It is often very upsetting for families when a young person is sentenced to custody. The young person may be placed a considerable distance away from home, and will often not be able to participate in family events. The young person may also be very unhappy in custody, which is especially distressing for parents and carers.

North Yorkshire Youth Justice Service (YJS) provides advice and support to help parents and carers cope with this. We can sometimes arrange transfer to a secure establishment nearer home, or negotiate special releases to attend major family events like funerals. We can provide information and contact details for secure establishments, and financial support for travel costs when visiting (ask your YJS Officer if you need more information about this).

We do this because there is evidence that young prisoners who have maintained positive contact with their families during their sentence have a better chance of staying out of trouble in future. Even though parents may be angry, distressed or disappointed with the young person, it’s really important to stay in touch and plan for their future.

A young person who is given a custodial sentence is seen immediately by a member of the YJS who visits them in the court cells and information can passed to the family. Parents and carers are assisted to attend Sentence Planning meetings and Pre-release meetings so that the young person, their family and the YJS can work together.