Mapping Innovation

We work to promote the best of Britain’s innovative justice practice.
Kairos is a Coventry-based women's charity who have developed a womens justice support service for women who are in contact with the criminal justice system who are also subject to, or at risk of, sexual exploitation.
The Sunflower Women's Centre is the first and only women's centre in Plymouth. They offer a wrap-around service for women with a range of complex needs.
Fresh Start offers support to mothers who have had one or more of their children removed through family court proceedings.
Reflect offers support to parents in Swansea who have had a child or multiple children removed from their care through care proceedings.
Mpower is a service delivered by Ormiston Families that aims to support parents who have had children removed from their care.
NEST (Nurture Empower Safe Together) is a service in Rochdale that takes a different approach to working with parents and their partners who have experienced recurrent care proceedings.
The Y2A Hub is a multi-agency hub for all young people on probation in Newham, which offers a developmentally appropriate and maturity-informed approach, supporting young people to gradually become adults.
Humberside Police have developed a diversion programme for clients of sex workers, which sits alongside their work to safeguard sex workers in the area.
The Glasgow Youth Court is a judicially led problem solving court for 16–24-year-olds, functioning within the Glasgow Sheriff Court.
We spoke to Michael O’Connor, Swindon’s Youth and Community Transformation Lead, about their Child First approach to Youth Justice and identity development for desistance model.
Youth Court Solutions (YCS) is an independent advice and support service based in Wellingborough Magistrates Court, delivering to the whole county youth cohort once every fortnight.
Boxing Clever ​​​​​​​addresses issues such as increasing youth violence and the exploitation of young people in Milton Keynes by giving young people access to tools, support and passion for sport and aims to create a more connected community by breaking down postcode barriers.
Parrallel Lives provides a therapeutic environment to families who have experienced Adolescent to Parent Violence/Abuse (APVA) in Swansea and Cardiff.
LEPH (Law Enforcement Public Health) Link is a brief intervention and signposting app, inspired by public health principles.
Devon and Cornwall Police have adapted their existing Deferred Prosecution Scheme for 18-25s and Care Leavers.
CFO Activity Hubs support individuals on licence or a community order to reintegrate into their local communities.
Flourish is a therapeutic outreach service for women in Lambeth who have experience of care proceedings or the removal of a child from their care and are at risk of recurrent care proceedings.
Cleveland Divert aims to divert individuals who have committed a first-time or low-level offence away from the criminal justice system by addressing the underlying causes of the offending behaviour.
Together for Childhood is a long-term project that uses a place-based approach in four communities to prevent child abuse.
Agnes Wootton, Re-Frame Service Manager, tells us about their current RCT and the future of this early intervention, youth diversion programme.
Established in 1996, Everyman Project was a counselling service for men who wanted help to cease their violent and/or abusive behaviours.
“Not just ring champions, but life champions.”
My Ally is a service run by Watford Women’s Centre that provides emotional and practical support, via a support line and e-mail, to women who have been subjected to domestic abuse.
Cranstoun’s West Midlands Arrest Referral Service aims to reduce the cycle of crime and substance use by assessing individuals who may be eligible for an alternative to custody.
Future Living is a registered charity in Hertford that supports individuals who have been subject to domestic abuse. The Monica Programme is an ongoing support group therapy offered to women and Wise Guys is a programme specifically for male victims of domestic abuse.
The Out of Court Diversion Suite aims to divert individuals who commit low-level offences out of the court system by referring them to partner agencies that take a trauma-informed approach to address their offending behaviour. Brighter Tomorrows is a pilot programme that aims to tackle the complex needs of female offenders so that they are less likely to re-offend.
Suffolk Positive Futures (SPF) provides outreach sports sessions as interventions to directly engage with young people within troubled communities.
Safe Video Link Evidence Facilities are remote sites in Wales where survivors of domestic abuse and sexual violence can deliver their evidence in a safe and secure environment.
The Caring Dads Programme in Leeds is a motivational intervention for fathers to address abusive behaviours and improve relationships with their children.
Lifelong Links is a programme developed by Family Rights Group to connect young people in care to a support network of people who are important to them.
This specialist court model employs a multi-agency approach to provide a more effective response to processing domestic abuse cases within the criminal justice system.
The DAISY Programme is an attachment based perinatal programme for parents who have had a previous child removed from their care.
Family Safeguarding is a strengths-based, whole-family approach to child protection. It brings together all professionals working with a family in one multi-disciplinary team with the goal of keeping more children safely at home with their families.
