AYM
The Association of Youth Offending Team Managers
AYM has submitted written evidence to the Parliamentary Select Committee on restorative justice illustrating the effective, restorative practice already being undertaken in the youth justice system.
Link to document – Submission to the Justice Committee v1.0
At the Youth Justice Convention in Leicester on 25/11/15 AYM Vice Chair Lesley Tregear announced the results of this years John Hawkins Award following judging by young people from last years winners the Skill Mill at Newcastle Yot.
The worthy winners were Liverpool Yot’s Street Doctors scheme and Hannah Doughty Head of Liverpool Yot plus representatives from the Street Doctors Project were present to receive the John Hawkins Award from Lesley Tregear along with a cheque for £500. The judges citation for the Street Doctors reads as follows
“The Street Doctors project is highly innovative in that it is provides young people with practical skills and knowledge to help keep themselves safe and potentially save lives. It also engages with interesting non-justice sector partners. The panel were acutely aware of the high profile knife crime events recently and felt that this project can be central to a strategy to reduce the harm being done. This project already runs in other YOTs following the Liverpool origin and we have Liverpool YOT to thank for this”
The runners up were Kingston & Richmond Yots Music project and Yot Manager Kathy Walker and several young people from the project stepped up on stage to receive their runners up certificate.
On the 14th of October the AYM jointly hosted ‘the costs of youth justice’ event with the National Association of Youth Justice (NAYJ) at Liverpool John Moores University. The event was a sell out with 120 delegates attending including a sizeable AYM contingent.
The event was opened by NAYJ Chair Pam Hibbert OBE who reminded the audience that the ultimate cost had recently been paid by Merseyside Police Officer Dave Phillips which meant keynote speaker Asst Chief Constable Ian Pilling could no longer address delegates so Temporary Asst Chief Constable Rob Carden had stepped in at short notice.
Temp ACC Carden told the audience that it is estimated that the costs to the Police of late intervention with young people was 1.8billion per annum and went onto say that the 36% of young people in the secure estate being Looked After Children was ‘deeply disturbing’.
Anne Longfield the Children’s Commissioner for England was the other keynote speaker. In a wide ranging speech she urged Yots to fully engage with the review of Youth Justice led by Charlie Taylor to put forward evidence of ‘what works’ to reinforce the point that the social costs of young people offending are paramount and prevention will produce cash savings in the long term.
In the afternoon delegates were able to choose from 12 workshops covering a wide range of topics before the event was closed by AYM Chair Gareth Jones.
