Youth Supervision Order - Information for young people
What is a youth supervision order?
A youth supervision order (YSO) is a sentence given by the Children’s Court. In most cases the length of time you will spend on a YSO will be 12 months or less. In some cases it might be up to 18 months.
A YSO gives you the opportunity to work through the things that have caused you to get into trouble.
Who gets YSOs?
A YSO is usually given to young people who have offended and appeared in court before and who have been found guilty of quite a serious offence, or numerous offences committed when under the age of 18.
Young people who offend when they are aged between 10 and 17 years can be placed on a YSO. If you get a YSO when you are 18, the YSO has to finish by the time you are 21 years old. You will probably have had a Probation order before and you will find a YSO puts more demands on you than the Probation order did.
Sometimes the court will put special conditions on the order, like living at a certain place or having to attend counselling.
What do you have to do on a YSO?
After you have been to court, you will have to report to the youth justice unit in your region within two working days.
A youth justice worker at the youth justice unit will explain the following to you:
- You must report as directed, which could be up to six hours a week
- You must not offend while on a YSO
- You must let your worker know if you change your address
- You must attend the programs arranged for you
- In some cases, you may have to do some community work
- You have to stick to any special conditions the court made
- You must get written permission from your worker if you want to leave Victoria.
What happens if you break the rules?
If you are not sticking to the conditions of your order, like not reporting to your worker, or you re-offend, a number of things could happen:
- You could receive a warning from the coordinator of the YSO program
- You could receive a warning from the manager of the youth justice unit
- You could be taken back to court.
This last option is very serious and is called breaching the order. The judge or magistrate will not be pleased to see you back in court and can do a number of things:
- give you a serious warning and tell you to improve your behaviour
- add some more conditions to the order
- cancel your YSO and give you another sentence, which could mean being locked up.
Who will be your worker?
A youth justice worker will be responsible for supervising your order. You may also have another worker who will work with you on particular programs.
What can you expect from your worker?
Your worker will offer you support and supervision and is there to help you work through problems that might have led you to offend in the first place.
Together, you and your worker will develop a plan to help you successfully complete your YSO. This plan is called a client service plan (CSP). Your CSP is an agreement that you make with your worker so that you both know what you and your worker will do to help you address your offending behaviour and get through your order.
This plan could include things like finding out about an anger management course, if losing your temper is something that gets you into trouble. Your worker will listen to you, be fair, treat you with respect and assist you to achieve the goals you set in your CSP.
What do you get out of being on a YSO?
A YSO provides you with support and supervision on a regular basis. It is a chance for you to look at the things that are getting you into trouble. Your worker is there to help you change these things so that you do not end up in more trouble, or in court again.
A YSO gives you the opportunity to find new interests which will help you not to re-offend.
