to me as a person"  

We did: All reports are quality assured before they leave the building to ensure they are correct and accurate

You said: "I cannot attend a meeting at your office because the time was difficult for me "

We did: Staff worked late to enable the client to make it into the office for their meeting