Liaison and Diversion – national roll out of court & police custody diversion service

“Liaison and diversion is an excellent example of different organisations working together to turn lives around….No other country in the world is doing this on the scale that we are pursuing. It is a really exciting programme.” Normal Lamb MP, Care Minister

‘Diversion’ is a process whereby people are assessed and their needs identified as early as possible in the offender pathway (including prevention and early intervention), thus informing subsequent decisions about where an individual is best placed to receive treatment, taking into account public safety, safety of the individual and punishment of the offence.

(Bradley, 2009)

Huge variation

Absence of national policy framework, bottom up development and variation in local need and circumstances has led to high degree of diversity in:• methods of working• governance arrangements• processes • service delivery arrangements • post-diversionary arrangements • outcome measures.

Supported argument for a shared national operating model for liaison and diversion.

Between…• The adult schemes• The youth schemes• Adult and youth schemes

Liaison and Diversion: Underpinning PrinciplesNarrative review identified principles from the literature as critical drivers of effective provision. These include: Clear definition : An articulated definition of liaison and diversion which is shared within and between agencies. Connectivity : Developed across different local agencies – not as isolated services.

A local post-diversion infrastructure underpinned by a shared commissioning strategy. Accessibility: Services which are accessible as and when people need them.

Services which are not constrained by established staff working patterns. Skilled staff : A consistent skill mix of staff.

Training that combines justice, health, social care, children’s and educational sectors, the wider public and the independent sector. Outcome focused: Minimum data sets to manage performance against agreed outcome measures Proportionate intervention:

Avoiding unjustified coercion Avoiding service duplication and over-intervention.

Operating Model -definitionLiaison and diversion is a process whereby people of all ages in contact with the youth and criminal justice systems are screened and where appropriate assessed or referred for assessment, so that those with mental health problems, learning disabilities, cognitive disorders, substance misuse problems and other vulnerabilities are identified as soon as possible in the justice pathway. Those in contact with the youth or criminal justice systems as a result of being suspected of having committed a criminal offence are, where appropriate, referred to appropriate services including, but not limited to, mental and physical healthcare, social care, substance misuse treatment and safeguarding. Information gained from assessments is shared with relevant justice agencies to enable key decision makers to make more informed decisions on diversion, charging, case management, reasonable adjustments and sentencing. Where the individual is referred to services outside the justice system, relevant information should be shared with those service providers. Diversion should be interpreted in its wider sense, referring to both diversion out of, and within, the justice system.

Developing an operating model

• Key featuresall-age service; available to all points of intervention in the youth

justice and criminal justice pathway;addressing a wide range of health issues and

vulnerabilities;entry point - comes into contact with the police under

suspicion of having committed a criminal offence; intervention at earliest possible point on justice

pathway

Key aims of liaison & diversion

• Improved access to healthcare and support services for vulnerable individuals through effective liaison with appropriate services and a reduction in health inequalities.

• Diversion of individuals, where appropriate, out of the youth justice or criminal justice systems into health or other supportive services.

• Delivery of efficiencies within the youth justice and criminal justice systems.

• The reduction of re-offending.

Points of operation• The service must be available at, but not limited to, the following

locations: Community settings, including schools and restorative justice, where

police engage with children and young people Police custody suites Police stations (or other prosecuting authorities) where voluntary

attendance occurs Magistrates’ courts Youth courts and referral order panels The Crown Court Probation to assist with the production of Pre-Sentence Reports

(PSR) Youth offending teams (YOTs)

Recap: Key features• All age service: but age appropriate responses• 24/7 response: mixture of extended operating hours & out of hours arrangements• Core team: mix of liaison & diversion practitioners, support workers, admin,

management time• Extended team: with formalised arrangements, supplementing skill gaps in team &

facilitating access to services & data• All vulnerabilities addressed: e.g. learning disability, speech, language &

communication needs, aspergers, personality disorder etc.• Appropriate responses to equalities groups: e.g. joint-working with women’s centres,

specialist workers where sufficient team size (e.g. Together)• Case-identification, screening & assessment: 3-stages using validated tools, delivered

by appropriate staff• Operate across cj pathway: up until sentence e.g. police custody, magistrates court,

crown court, probation & YOS (for PSRs)• Response to voluntary attendees: following changes to PACE codes to reduce use of

custody• Integration with substance misuse services: complicated by inconsistent & changing

picture of arrest referral provision nationally• Service user involvement: implementation & ongoing• Good data collection

10 First Wave trial sites• Middlesbrough & Sunderland• Wakefield• Liverpool• Coventry• Leicester• South East Essex• Dorset• Avon & Somerset• Sussex• London

North

Midlands & East

South

London

Challenges reported by phase 1 pilots

• Recruitment and vetting of staff within timescales • Extended hours of operation• IT• Strategic buy-in on project boards• Service Level Agreements/Memorandums of

Understanding for extended team• Transition to all age response• Voluntary attendees• Data collection • Service user involvement

Next step…• Support to wave 2 sites throughout 2015.• Full business case to Treasury in autumn 2015.• National roll out by 2017

“It’s a brilliant idea, having them look at all the problems, if we have the right people in place, and communicating with each other ‘cos a lot of the things, there’s a lot of separate agencies, sometimes doing well in their individual thing but for example if you’ve got a mental health problem and you’ve got drink and drugs, some people won’t even look at it until you put drink and drugs down… I don’t think it’s done deliberately or horribly but the way the systems set out is you have one thing in one place what they can talk to you about, but it’s all interlinked. Unless they're all talking to each other, that’s the main thing in all this.”