THE COUNTY’S high-performing youth offending service has received more investment from Central Government.

Samantha Starmer, Service Manager at Cumbria Youth Offending Service spoke at Cumbria House on Tuesday, providing an update to councillors on her team’s vital work and setting the agenda for the year ahead.

And councillors were full of praise for the service which is making a measurable difference to the number of young people who are re-offending in Cumbria.

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Mrs Starmer, who also leads on prevention services and the supporting families programme said: “Very excited to bring you some great statistics and facts today. Really today, the point is to give you a bit of an overview of what’s going to be in our strategic plan for the year ahead.

“I want to really impress on you, our primary theme with the service we’re offering young people in Cumbria who are involved in criminal justice, that’s the child first approach.

“Nationally, we’ve seen a move away from traditional approaches to youth justice and we’ve seen the Government; Ministry of Justice and Youth Justice Board go down the child first, offender second route and we are firmly committed to that in Cumbria.

“So I hope that this plan has child-first embedded right through it, like a golden thread.”

She said that a child-first approach makes the best interests of young people and a non-criminal justice life the top priority.

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Mrs Starmer said that ministers in Whitehall are seeing the importance of their vital work.

“We had a letter from Central Government on Friday to tell us that we’ve got more investment this year in youth justice services, a fantastic result that the Government is recognising that our model of multi-agency intervention works, youth offending teams work, that is still a model they’re supporting.

“They’ve increased funding for us for this next year. I’m waiting to get the final figures but I’m before you today excited about the fact that we’ve got that real backing from Government in terms of more money to grow our services and develop.”

Mrs Starmer said that the service has seen strong performance in its target areas, increased support and oversight of the volunteer workforce and all staff have been trained in AIM 3 Harmful Sexual Behaviour Training – which has to some extent filled the gap of the NPSCC not offering that service in Cumbria.

She said that the service now has increased data analysis to pinpoint problem areas and is motivated to further reduce youth offending figures.

“When I see a headline like I did yesterday on the News & Star about knife crime, I know the data behind that, I know where we need to look and what we need to be doing with knife crime offences.”

In the last year, Cumbria Youth Offending Service has delivered over 330 out of court and statutory interventions and delivered 83 standalone prevention programmes.

In addition, 22 young people have achieved accredited awards through court order – rather than handing down unpaid work such as litter-picking, the service aims to teach young people skills to direct them away from anti-social behaviour.

“Year on year we’re seeing that the number of young people that come into the system in Cumbria with a caution or a court conviction for the first time is decreasing. We were at 88 in our previous measured period, and this past year we’ve gotten down to 60. Just 60 young people in Cumbria entered the system for the first time.”