Nottinghamshire project helping guide troubled youth offenders through custody

The Divert Plus project aims to have an impact while a young person is in police custody or within 24 hours of their release – a crucial time when they may be more open to accepting help and support from others.

The project will provide new teams in the Mansfield and Nottingham Custody Suites to complement existing custody work delivered through the NHS liaison and diversion team, offering mental health support to young people.

Divert Plus works with young people aged 10-17 who have been arrested offences including involvement with drugs, weapon possession, inappropriate sexual behaviour and violence towards others.

It is funded though the Home Office’s Youth Endowment Fund, after a bid by Nottinghamshire Police’s violence reduction unit and Nottingham and Nottinghamshire councils.

Participation with the project is voluntary, although it is offered to all young people who independently offend.

If they decide to engage with the programme, they are provided with speech and language and wellbeing assessments.

These support them and allow access to a tailored prevention intervention, which may also include signposting to specialist services such as mental health services and substance misuse services.

Sonia Burton, Divert Plus project manager, said: “Many young people have undiagnosed difficulties which impact the way they communicate and react to situations.

“Having the opportunity to reach young people when they are first arrested and placed in police custody enables us to screen them for their emotional wellbeing and any speech and language difficulties.

“This allows us to provide the right level of support and intervention, preventing them from entering and/or escalating in the criminal justice system.”

Currently, 29 young people are part of the Divert Plus pilot scheme, which started in May.

Divert Plus works closely with the speech and language therapy service to ensure young offenders have the services needed to understand the judicial process and the consequences of their actions.

This is because key findings from a previous study of children on the Health and Justice Pathway revealed 82 per cent of young people referred to the programme had difficulties understanding information, while 54 per cent were also known to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.

One recent young person’s assessment identified he was unable to tell the time or know the months of the year.

In another case, the young person had a diagnosis of autism, but was getting very limited support and was struggling in mainstream education.

Another assessment found one young person needed additional specialist speech and language assessments and tailored support intervention so that he could be prevented from permanent exclusion.

All these young people were provided access to a specialist speech and language therapist in the Divert Plus team.

The information they receive from this is then shared with them, their parent carers, their education providers and any other professionals seeking to engage and support them.

The VRU also secured additional Youth Endowment funding of £1,052,000, and will support delivery of the project until March 2024.