Through the Local Criminal Justice Board, a number of out of court disposal pathways designed to encompass a broad demographic have been established, offering support and diversion away from formal court proceedings.
Northumbria police have established an innovative hub which centralises their multifaceted diversion programme, facilitating better decision making and improved outcomes for service users and communities.
This screening, treatment and diversion pathway, was developed to identify the links between gambling related harms and crime, to provide individuals with the opportunity to access the appropriate treatment service provision.
Stockport’s Supporting Families Employment Advisers, provide support with training, education and employment. They also accept referrals from the local Family Drug and Alcohol Court, providing holistic multi-agency support via the wider Supporting Families framework.
This multi-agency, early intervention project, supports the well-being of vulnerable and expectant parents. The project aims to break the links between early disadvantages - social and health inequalities - and poor future outcomes for families by providing wide-ranging support.
For Baby’s Sake is an innovative programme which takes a whole family approach to breaking the cycle of domestic abuse and childhood trauma for expectant parents and babies alike.
The Harm Reduction Unit enables criminal, health and social justice agencies to work together at a local level to manage the risks associated with stalking and domestic abuse and to support victims.
The unification of these schemes is the result of a commissioning partnership between statutory agencies in Wales, building upon the good practice developed during the schemes’ respective pilots.
This innovative and intensive programme supports parents, mothers and fathers, who have had children removed from their care in the past and are at risk of recurrent care proceedings.
The Child Impact Assessment is a framework for understanding more about the impact on a child of having their primary carer in the criminal justice system, and ensuring they are listened to and supported at each stage of the process.
Project CARA is a risk assessed response to domestic abuse instances, which aims to prevent further abusive behaviour by raising awareness of the impact on victims.
This course offers the chance for people to understand and address hate crime related behaviour, while also offering the opportunity to engage in restorative justice.
This voluntary referral scheme takes a public health and educational approach to the use of drugs. It is used as a method of diversion away from criminal sanctions for those caught in ‘simple possession’ of controlled drugs.
Parenting Apart Programme (PAP), supports separated and divorced parents understand the harm and impact of entrenched conflict by helping parents to see separation through the eyes of their children.
Out-of-court reviews of Youth Rehabilitation Orders provide an opportunity for magistrates to encourage and support children on YROs and promotes a collaborative approach between the youth offending service and magistracy.
New Chance is an adult diversion scheme for women based in the West Midlands. Participants are referred by police and are given access to a programme of tailored support.
The Footprints scheme seeks to divert women away from the criminal justice system through the use of out of court disposals and participants are supported to address a range of needs.
This drug diversion scheme aims to reduce the harm caused by the use of drugs and drug-related offences by diverting people into a community resolution and access to drug treatment and support.
Checkpoint Plus is an adult diversion scheme that diverts women out of the formal criminal justice system into a holistic support package.
North West BCU (Borough Command Unit) operates a police-led deferred prosecution scheme called Turning Point. Youth diversion forms part of Turning Point and contributes as another alternative to youth out-of-court disposals (OoCDs) available.
The Triage scheme provides diversionary out of court interventions to young people that are tailored to their needs and interests and includes continued support for the young person.
Glasgow Alcohol Court was established in 2018 and seeks to reduce the rates of reoffending by supporting individuals who offend with their underlying alcohol issues.
CASSPLUS is a community advice service in Devon and Cornwall which offers practical advice, personal support and help to access services to court users with the aim of reducing reoffending.
C3 targets individuals who are engaged in prolific, non-violent adult residential burglary offending. Participants are given a deferred sentence and an intensive community sentence plan tailored to their individual needs.
The Glasgow Drug Court aims to reduce drug misuse and related offending. If accepted on the programme, participants must engage in drug treatment, regular drug testing, and court reviews to monitor progress.
The Edinburgh APSC is aimed at adult men with a pattern of low-level alcohol-related offending. They receive a community order incorporating addiction treatment, regular judicial reviews and support with additional needs.
The Community Advice service is a free and confidential support service at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court. It offers practical and emotional support for individuals appearing in court and their family members.
Pathfinder is a Deferred Caution and Deferred Charge scheme run by Devon and Cornwall Police. The diversion scheme aims to reduce harm and re-offending through the use of interventions with a strong community focus.
The Best Services Trial is an ongoing trial of the New Orleans Intervention Model which aims to improve the long-term mental health and placement stability of infants in foster or kinship care through clinical intervention.
Love Barrow Families helps local families by supporting parents to address their underlying problems with the aim of reducing the numbers of children entering the care system.
