The Peer Support Worker was developed within West Yorkshire Liaison and Diversion over two years ago and has been key to the future career prospects to those who have chosen to work with us. The specific peer support pathway is aimed to support by having lived experience of the justice system support clients to access the services that they need. The peer support team support complex clients that can be hard to reach and hard to engage by using their experiences of the criminal justice system and other services. This invaluable quality that peer support workers have has served to enhance the service and provided the opportunity for colleagues to better understand the challenges that service users face and is now embedded across the 5 sites in West Yorkshire. The West Yorkshire Liaison & Diversion team is constantly looking to improve its peer support package and there are plans for the pathway to grow, with extra training and plans to take on more volunteers.

West Yorkshire Liaison and Diversion developed a specific pathway for veterans to support them when coming into contact with the criminal justice system. Liaison and Diversion work closely together with partners in the National Health Service, Royal British Legion, and other armed forces specific services to ensure Liaison and Diversion support veterans with their specific needs and vulnerabilities and receive the bespoke support from practitioners. The service has implemented specific veteran leads in each locality site who have attended training and work closely with veterans.

In addition, West Yorkshire Liaison and Diversion work closely with partners in the police, ex-military, third sector services such as Royal British Legion and Project Nova to build an understanding about how to work with veterans in custody and how to better engage them. Alongside the partners West Yorkshire Liaison and Diversion worked hard to increase awareness of identifying veterans in custody by creating posters that identify veterans and encourage them to work with the service and encouraging police in custody suites to ask detained persons if they are veterans and then refer them into the service.

West Yorkshire Liaison and Diversion Service (L&D) have developed a gender specific pathway to support women referred into the service. This decision was made due to results from research highlighted in the Cortson report, and our experience to date. The research stated that women in contact with the criminal justice system respond better within female focused environments, and that the nature of the offences committed by females – and the reasons behind these offences – are often quite different to those of males.

A significant proportion of women who come into contact with the criminal justice system have only committed low-level offences. In some of these cases, their offending could’ve been prevented by addressing their vulnerabilities at an earlier stage.

Many females experience chaotic lifestyles involving substance misuse, mental health difficulties, homelessness, and separation from children. Over 60% of females who have come into contact with the criminal justice system have experienced significant abuse and trauma in their lifetimes.

The West Yorkshire Liaison and Diversion Service has recruited dedicated female specialist practitioners for each of our teams. These teams are seconded in from our local partner women’s centres and work with all women referred into our service. Referrals can be made rough routes such as police custody, out of court disposals (otherwise known as Conditional Cautions), and the female retail triage scheme.

Our dedicated female practitioners use the local Women’s Centres as an outreach basis to ensure women are seen in a safe, women only, environment and use a trauma informed approach when assessing the holistic needs of women. This also gives them the opportunity to introduce women to the interventions available within the Centre’s to help divert them away from the criminal justice system.

Young people can present with complex needs that can contribute to their offending behaviour, for example; breakdown of family relationships, emotional health needs, learning difficulties, substance misuse, problems in school and peer influences. When a young person commits an offence or is referred to us through the police, Safer Schools Officers or other agencies a project worker will complete a holistic assessment in the home of the young person and their parent/carer and utilise signs of safety approach, a support plan will be agreed, and referrals to appropriate services will be made.

The aim of the Male Pathway is to support male clients away from the Criminal Justice System and refer them into the most appropriate support services to improve health and social outcomes. The pathway assists with accessing support with housing, welfare benefits, substance misuse, specialist alcohol services, debts/finances, mental health, physical health, digital poverty, and education & training to name but a few targeted vulnerabilities.

Our support workers refer into services such as;

Engage Leeds – This is a city-wide service that provide housing support to the people of Leeds. They can help with preventing you from losing your home, Support you to live sustainably independently or in your current home, and offer support with integration if you feel isolated and want to get more involved in activities and your community.

Andy’s Man club – This is a Mental Health Charity based across England and Wales. The charity provide support and encourage men to talk about their mental health problems. The charity focus on the stigma that is held over Men’s heads around weakness, vulnerabilities and embarrassment relating to mental health problems, and are working hard to tackle this.

The club began a few years ago in the small town of Halifax. Originally 9 men attended the group session and spoke about their lives. This grew and has now reached 28 locations (and is still growing).

Cruse – This is a national charity that provides Bereavement support to people who live in England and Wales. They provide emotional support for people who are struggling with loss.

The charity offer support through trained professionals in a number of ways:

• Virtual face to face call (Held over a virtual platform like Zoom, Teams or other)
• Telephone support
• Email – this way those who are struggling can type out their feelings and send off. This can be more effective for some
• The charity have also introduced a live chat function, where you can chat to a trained professional like you would you friend over text.