The East Lothian Youth Justice Service sits within Children’s Services and specifically within the North Berwick and Dunbar cluster.
The Role of East Lothian Council’s Youth Justice Service:
- Completion of Criminal Justice Social Work reports for the Courts in relation to young people up to the age of 18. This involves a full assessment of their needs and the risk they present.
- Supervising Community Payback Orders with young people up to the age of 18 who the Courts have decided need help with reducing their risk of re-offending.
- Completion of Diversion suitability reports and when appropriate short periods of intervention with those who the Procurator Fiscal decides to divert from prosecution.
- Interagency work in relation to Early Effective Intervention with young people on the cusp of offending or involved in anti social behaviour.
- Work with families to help them support their young people to develop prosocial lifestyles.
- Interagency work in relation to young people in detention to aid their transition back into the community.
- Contribution to the Reducing Reoffending agenda within Community Justice.
- To contribute to advice given to the Children’s Hearing Panel in relation to issues involving offending behaviour and possible interventions to help them make appropriate decisions. To support colleagues in their work with young people needing offence-focussed interventions.
- To carry out risk assessments and work with other agencies to manage the risk in the rare cases of seriously harmful behaviour by young people. Employ known effective interventions with the few young people and children displaying violent and/or sexually harmful behaviour.
For more information in relation to community payback orders and criminal justice reports see the Scottish Government’s National Youth Justice Strategy or children's reporter service.
Also visit our children's hearings section to find out more information on children's hearings.