Overview

There are education, prevention and personal development programs available to help divert youth away from custody.  

Community programs for youth who have been in conflict with the law can respond to a youth’s individual risks, needs and strengths. Many of these programs are an alternative to custody and/or detention.

The youth justice system provides programs to help achieve measurable outcomes such as:

  • improved functioning and pro-social behaviours
  • increased skills and abilities
  • increased youth engagement with supports
  • decreased re-offending

Find programs and services in your community

Kids Help Phone is a good starting point. It’s free and anonymous.

Youth can also call Toll-free: 1-800-668-6868 to speak to a counsellor 24/7.

To find the right services in your community you can:

Support for mental health, drug and alcohol abuse

Poor mental health can put youth at risk of getting in trouble with the law.

Find mental health support for children and youth under 18 years of age.

There are ways to identify if youth may need mental health support. Read the signs and symptoms of mental illness in children and youth.

You can learn more from organizations in your community. Learn about youth mental health and how to get support at:

Programs, services and supports for youth

There are agencies and locations with programs for:

School and learning

Ontario provides programs and support to help youth:

Help for organizations

If you’re a professional organization that serves youth, the Youth Collective Impact Program and the Youth Research and Evaluation eXchange have resources that you might find helpful.

Youth Collective Impact Program (Youth CI)

Youth CI helps organizations in communities across Ontario learn about, develop, launch and implement collective impact approaches that directly improve outcomes for youth in their community. Youth CI also provides grants to youth-focused, youth-led and youth-serving collaboratives to seek innovative approaches that address deep-rooted issues impacting youth and families in local communities. These initiatives address a broad set of social issues such as youth homelessness, employment, social inclusion, community safety, high school graduation rates, and youth incarceration.

Youth Research and Evaluation eXchange (YouthREX)

The Youth Research and Evaluation eXchange (in partnership with York University) provides knowledge mobilization and capacity building services to youth-led organizations across Ontario.

Youth serving organizations can contact YouthREX at info@youthrex.com for support.

Youth Justice Outcomes Framework

Youth justice programs are committed to improving outcomes for all youth who come into contact with the law. As of 2014, we have system-wide goals that build on our continued efforts to reduce re-offending. This initiative measures our impact on the youth we serve to inspire success.

Four measurable outcomes

We measure four key outcomes for youth in conflict with the law. Each outcome has related indicators that define how we track our progress.

Outcome 1: improved functioning and positive social behaviours

Indicators are:

  • increased recognition of impact of behaviours
  • improved social functioning and positive social behaviours
  • decreased risk behaviours

Outcome 2: increased skills and abilities

Indicators are:

  • increased problem solving ability
  • increased skills and training
  • increased life-skills

Outcome 3: increased youth engagement with supports

Indicators are:

  • improved transitions (for example, with other supports such as mental health)
  • increased youth engagement with community and family supports
  • increased youth engagement with structured supports

Outcome 4: decreased re-offending

Indicators are:

  • decreased recidivism
  • decreased frequency of offences
  • decreased severity of offences

To measure our impact, we are gathering information from multiple sources. The framework combines existing data, such as assessments with new source, including experience surveys. These surveys give youth and their families a say in the services that affect them.

What’s next

The framework is centred on youth. Outcome data will help us make evidence-based decisions to improve our services across Ontario.

We are working to make outcome data available to the public while protecting youth privacy. Opening up this data helps keep us accountable. It also encourages collaboration on new ways to serve youth in, or at risk of, conflict with the law.