Tackling the postcode lottery of diversion for children: a new free digital tool to support effective out of court resolution practice.  

Where a child lives shouldn’t decide their future but right now, it does. Access to out of court resolutions varies across the country, meaning some children get a second chance while others get a sentence. 

What the evidence tells us 

In one of our latest blogs, we spoke about: 

• the effectiveness of diversion
• two pieces of research that highlight why we see inconsistencies in practice
• how we’ve turned this evidence into a guide on how to deliver diversion effectively; and  
• our investment into two change activities (Youth Justice Partnership and the Whole Area Model) to help local areas adopt evidence-informed diversion. 

Introducing the OR Practice Insight Creator 

Today, we’re launching a new digital tool for diversion. It has been designed to support youth justice partnerships, including policing professionals, to periodically self-evaluate their area’s out of court resolution practice against the best available research. 

What is the tool and how can it help me? 

We know out of court resolutions can play a key role in preventing children from committing serious offences. Improving the way we support children means less victims and better lives for children. It is crucial that frontline staff and senior leaders are equipped with the knowledge, motivation and resources to deliver diversion effectively. 

This is where the Out of Court Resolution Practice Insight Creator – ORPIC- comes in. Once completed, youth justice and policing partnerships will receive instant insights highlighting strengths and opportunities for improvement, as well as access to practical resources and guidance. ORPIC has a built-in action plan function that can be downloaded at the end to integrate with your existing youth justice or development plans.  

ORPIC is an easy-to-use tool that has been co-developed by one of YEF’s expert advisors Professor Iain Brennan, and has gone through rigorous sector testing.  

Professor Iain Brennan (Hull University): 

Having the option to divert young people away from the criminal justice system says a lot about our values as a society: we are compassionate, forgiving, and evidence-led.  

Diversion arrangements face a challenge to ensure that they offer the right response to the right person at the right time. This means balancing creative interventions that reflect a young person’s needs with a fair and thorough process. 

This guidance is designed to support diversion arrangements to set up and maintain transparent, consistent processes that make sense to practitioners, the public, and young people and that, ultimately, reduce future offending and harm to young people.

Feedback from sector testing (Amy Bruce, Youth Justice Operations Manager – Suffolk YJS): 

The self-evaluation is really helpful, and in an accessible format. It will be shared with our Management board to give them a high-level view of where we are at in order to assist their oversight and lead their direction in this area. Some of the points which were raised in it will be added to our challenge to them, and as this is a YEF backed tool it will really help to add strength to this. 

On average, the tool took less than 25 minutes to complete in the sector testing. We recommend completing it as a partnership with senior representatives from the police and youth justice service; or completing as a group exercise with your Youth Justice Management Board where we recommend setting aside 60 minutes to go through the evaluation and agree scores.

What’s next 

Are you ready to take the next steps to make sure diversion is delivered in a way that’s fair, consistent, and effective?

Need support? We’re here to help.  

Once you’ve completed the tool, we can assist in creating your local action plan and/or support you to implement it.  

If you’d like to find out more about the work, we’re doing to support effective practice, please contact the Change Team on: change.yef@youthendowmentfund.org.uk