I received some more great news today from my colleague Jim Hopkinson who heads up our Leeds Youth Offending Service...

"Hi Chris, I am delighted to be able to report that Leeds Youth Offending Service has won a prestigious national award from the Howard League for Penal Reform. The Programmes Team at Leeds Youth Offending Service has won the award for the best community programme in the children and young people category. In response to the identified high rates of burglary offences in the city compared to other areas of the country, Leeds Youth Offending Service took on the task of creating a substantial community intervention, to work with young people convicted of burglary offences, which would work on preventing re-offending and be available as a sentencing option to the courts providing an alternative to a custodial sentence. John Drew, Chief Executive of the YJB was one of the judges. The particular strengths noted by the judges were adaptation to learning styles, our involvement of our Speech and Language therapist in programme development, not losing sight of working with children and young people and the collaboration with Safer Leeds, including shared statistical information and the money they gave us. The award is testament to the innovation, commitment and dedication of Leeds YOS staff to tackle offending and to make Leeds a safer place. Regards, Jim."

We are really lucky to have Jim and his multi-agency team doing such a brilliant job here in Leeds. It is yet another piece of the complex web of magic that makes Leeds such a great place.
Chris