Staffordshire Youth Offending Service

The Youth Offending Service is part of Staffordshire Young People’s Service within Children’s Services . It is made up of social workers, Police, Probation & Health. Its roles are:

Look after the interests of all young people between the ages of 10-17 who are involved with the criminal justice system.
Undertake restorative justice programmes with young people convicted of offences.
Undertake programmes to reduce youth offending
Supervise court orders and write reports for courts
Provide an appropriate adult for police interviews and courts where necessary

The Youth Offending Service work closely with Intensive Interventions in relation to the provision of Foster Placements both for those children remanded to the care of the Local Authority via the Youth Courts and those children placed in the Intensive Fostering Scheme as part of their sentence. (More information about these schemes can be found in Section 8 of this handbook)

If your foster child is involved with the police, you must notify their Social Worker and your Fostering Social Worker. If it happens out of office hours, you should let EDS know. At no time must you act as an appropriate adult in an interview situation as this role requires training and will be undertaken either by a worker from the Youth Offending Service or the EDS worker.