East Berkshire YOTs – Individual Parallel Work
IYPP PROJECT
3. Referrals
3.1 Referral Sources
Referrals were taken from YOT staff, the Police, Education, Social Services and parents were also able to make self-referrals. Referrals were not pursued if there were obvious child protection issues. If it became obvious only part way through the programme then our programme was suspended and a referral made by either the parenting or young person’s worker to Child Protection services.
3.2 Referral Criteria
The project was open to any parent/carer and their child/young person between the ages of 10 and 17. The young people referred had to be involved in or be at risk of offending, displaying anti social behaviour/challenging behaviour and/or had been missing from home or truanting from school. Only a minority of the young people referred were already involved in the youth justice system. The majority were on the periphery of offending, perhaps having been reported missing on several occasions, or presenting anti social behaviour at school or within the community, or experiencing major difficulties within the family home.
3.3 The Referral Process
Referring agencies filled in project referral forms. The two project workers made an initial joint assessment visit to assess the suitability of the family and establish consent for their involvement with the service as well as the research study. Careful explanation was given to the families regarding the research element of the programmes and their role in completing the questionnaires provided by the independent evaluators, if they were willing to do so.
Any unsuitable referrals were discussed with the referring agencies and alternative ways forward were suggested. Those referrals that were unsuitable were mainly those where there were child protection issues, or where there was already a huge amount of Social Services input. Other unsuitable referrals were those where the presenting issues were not going to be helped by the programme eg parents with addiction or severe mental health problems, where it was felt that this needed to be addressed before any parenting programme could be effective. These parents were referred on to the appropriate services.
The Individual Parallel Programme Referral Process
