Warwickshire News Mine

CBIT supports children, young people (up until the age of 24), families and professionals affected by Acquired Brain Injury - an injury to the brain that has happened after birth and could be the result of an accident (such as a road traffic accident or fall), an illness (such as encephalitis or meningitis), a stroke, a brain tumour or poisoning.

Louise Wilkinson, training manager for CBIT, approached a number of Youth Offending Teams to ask for help in developing a training course suitable for professionals working with young offenders.  Warwickshire was one of the first teams to respond.

Warwickshire’s Youth Justice Service conducts an annual survey of the young people who received custodial sentences in order to increase understanding of the factors that lead young people to commit serious and often violent offences.

The information available through CBIT promised to offer additional insight and strategies for coping with some of the social, behavioural, and emotional effects of a childhood acquired brain injury.

Louise had designed a workshop for anyone working with young people who had offended and who would benefit from a better understanding of the issues faced by, not only the young people who had an acquired brain injury, but their siblings and family members.

The objectives include raising awareness of how the disability can affect a young person’s life chances; understand why a young person with a brain injury may exhibit signs of offending behaviour; and understand how to best support them.

One participant said: “It is an exciting insight in to the difficulties facing young people with an acquired brain injury.” Another commented: “How many of our young people may have had an ABI in earlier years?”

After attending the workshop, Heather Shilling, Operations Manager for Warwickshire Youth Justice Service, said: “It gave us all a great deal of food for thought and a real desire to do more for our young people who may not have received the service they needed.

“Anything we can do to raise awareness and understanding of this hidden disability can only be beneficial for young people and their communities.”

Full details of the Child Brain Injury Trust and the scope of their work can be viewed on http://www.cbituk.org, where you can also view a video clip of young people explaining how tough life can be with this hidden disability.

To find out more about Warwickshire’s Youth Justice Service or for more information regarding projects in the reparation directory, visit http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/yjs.

Link to WCC