The YJB responds to the report ‘Desistance and young people’ published today by HMI Probation. It looks at the effectiveness of practice in youth offending teams.

YJB Chief Executive, Lin Hinnigan, said:

As this report recognises, continued reductions in funding to youth justice services, including youth offending teams (YOTs), has put pressure on the ability of YOTs to deliver desistance work. However, we are pleased to see recognition in this report that this is an important part of supporting children and young people’s routes away from offending.

Since the fieldwork for this study was conducted, the YJB has begun implementing a new assessment framework, called AssetPlus, to help YOTs make more effective, better targeted interventions and improve desistance rates. All YOTs across England and Wales should now have completed the training for this which includes desistance theory. The vast majority will be using AssetPlus by the end of the summer, giving staff access to new information about areas such as speech, language and communication needs, and gang affiliation. This will improve their assessments of young people’s needs and make planning and implementing interventions more effective.

Notes to editors

The report is available online on the HMI Probation website.