The Christchurch Youth Offending Team, whose purpose is to improve local youth justice service coordination, and to link with the wider community of interest in youth justice, met recently with representatives from Christchurch Secondary schools. .
The Christchurch Youth Offending Team has 14 members, consisting of managers and practitioners from Police, Education, Health and Child Youth & Family Service, and representatives from the Canterbury Youth Workers Collective, He Oranga Pounamu, and the Christchurch City Council. The workshop was initiated by the Youth Offending Team,
Senior Sergeant Tony Aitken, who is the current chairperson of the Youth Offending Team, said that the purpose of the workshop was to develop better lines of communication between schools and the Government Departments involved in Youth Justice, and to give the Youth Offending Team an opportunity to hear direct from the schools about the current problems that they face.
"Obviously the hot topics are truancy, school suspensions and exclusions," he says. "International research shows a very clear link between truancy and offending, with up to 80% of serious youth offenders not being 'engaged' at a school."
Senior Sergeant Aitken said the more youths can be kept in education - the better.
"The schools are doing an excellent job, sometimes dealing with very difficult behaviours and situations, and we want to be able to give them all the support that we can," he emphasises.
The Workshop was highly successful, and has provided the Youth Offending Team with good information and ideas to work with. Tony Aitken says it was very encouraging to meet with this group of professionals, who are clearly very passionate about making a difference in the lives of the young people of today.