Youth justice strategy: progress report

Implementation: a collaborative approach

As part of the development of the youth justice strategy, arrangements to support youth justice at a national level were reviewed. Collaboration and partnership working has been a crucial element of success in preventing offending, in particular through the WSA, and remains integral to strategy implementation.

The YJIB was established in 2015 to drive a culture of improvement in youth justice and make a sustained impact on priority areas.

Under the YJIB there are three implementation groups, meeting quarterly in advance of each Board session. Each group's focus is based on a priority theme in the strategy.

Implementation groups

Advancing the Whole System Approach - priorities include:

• ensuring that youth justice is integrated into children service's planning and wider community planning
• improving practice aligned with the implementation of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014
• timely and effective interventions to minimise the number of children in the Criminal Justice System
• assessing and managing risk and complexity for those young people posing the greatest risk

Improving Life Chances - priorities include:

• supporting work on school inclusion
• strengthening positive relationships
• promoting victims and community confidence
• improving health and wellbeing
• promoting opportunities for all
• transitions, including supporting young people from custody and secure

Developing Capacity and Improvement - priorities include:

• supporting workforce development
• development of a youth justice framework and outcome measurement tools
• improving systems

The priorities align with work being taken forward by the Children's Hearings Improvement Partnership ( CHIP). Areas of cross over and synergy are being developed jointly in order to ensure connectivity across the responsibilities of the two groups.

A thematic approach to implementation