The Adolescent Team

We're a team of social workers who sit alongside colleagues in the Youth Offending Service. The team works with young people who are at risk of harm from outside of their families that is associated with their peers, the places where they spend time, or online activity and is identified as being exploitative.

We work intensively with young people and their families to strengthen relationships and to help them to understand and move away from exploitative situations.

Most, but not all of the young people that the team works with are also open to and working with Youth Offending practitioners. When a young person is open to the Adolescent team and the Youth Offending Service, the two teams work very closely together to ensure that young people get the right help at the right time. This can involve referring the young person and/ or their family to other, services who can provide additional, specialist support.

The range of specialist services that the Adolescent team can refer young people and their families to is broad and includes:

• substance misuse services
• mental health services
• services that work with young people being exploited by gangs and organised drug networks
• advocacy services

Youth at Risk Matrix 

This matrix was developed in order to identify young people at risk of becoming involved in serious offences, intervene early and offer support such as:

• education and training for parents and professionals 
• working with partner agencies to refer young people to our services
• running sessions at schools on topics such as crime, violence and prevention

Risks that could lead to a young person being referred to us include:

• possession of substances or weapons
• robbery
• missing from home
• subject to abuse, neglect or domestic violence
• older sibling involvement in criminal activity 
• decrease in attainment or engagement at school
• increase in school exclusions 
• associating with gang members
• being arrested
• a victim of stabbing