Coventry Youth Offending Service (CYOS) have been awarded Registered Restorative Organisation status by Restorative Justice Council (RJC).

CYOS are the first youth offending service to transfer from our Restorative Service Quality Mark (RSQM) to the RJC’s newly launched Registered Restorative Organisation status. By achieving this status, Coventry Youth Offending Service have demonstrated a commitment to delivering high quality restorative practice to nationally agreed standards.

Coventry Youth Offending Service provides the opportunity of intervention for the victims of youth crime, in cases where the service is working with the young person subject to an Out of Court Disposal or a Post Court Sentence. The restorative interventions they provide include supporting young people to construct letters of apology, facilitating victim directed reparation, shuttle mediation and, when appropriate, face-to-face meetings.

CYOS continues to have lead restorative justice practitioners and will contact all victims where consent has been given. CYOS achieved a secondary contact rate of 93% up from 2019/20 at 92%. While updates and victim reparation stayed stable from the previous year, shuttle mediation and face to face mediation reduced in use due to Covid 19 and other methods of use (for example, video calling) not being appropriate. With this said, feedback from victims of crime remained very strong with an average rating score of 4.9 out of 5.

Jim Simon, the RJC’s chief executive said:

“Having held the RSQM since May 2017, we were delighted that Coventry Youth Offending Service applied to be assessed against our Registered Restorative Organisation Framework. They have embedded a strong restorative culture; leaders, managers and the service’s staff have embraced this culture and reflected their commitment across all areas of the service’s work. The service’s trained restorative practitioners demonstrated throughout the registration process that they have a strong understanding of both direct and indirect restorative processes; they are able to apply this understanding effectively to support victims of crime. I would like to congratulate the whole team on their achievement.”

Matthew Haynes, Coventry Youth Offending Service’s Team Manager said:

“We are really pleased as a service to have been successful with our application to be a Registered Restorative Organisation with the Restorative Justice Council (RJC), as it recognises our ongoing work with victims of youth crime. The service is committed to making a difference and our work the RJC has supported the development of our restorative practices. I am grateful to the staff team for their continued hard work and commitment and this national recognition is testament to our efforts to deliver high quality intervention and support.”