Justice Services

Supporting frontline professionals who serve justice pathways

Whether in Youth Justice Teams, in the secure estate, or working in rehabilitation and/or resettlement, Microlink Education offers a suite of training and professional development opportunities that can transform the personal effectiveness of frontline staff and their managers.

• Shift from trauma-aware to trauma-informed to trauma-transformed practice
• Move from a way of doing to a way of being
• Moving from “Supervision” to “Co-coaching”
• Understanding and applying:
• Emotion Coaching
• Assistive Technologies to overcome the systemic barrier of low literacy
• The principles of Good Help, and
• Developing a deeper understanding of neurodiversity and complex needs assessment and evaluation to ensure successful workplace adjustments and thus employment

We are keen to work with you to shape a programme that meets the bespoke needs of your team. PERR (Personal Effectiveness in Rehabilitation and Resettlement) could be a PERR-fect solution for you.

Contact: education@microlinkpc.com for a consultation conversation.

Youth Justice SEND Awards

Nearly seventy Youth Offending Teams across England have participated in the Youth Justice SEND Awards process since 2018.

The quality assurance process helps Local Area Partnerships to secure better outcomes for children within, or at risk of entering, a youth justice pathway. We have added a Child First Commendation to our highest award to acknowledge outstanding practice in this critical strategic ambition.

The sharing of effective practice between participating YOTs has been inspirational, with workshops and webinars for frontline professionals, by frontline professionals, leading to service improvements.

Here are some of the most recent Area Partnership citations (Click on an area to see the relevant News Bulletin):

NORTH SOMERSET (Quality Lead) December 2022
BRACKNELL FOREST (Quality Mark) Jan 2023
CROYDON (Quality Lead Redesignation with Child First Commendation) March 2023
NORFOLK (Quality Mark) March 2023
SWINDON (Quality Lead with Child First Commendation) May 2023
WOKINGHAM (Quality Mark) May 2023
WEST SUSSEX (Quality Mark) June 2023
ISLINGTON (Quality Lead with Child First Commendation) July 2023

Please contact us.

New interest and enquiries: education@microlinkpc.com

Emotion Coaching in Challenging Contexts

Emotion Coaching – ‘Child First’ in every way

All too often a lack of self-control leads to children, already in difficulties, to make things worse for themselves.

Be it in the community, within families, in the court system or within secure estate settings, emotional flare-ups and disproportionately aggressive and volatile behaviours result in situations escalating rapidly out of control.

Emotion Coaching is an attachment-based tool that helps children to self-regulate and manage their own emotions by developing emotional self-awareness and nurturing relationships in teams around them.

If, because of emotion coaching, children become more responsive to help, support and guidance through better emotional self-regulation, the impact will be measurable beyond the programme: in this regard, emotion coaching can be perceived by service leaders as a gateway intervention.

For enquiries, please contact: education@microlinkpc.com

Youth Justice Seminars: Child First

Effective Partnership Practice

In Spring 2023, Microlink (in partnership with Association of Youth Offending Team Managers) began a very successful season of CFEPP (Child First Effective Partnership Practice) Webinars, highlighting frontline initiatives, structures and ideas that are reducing first-time offending rates and impacting significantly on reoffending rates and successful ETE outcomes. We begin again in October 2023.

This effective practice has been identified and celebrated through participation in the Youth Justice SEND Quality Assurance process.

So far, we have heard terrific presentations from:

• Milton Keynes: Targeted speech and language assessments for primary and secondary children at risk of exclusion
• Staffordshire: “Upstream” diversion and prevention through local SEND networks
• Blackburn and Darwen: Highly effective multi-agency practice, embedded across Teams and Services
• Camden featured an interconnected partnership provision within an Integrated Youth Support Service: the power of networking and intelligent systemic design.
• St Helens highlighted a prevention offer supported by a dedicated Education Re-engagement Mentor, working with children, schools and families, a weekly health panel, and a training offer to local providers
• Swindon and East Sussex described how they are building and empowering local services and providers to be “Child First” in word and deed.
• We also had a session led by Sharon Gray (YJB Board Member) and Marius Frank (leading the YJ SEND Quality Mark process since 2016) looking at the future of Child First Practice

For access to all previous webinars, and to sign up for new webinars, 

please contact: education@microlinkpc.com