Youth Justice Officer - Temp

Location: Lord Street Resource Centre

Employment type: Fixed term

We are St Helens Borough Council

Located in the heart of the Northwest close to Liverpool, Manchester and Lancashire, St Helens is a modernising Council which is passionate and ambitious for the children and families we support, our communities and our workforce. As part of our transformation journey, we continue to build on our progress and put children firmly at the centre of our care. We can only do this because of our highly valued, skilled, and supported workforce.

Making A Difference as a Youth Justice Officer in St Helens Youth Justice Service - Temporary to end March 2027

The YJS is a small team of multi‑agency professionals who share a passion for helping and supporting children and their families and victims of youth crime, to improve their lives and make communities safer.

To do this, we work hard to prevent and reduce youth crime by pro‑active engagement, providing creative and effective interventions and programmes which are restorative, trauma informed, and which take a whole family approach.

As a Youth Justice Officer, you will manage a case load of children from diverse backgrounds and work innovatively with them, engaging them and their families and other professionals in order to assess, develop and deliver interventions to reduce the impact of crime on individuals, families and the wider community.

This post will involve advocating for the service and young people within the Criminal Court setting.

Directly contributing to achieving positive Youth Justice Service outcomes linked to our KPI’s, including reducing reoffending, reducing FTE’s, reducing the use of custody and reducing the unnecessary criminalisation of Children We Look After.

• You must be able to engage with young people with complex and challenging needs, to build trusting relationships and rapport, to deliver interventions to encourage behaviour change and prevent further involvement with the Criminal Justice System.
• You will have good knowledge of safeguarding procedures and working with young people across the different levels of need. You must be passionate about helping people to make change and be able to challenge/support as required.
• This post involves working with a number of professionals and services and the ability to adapt to situations as well as building good relationships is key to this post.
• The successful candidate will need to have good organisational skills, be able to prioritise workload and be able to use a range of systems for case and data recording.
• Experience of working directly with children and their families, proven experience in assessing needs writing reports, planning interventions and reviewing the effectiveness of the supervision process.
• Preferably have experience of working within a Criminal Justice and within a multi‑agency setting.
• Provide evidence of a professional qualification relevant to working with children.
• The duties of the post may require you to work occasional evenings and weekends.
• The desire to help young people, along with enthusiasm, flexibility, adaptability, creativity and a genuine commitment to improve life chances are important qualities for this role.