Youth Justice Practitioner -Young Futures

We are looking for a Youth Justice Practitioner who is highly motivated and enthusiastic, creative, flexible and innovative in helping colleagues and families find solutions to overcome barriers and challenges and keen to develop their practice skills within a multi-agency, youth justice setting. This is fixed term role until March 2027.

The Service

Funded by the Home Office and Hampshire Violence Reduction Unit, co-ordinated within the Portsmouth Youth Justice Service (PYJS), the Portsmouth Young Futures Prevention Partnership will bring partners together to offer earlier intervention to children who may be at risk of committing anti-social behaviour and youth crime.

The Role

This motivated and committed team requires an enthusiastic and knowledgeable individual who would enjoy the challenges and opportunities of working in our service, to help us establish and develop our delivery of Young Futures Prevention interventions.

Reporting to a YJS Team Leader, you will work restoratively to:

• Liaise with colleagues both within and outside the YJS in order to gather relevant information to support and inform the Young Futures Panel process. Liaise with children and their families to seek their consent and views for intervention to be offered. Liaise with parents, carer, other family members and professional networks to ensure plans are agreed and delivered with them to support sustainable change.
• Offer up to date information, advice and signposting to other services, including voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector organisations.
• Complete high quality assessments to develop recommendations and plans and write high quality records, and present information in a variety of formats.
• Hold a 'caseload' of children; planning, delivering, co-ordinating and reviewing direct interventions with them, under a restorative approach, to promote and build on strengths, and reduce risk and need.
• Provide direct work with children and families in a variety of settings to support them to manage challenges they may experience including offending behaviour, emotional wellbeing, substance misuse, healthy relationships, access to education and employment, housing, and income. At times, this could include small group work.
• Support access to other services where more specific, specialist or longer term support where this is required.
• You will be expected to liaise with colleagues both within and outside the YJS in order to fulfil the requirements of the role. You will also be expected to carry out weekday Office Duty as part of a rota and respond to reasonable ad hoc requests.

The ideal candidate

You will need to have:

• A nationally recognised qualification such as NVQ level 4 or other higher level qualification equivalent experience, in a relevant field.
• Experience of working with children, young people and families; particularly those who are more isolated and/or face multiple challenges. Knowledge of the range of support services available to children and families in the City. Demonstrable understanding of child development and youth offending to support your work within a youth justice context.
• Excellent assessment and analytical skills to assess, plan, review and evaluate interventions with a complex caseload. A positive attitude to supporting children who experience challenges, alongside their parents and carers, and repairing any harm caused. A flexible and restorative approach to service delivery, focussing on good outcomes for children, young people, their families and victims of youth crime.
• Excellent communication skills with children, young people, parents, colleagues, managers and key stakeholders. The ability to converse at ease with customers and provide advice in accurate spoken English is essential for the post.

Please ensure that you download and read the full job profile attached for the details and expectations of this role, paying particular attention the section 'Who is the person' as you will need to refer to this when completing your Personal statement.

Hybrid working arrangements :

Attendance requirements to the designated workplace will be 2 days required in the office for full time post.

Contact Details for an Informal Discussion:

If you have any questions, or would like an informal discussion about the role, please email:

Emma Donnelly - emma.donnelly@portsmouthcc.gov.uk

Interview date: 31st March 2026

About Portsmouth City Council

Portsmouth City Council is a unique organisation, committed to making a difference, and is guided by core values that set who we are as people, what we stand for, and how we act.

We are committed to our values of respect, integrity, collaboration, inclusivity and being people-focussed. These values set out how we can contribute to the success of the council and our own success as individuals. Learn more about our values and behaviours.

Application process

We anonymise applications during application & shortlisting to ensure only relevant information is considered.

As part of your application, we ask that you complete apersonal statement, this statement is crucial and is where you must demonstrate how you meet the requirements of the job against each of the points described in the 'Who is the Person'points on the Job Profile using examples from your experience or transferable skills.This might be through qualifications or descriptive examples from your work / personal experience.

We are a disability confident employer and Armed Forces Covenant gold standard. More information can be found at Equality, diversity and inclusion - Careers portal. We are committed to offering an interview to all those candidates that qualify under one of our commitments and meet the minimum criteria, however for roles that receive a large number of applications, this is not always possible, and we will select the candidates that best meet the minimum criteria

You will need to demonstrate that you have the Right to Work in the UK. No post will be offered without it.

Please note we are unable to offer sponsorship for this role

Should you require any support in completing the application form please contactrecruit@portsmouthcc.gov.uk or call the recruitment team on 023 92 616 800.