Health and Family Services Minister Patrice Minors on Friday provided an update on the National Strategy to Counter Youthful Offending.

Ms Minors said there were many challenges facing and presented by the Island?s youth, an issue that concerned everyone.

She said a steering committee comprised of representatives from a cross section of the private sector and several Ministries ? Health and Family Services, Education and Development, Labour, Home Affairs and Public Safety, Community Affairs and Sport ? had been working to expand on the framework for this strategy and sought to address the matters of juvenile justice, prevention and programme and services delivery in a collaborative manner.

She said the aim was to implement the strategy by the first quarter of 2006.

Ms Minors told the House that the steering committee had broken up into sub-committees inclusive of prevention, programmes and legislation.

These sub-committees, she said, embraced a wider spectrum of the community for participation by the Island?s youth.

?Programmes and services are geared at empowering our young people, building self-esteem, self-sufficiency, modelling, mentoring and strategic interventions to change negative behaviour and thought patterns,? she said.

The objectives of the programme are:

To review the present responses to offending and re-offending by young people.

To establish a delivery mechanism to co-ordinate the prevention of and response to offending and re-offending.

To develop consistent and comprehensive data and information about youthful offending to support effective interventions, policies and practices.

To pro-actively create a sense of well-being and resilience through systematic interventions for youth.

To create appropriate and proportionate response when offending and other behaviours first come to the attention of the police, schools, social or community agencies, with diversion as a key.

To develop a team of professional that will assist and support our youth to comprehensively and collaboratively address issues.

Ms Minors said she recognised that any system will not bring automatic results.

?However, it is strongly believed that this strategy will champion efforts of addressing and preventing offending. In this regard, it is paramount that we build on foundations set by previous studies and committees, yet we must broaden the continuum of services and programmes to target youth who are at risk and divert them from the criminal justice system,? she said.

Ms Minors said every opportunity would be presented to youth to redirect anti-social behaviours and provide greater opportunities for them to become productive and progressive members in the community.

Additionally, she said, the Ministry would engage positive peer mentoring.

?It is clear that we must gather and analyse data in a co-ordinated manner to enable us to strategically assess trends, plan programmes and systematically apply prevention, intervention, treatment and aftercare services,? she said.

Adding that this would maximise resources, fill gaps and minimise duplication of services and in this regard, effectively deal with issues related to our youth, especially those at risk of offending and other related behaviours. Ms Minors said this strategy embraces and promotes a holistic approach to countering youthful offending.