Service Manager, Centre Services (Justice), Glasgow Health & Social Care Partnership
In the 2020-21 Annual Report, my colleague Lynsey Smith, Head of Service (Community Justice Services), Glasgow City Health & Social Care Partnership (HSCP), in her article ‘Youth Courts – Problem Solving to Find the Right Solution at the Right Time’ , set out the Glasgow Health & Social Care Partnership’s plans around a Youth Court in Glasgow as part of the Whole Systems Approach around young people involved in offending behaviour. Lynsey reported that the Youth Court would be implemented over 2021-22 and committed to bringing you an update for this year.
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The Glasgow Youth Court was introduced to Glasgow Sheriff Court in June 2021 following discussions between Glasgow HSCP Justice Services and Glasgow Sheriff Principal Turnbull. The ethos behind the Youth Court model is to prevent young people from becoming subject to formal statutory measures (either via the Children’s Hearing System or adult Criminal Justice System) and to use the authority of the court to enhance the rehabilitative power of community sentences such as Structured Deferred Sentences (SDS). The Glasgow Youth Court would endeavour to combine the provision of multi-disciplinary intervention and support in the community, with regular court reviews to monitor and encourage young people’s progress. The Youth Court team currently consists of a Team Leader and 4 Qualified Social Work staff.
Multi-agency working is key to the success of the Youth Court model as every young person requires a holistic, person-centred plan that focusses on their own individual needs and risks. Youth Court staff utilise support from a range of HSCP services and voluntary organisations to support the young people they are working with. This includes services such as addictions, employability / training, homelessness / housing, mental health and mentoring.
The Youth Court is currently being evaluated by the Children and Young Person’s Centre for Justice. The full evaluation will be completed by the end of 2022 with a formal report published in January 2023. We will bring you an update in due course – WATCH THIS SPACE!
The tables below illustrate the use of CPOs and SDS in the year pre-Youth Court and then from March 2021 – April 2022, that covers the initial 9 months period of the Youth Court being introduced. We do not at this time have a full year’s comparison of figures but as you can see from below the early signs are looking good, with for example, the referrals to the Structured Deferred Sentence team as a % of all orders rising from 4.3% over 2021 to 22.6% for the nine months of operation over the 2021-22 reporting period and a decrease in the use of Community Payback over the same period. For Community Payback Orders, you can see a drop from 14.5% to 7.6% managed by the Youth Justice Teams. As I said, these are showing very promising early signs of success and I look forward to seeing how this progresses.
