Press Release

Speaking at a conference on street crime, Lord Warner, chairman of the Youth Justice Board, will today announce that 14 pilot Youth Inclusion and Support Panels will be up and running in 7 of the 10 street crime areas by April this year to prevent 8-13 year olds at risk of offending from getting into trouble.

The panels, made up of members of the community, and a range of agencies including Youth offending team workers, police, teachers, health and social services workers, will identify young people displaying the sort of behaviour research shows could lead to crime.

If permission is granted by the young person and their family, details of their case are shared with the panel who can recommend a programme of help to get the young person and their family into mainstream services and provide key workers to offer dedicated help to those who most need it.

In appropriate circumstances, the young person and their family will attend the panel meeting themselves.

This multi–agency panel approach to identifying children at risk at an early age and ensuring they access mainstream services is one of a number of measures being considered by the cross departmental Green paper on children at risk announced in October.

The Green paper is looking at an overhaul of existing arrangements in children’s services to ensure all young people at risk are identified, referred to relevant services and monitored to ensure they are accessing the provision of mainstream services available to them.

Lord Warner said: ‘‘Many serious and persistent young offenders’ careers can be traced back to their early childhood problems and experiences. If we can get in at that early stage of a young person’s life and make sure everybody provides them with the help they need, we can divert more young people from crime and the criminal justice system more effectively. Some say we are labelling these young people as criminals, but we are not. Instead we are using our knowledge and expertise to make sure they and their families get the help they need to lead a crime free life.”

The new pilot areas are:

• London: Barking and Dagenham, Ealing, Greenwich, Southwark, Tower Hamlets


• West Midlands: Birmingham, Walsall


• Merseyside: Knowsley, Liverpool


• Nottinghamshire: Nottingham


• Lancashire: Lancashire


• Manchester: Salford, Wigan


• South Yorkshire: Sheffield

The Youth Inclusion and Support Panels are based on research findings on the risk and protective factors for youth crime undertaken by national charity Communities that Care and examples of practice from the UK and abroad. The pilot panels will receive funding from the YJB and the Children’s Fund and will be evaluated over 12 months.

Lord Warner is speaking at a conference on Street Crime, organised by national charity, Crime Concern, at the Institute of Electrical Engineers in London.

Contacts: Press Office, 020 7271 3014 / 0771 275 0516 / 020 7271 3076

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Notes to the editor:

1. The Youth Justice Board is the public body established to monitor the operation of the youth justice system. The Board is responsible for promoting the most effective ways of meeting the primary aim of the system – preventing offending by children and young people. The Board is chaired by Lord Norman Warner. Copies of Lord Warner’s speech will be available from the Youth Justice Board press office on Wednesday 19 February: 020 7271 3014

2. The aims of the Children and Young People’s Unit (CYPU) are:

a) Influencing policy in the interest of children and young people

b) Making children and young people’s services preventative not reactive

c) Being a centre of expertise on helping children and young people achieve positive outcomes

d) Ensuring children and young people are involved in developing the services they use.

3. The CYPU’s Children’s Fund is aimed at children aged five to 13 and connects Government initiatives that address social exclusion among children, young people and their families. The fund aims to shift the agenda from remedial action

4. to prevention and to build social inclusion. As a result of the Spending Review Children’s Fund partnerships are required to earmark 25% of their allocations to joint working with Youth Offending Teams (Yots). Joint guidance was issued in November 2002 and Youth Inclusion and Support Panels are one of a range of recommended measures to be taken by the Children’s Fund and Yots.

5. The Youth Justice Board will provide funding for the set up of the pilot panels of just over £300,000 with the rest of the funding from the Children’s Fund money for youth crime prevention, distributed to all local areas.

6. The evaluation will cover a period of 12 months from 2003/2004.

7. The report ‘The Risk And Protective Factors For Youth Crime – Prevalence, Salience And Reduction’, conducted by Communities that Care is available on the youth justice board website: www.youth-justice-board.gov.uk

8. Youth Inclusion and Support Panels are one part of the Youth Justice Board’s strategy for preventing youth offending. Other measures include:

• Safer Schools Partnership: The use of community beat officers in selected secondary schools and their feeder primary schools to reduce the number of crimes in and around schools


• Splash and Youth Inclusion Programmes: Activity programmes for young people at risk of offending living on high crime estates to keep them out of trouble and encourage them back into education and training.


• Restorative Justice in Schools: The application of restorative justice principles in school to deal with conflicts to help reduce bullying and school exclusions.


• A reprimand and final warning scheme used by the police in the place of cautions, to drive home the consequences and seriousness of committing crime to young people who are just starting to get into trouble.

7. The Prime Minister announced on 30 October 2002 that a Green Paper on Children at Risk would be produced by a cross-departmental team based in the Cabinet Office. The Green Paper will seek to build on the work that the CYPU, and other departments, have undertaken on identifying children at risk, referring them for services and ensuring that adequate and effective early intervention measures are provided. Work that has already been undertaken across a range of departments will be the starting point for the Green Paper team.