West Mercia ISSP
Intensive Supervision & Surveillance Programme

The West Mercia ISSP is a partnership between Worcestershire and Herefordshire Youth Offending Service (YOS), Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin YOS and YSS. Originally established in 2001, the project is funded by the Youth Justice Board (YJB).

ISSP is a key directive from the YJB, and provides Intensive Supervision and Surveillance for young people aged 10-17 at risk of a custodial sentence or remand in custody.

The supervision element of the programme has the following features:

•  rigorous assessment of the offender's background, behaviour and needs
•  upto 25 hours carefully programmed contact time each week, for three    months, with support during evenings and weekends

core elements cover:

•  education and training (especially basic literacy and numeracy)
•  interventions to tackle offending behaviour
•  reparation to victims and/or the community
•  assistance in developing interpersonal skills
•  family support
•  flexibility to access support for individual problems, for example,     homelessness, drug misuse or mental health problems.

In Worcestershire and Herefordshire YOS, YSS staff are directly seconded as officers and support workers to deliver ISSP in field teams. An increasing amount of ISSP work is now delivered through our Top Barn facility at Grimley, where we have one small unit dedicated to a bike repair workshop, and another unit for teaching living skills and delivering offending behaviour modules.

In Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin YOS, YSS staff deliver and co-ordinate the ISSP interventions from our office in Hadley. We liaise closely with the nominated YOS officer to receive referrals for assessment. We have one senior ISSP practitioner who supervises an ISSP officer and a small group of sessional staff.

YSS sits in partnership on the West Mercia ISSP Steering group, with representatives from both Youth Offending Services and the Police.