Ealing Youth Justice Service (YJS) aims to prevent young people aged between 10 and 17 years from offending, and to reduce re-offending by young people already known to the police and the courts.

There are exciting opportunities to become involved in the work of the Youth Justice Service. Every Borough has a Youth Justice Service; to supervise children convicted at Court or diverted from Court. They also provide and instigate positive opportunities intended to re-engage children with their communities.

Available volunteer opportunities

• Referral Order Panel Member:
  Being a Youth Offender panel member is a challenging yet rewarding role. It is also a role that can positively impact the lives of young people, their parents/carers and victims of crime. Using the principles of restorative justice, the role can support young people to decrease their involvement in criminal or anti-social behaviour, increase positive relationships with their parents/carers and support victims of crime to be heard.

Panels are led by volunteer Community Panel Member and it is a meeting where young people that have offended and received a Referral Order, their parents/carers, victims of crime and members of the community have the opportunity to come together to discuss the offence that took place, support young people to take responsibility for their own actions and create a tailor made individual contract to support the young people to repair some of the harm caused through the offence/s and reduce their likelihood of offending in the future, through participating in activities such as supporting the work of a community project or writing an apology letter, as well reducing risk of further offending (through participating in victim awareness programmes or substance use work).

• Restorative Justice Practice Support:
  Restorative Justice (RJ) is a process which supports the victim of a crime and the person responsible to communicate, repair harm, and find a positive way forward. It brings those harmed by crime or conflict and those responsible for the harm into communication, enabling everyone affected by a particular incident to play a part in repairing the harm. This can be by making the person responsible aware of the harm they caused which helps them to make reparations and plan for restoration in the community. RJ can be undertaken face to face between the person harmed and the person who caused the harm, but it can also be done via an intermediary using shuttle communication or indirect methods.

Ealing Youth Justice Service seeks to contact every victim of the children that they supervise. Once the Police have confirmed the victim is willing to be contacted, Ealing YJS describe the service and establish the extent to which they wish to participate in RJ.

We are looking for volunteers to support with the RJ process and support with facilitating the various methods of RJ that a victim and young person may be amendable to undertaking. We hope to expand the numbers of trained facilitators and increase our ability to offer restorative work across Ealing.

• Group Programme and Reparation Project Support:
  Working alongside our experienced officers, you will help facilitate our group programmes and community reparation projects. These projects support young people to build their skills and knowledge in order to build positive relationships and lead pro-social lives.Reparation activities include groundworks at an urban zoo, youth club rejuvenation and assisting at a Night Shelter for homeless people. We are looking to expand the range of activities that we offer and to include communities in these.

  Reparation is potentially a means of reintegrating a child into their community support networks.

• Community Monitoring Group (CMG):
  Ealing CMG is a community lead group that is commissioned under the Mayors Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC). This group meets on a three-monthly basis with key police partners to review the use of stop and search in the borough. These meetings review quarterly stop and search data across the borough of Ealing which allows for community oversight of police practice. Body worn footage of police stop and search is also reviewed and the practice of stop and searches directly fed back upon.