Outside of my role as the Head of Service Youth Offending Service at Luton Borough Council, I am able to support a number of initiatives to not only improve our services, but enable prevention and to develop our social workers of the future.

Transitioning from youth to adult

There is a cliff edge for prevention in 17 year olds who are soon to turn 18 years old, many who are leaving care, where their next contact with criminal justice usually sees a prison sentence. Our local analysis shows disproportionate numbers of 19 – 21 year olds sentenced to custody, usually for serious violence offences.

I am involved in looking at an innovative model of transition of youth into adulthood within Luton, working closely with Hillary Collyer who represents the Probation Service at a national level. We are working together to collaborate on introducing a joint approach with Youth Offending Services (YOS) and the Youth Prevention Services (YPS) to ease the transition of vulnerable young people – who won’t become any less vulnerable once they become an adult upon turning 18.

Developing our future practitioners at the University of Bedfordshire

I present the Youth Justice module for University of Bedfordshire on a number of courses including the Social Work degree, and I have done so for several years. The university is now creating a Youth Justice Foundation Degree, where I am able to be a part of the consultation and support its development. It’s a lot of work but I am really keen to ensure that the content of the programme will go a long way to providing students with the skillsets and key competencies to empower confident youth justice practitioners.

Outreach to schools

Outside of our usual work, I am often invited to attend and present at school safety days, presenting to children and engaging them in key topics to enable prevention.

Outside of presenting, alongside many forums, we work together to bring programmes to life – from supporting children in Year 6 transition to secondary school, building apps for easy access to support for children and running projects throughout the Summer school holiday months to enable prevention.