“A chance to make a difference” - Youth Justice Service Volunteering
When a young person commits a crime, nobody wants them to go down the same path and do it again.
Wirral Youth Justice Service supervises young people aged 10 to 17 who have been involved in offending behaviour. The service works with these young people to help them turn their lives around and avoid reoffending. It is a multi-agency service, made up of social workers, youth justice workers and staff from education, police, probation and health.
Volunteers also play a vital role in this service, with opportunities to mentor young people or sit on youth justice ‘panels’.
Ruth is a Heswall resident who has been a panel volunteer with Wirral Youth Justice Service for 15 years. According to Ruth, her voluntary role has opened her eyes to the challenges faced by young people.
But what is a youth justice panel? Ruth said:
Panel volunteers represent a community that, for want of a better word, has been harmed by a young person. The process is; the young person goes to court, pleads guilty and after that they will usually have a reparation order – a certain amount of community payback they have to complete.
Part of these orders, in most cases, includes coming to speak with us at panel. We have an initial meeting with the young person, their parent/guardian and a youth justice officer. During this meeting we put together a contract with them.
The contract includes certain things they need to stick to – including some community work but also courses or support for them tailored to any issues they are experiencing. If they’ve been fighting, maybe we look at anger management. If drugs and alcohol have been involved, support for that. If they’ve got certain interests, we may suggestion education or training, to give these young people something to aspire to.
After this initial meeting, if the young person completes the order and engages well with the contract, they may be able to have something called an ‘early revocation’.
Ruth said:
This means they can move on with their life. The mistakes they made would be sealed and they wouldn’t have to declare it in, say, most job interviews. It shouldn’t affect their job prospects, if they don’t commit any other offences.
For Ruth, working as a volunteer has opened her eyes.
Ruth said:
It’s made me see things differently. Before being a panel volunteer, I fear I may have judged these young people. But when you meet these young people, hear their story, their circumstances and what led up to their crime, sometimes it’s hard for me to honestly say I wouldn’t have done the same thing if I was in their position.
Having been a volunteer for 15 years now, I can say there’s less than a handful of young people I’ve met who haven’t wanted to turn things around. Most of these children have made a one-off mistake.
Kids always used to fight when I was younger but with social media and smartphones now, this can be captured on film and suddenly a silly mistake turns into something bigger, with potentially long-lasting consequences.
Ruth believes that being given a second chance can be transformative and constructive for young people.
Ruth said:
The majority of the young people we see at panel are decent kids who have been dealt a raw hand in life. They need guidance, they need support. They need somebody to argue their case and give them a chance.
And we know it works, as I’d say around 90% of the children we see at panel, never come through the system again.
She’s worked with hundreds of young people over the years, one story sticks out.
Ruth said:
We saw one young man who was deeply entrenched in gangs. Due to addiction issues within his family, he lacked guidance. He came to panel and decided he wanted to turn his life around.
He got himself a job and his boss, knowing his history, gave him a chance. He wanted to train properly but couldn’t get into college as, due to his chaotic home life, he had no appropriate qualifications.
Through the panel, we were able to ask his case manager to work with a local college to take him on and help him get the qualifications he needed. He’s now doing a trade apprenticeship and doing really well.
Youth Justice panels can be the difference between a child growing into a successful and well-functioning adult, or getting stuck in that loop of criminality. I know what I’d prefer to see happen for these young people.
Do you think you could be a Youth Justice volunteer? Could you mentor young people to make positive lifestyle changes?
To learn more, and register your interest in volunteering, visit: Wirral Youth Justice Service | wirral.gov.uk.
