T2A Pilots

The Barrow Cadbury Trust’s Commission on Young Adults and the Criminal Justice System argued that using age as the arbitrary division between the youth and adult criminal justice systems is unwise and prevents sensible approaches for dealing with the problems that young adults face.

The Commission recommended that Transition to Adulthood (T2A) Teams should be established to take responsibility for young adults in the criminal justice system.

The Barrow Cadbury Trust has taken forward this idea by establishing three pilots which will test different approaches to improving services for young adult offenders.

The T2A pilots will enable interventions to be tailored to the maturity and needs of the individual, which we believe will reduce both the risk of re-offending and social exclusion.

• Birmingham Pilot

  
  • Delivered by the Birmingham Probation Service
  • The project will focus on 17-24 year olds with medium to low needs, specifically providing assistance with accommodation, employment, relationships and substance misuse. It will include advocacy, advice and mentoring both in custody and the community, as well as additional support to motivate the young adults to access appropriate interventions.
  • Contact: Pat Brown-Richards

• Worcestershire T2A pilot

  
  • Delivered by YSS
  • YSS will offer a flexible, community based, one to one support and mentoring project using a mix of paid staff and local volunteers. The project will embed the principles of service user involvement and will be clearly aligned to and supported by Probation, YOS, Youth Service, Connexions, Children’s Services, Police, Prison and other agencies to promote new practice and to shape local policy over the next three years.
  • Contact: www.yss.org.uk Tel: 01299 252300

• London Pilot

  
  • Hosted by the St Giles Trust SOS project that has been running for 2.5 years
  • The project will identify young offenders primarily in HMP YOI Rochester, engage with them well before release, and then support them upon release into Southwark and Croydon. The service will be delivered by staff who are all qualified ex-offenders and will comprise of mentoring, motivational work, attitudinal work, combined with competent practical support in areas such as housing, benefits and employment, training and education.
  • Website: www.stgilestrust.org.uk.
    Contact: Evan Jones, Head of Community Services,
    Junior Smart, SOS Team Leader