Then finally the last relevant policy when looking at youth justice was the Preventing Offending: Getting it Right for Every Child (Scottish Government 2015) it renewed the government’s strategy. This Framework set out a new shared approach to achieving better and more consistent ways to tackle offending by children and young people based on the Government\’s belief that appropriate action must be taken at the earliest possible stage. The main focus was on prevention; EEI; managing high risk; victims and community confidence; and planning and performance management. It talks to preventing offending in the first place and focusses on supporting and developing the workforce to enable them to better support children and young people. This was seen in contrast to the previous strategy, Preventing Offending by Young People: A framework for action (Scottish Government 2008d), which didn’t give reference to children and young people like the recent modified version and no longer talked to the responsibilisation model of tackling offending behaviour (Barry 2013) This renewed strategy is now consistent with the Scottish Government’s wider policy of the GIRFEC principles and takes into account the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC 2008). It is also directly expresses the importance of responding to the needs and deeds of children and young people involved in offending echoing the words of Kilbrandon (HMSO 1995). To conclude it could be said that Scotland is now moving towards a new ‘positive youth justice’ as suggested by Haines and Case (2015) putting the child and young person first and offender second.
The Social Work Role in Youth Justice and Interagency Working
The vision in Scotland with regards to the social work role is that we are responsive to the needs of the people we support and protect, we are accessible and accountable and that we promote social justice (Social Work Scotland 2016).
In Scotland the fundamental job of youth justice is to divert young people aged 12 to 18 years who offend from the adult criminal justice system (CJSW 2011). Services should include EEI, diversion from prosecution schemes and alternative to secure care and custody and all practice should be informed by GIRFEC principles and WSA. Youth justice social workers should also be aware of the practice framework provided by the National Outcomes and Standards for Social Work Services in the Criminal Justice System (Scottish Government 2010a).
There are two quite different and distinct processes in Scotland for dealin