New scheme puts families at the heart of helping to prevent youth crime

A scheme, which is taking a new approach to help to stop young people in Bath and North East Somerset from offending and re-offending, is being launched tomorrrow.

Bath and North East Somerset Council’s Youth Offending Team, a multi-agency team which comprises Bath and North East Somerset Council, NHS B&NES, Police, Probation and Connexions, has secured funding from the Department for Children, Families and Schools to run the Family Intervention Project.

The Family Intervention Project has already had success in other areas of the country and works by offering support to the whole family to help prevent problems from happening. When a young person is identified as being at very high risk of offending or re-offending, and where other approaches have not helped, a dedicated key worker will be assigned to a family to address issues that may be causing concern around their child’s behaviour. In addition, families will also be offered practical support on housing, employment, health, education, benefits and debt.

Councillor Chris Watt (Conservative, Midsomer Norton Redfield), Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, said:

“The area’s Youth Offending Team are working hard to prevent young people from offending. Bath and North East Somerset Council wants to improve the life chances of disadvantaged children and young people and schemes like the Family Intervention Project will provide valuable support to help people get back on track. We also hope that the whole community will benefit as we tackle anti social behaviour.”

In addition to funding to support a new Family Intervention Officer, Somer Community Housing Trust and Knightstone Housing Association have also received funding to support the project.

Lorraine Woolston, Assistant Director of Tenancy Services at Somer Community Housing Trust said:

“We are delighted to have been awarded this funding, and are looking forward to working with our partners on the Family Intervention Project. The funding will allow us to employ a member of staff who will work with the B&NES Family Intervention Project to deliver services to residents of the Trust and Knightstone. As we work closely with communities every day to help improve their neighbourhoods, housing associations are often best placed to deliver projects like this in partnership with other agencies. This is an approach that has been used to great effect elsewhere and is proven to help and support families and reduce anti social behaviour.

It will save money in the long run by either reducing the time spent on dealing with the effects of anti-social behaviour within neighbourhoods or reducing the need for other agencies to get involved such as the criminal justice system, the police or children’s services."

The Family Intervention Project will complement other work carried out by the Youth Offending Team, for example the Compass project has been running for over 6 years. Compass aims to divert young people away from crime and anti-social behaviour by ensuring young people have the support they need from agencies in B&NES, and through the provision of direct support to them from a dedicated Compass keyworker.

For further information about the Family Intervention Project please email FIP@bathnes.gov.uk. More information about the Youth Offending Team can be found at www.bathnes.gov.uk by navigating to the Youth Offending Service pages through the A-Z index.