FDAC is a therapeutic, problem-solving court model which aims to provide parents with intensive support to help them to address their drug and alcohol issues, and reduce the numbers of children in care.
NBFCIO is a charity in Stockport that works with parents who are involved with children’s services but have underlying issues. By addressing and building emotional resistance through the Trauma-Informed Programme, parents are able to meet their children’s needs.
The EAT programme is a police-led initiative in Wales that seeks to establish a multi-agency approach to tackling offending behaviour by identifying and supporting people who have experienced Adverse Childhood Experiences.
The Promoting Positive Relationships Programme is a non-adjudicated preventative group programme that was developed for men at risk of being abusive in intimate relationships.
The Aspire programme was set up to support young men who are marginalised from communities and at risk of becoming involved in criminal or paramilitary activity.
The Whole System Approach (WSA) uses an early intervention approach to divert young people away from the criminal justice system and invites agencies to work together to achieve better outcomes.
Aberdeen Problem-Solving Approach (PSA) seeks to reduce the use of short custodial sentences by providing disposals to women and young men with complex needs and multiple previous convictions.
LYFT has created a unified and localised service that delivers an integrative home/community-based model of family therapy to children and young people between 11-18 years and their families.
HMP Holme House is a reform prison that seeks to rehabilitate prisoners through its Drug Recovery Prison Programme (DRP) which helps prisoners to cope with addiction by addressing their underlying issues.
REACH provides intensive multidisciplinary support to families with children who are experiencing multiple complex needs.
A Structured Deferred Sentence (SDS) is an interim disposal option established at the Hamilton and Lanark Sheriff Courts for 16-21 year olds who are not suitable for remittance back to the Children’s Hearings System.
re:shape took a holistic approach to reducing the risk of sexual harm and keeping communities safe by offering tailored interventions to those at risk of causing sexual harm.
The ECO is a community-based alternative to short sentences. With a focus on rehabilitation and desistence, the ECO involves interventions that address criminogenic needs.
Belfast SMC takes a problem-solving approach to help offenders with underlying substance misuse issues. Eligible offenders have their sentences deferred while they engage in an intensive treatment programme.
Break4Change is a programme designed to help parents/carers and children who are involved in Child-to-Parent Abuse and aims to reduce parents’ sense of isolation and the young person’s feelings of entitlement.
This decision-making framework provides police with an innovative tool that they can use to decide whether it is ethically appropriate to investigate cases of non-recent child sexual abuse.
The IVY Project uses a multi-disciplinary approach to provide risk formulation, assessment and intervention for young people who present with complex needs and high risk, violent behaviour.
This course aims to reduce the number of repeat alcohol-related crimes, with particular focus on violence. The programme combines interventions that address both violence and alcohol in conjunction.
Checkpoint is a voluntary adult offender diversion scheme which is aimed at low and moderate level offenders and helps them to identify and address the underlying causes of their offending.
The WONDER project aims to divert women from police custody facilities and help them to access tailored support and address their needs through a multi-agency and collaborative approach.
The CSTR scheme aims to reduce reoffending by improving access to mental health and substance misuse treatment in the community through greater use of treatment requirements in community or suspended sentence orders.
This scheme diverts young people aged 18-25 away from the criminal justice system and into interventions and support to help address their underlying issues and prevent future offending.
The ICO is aimed at men aged 18-25 and offers an intensive community sentence to those who are at risk of a 12-month or less prison sentence and includes support for the individual's families.
These services provide mental health support to people in Dorset who are in contact with the criminal justice system.
These projects in Northamptonshire focus on providing mental health support to eligible women who would otherwise be facing a custodial sentence, and support to people who frequently call the police during crisis moments.
Compulsory sobriety tags were piloted in London, North Yorkshire, Humberside and Lincolnshire to try to tackle a variety of alcohol-related night crimes such as alcohol-fuelled assault. The tags have now been fully rolled out across the whole of England and Wales.
The Whole Systems Approach adopted in Sussex centres on a multi-agency approach to addressing the complex needs of women who are in contact with the justice system by supporting them to access relevant services.
The Complex Youth Scheme was established to provide an early intervention scheme for young people in contact with the criminal justice system to try to tackle issues before they become embedded.
Kent, Surrey & Sussex CRC has implemented a different strategy for supporting women who offend which recognises the complex needs of the women they work with and the need for trauma-informed intervention.
These projects seek to better address the needs of people affected by domestic and/or sexual violence by addressing four strategic pillars concerning VAWG and women in the wider community.
Two projects set up by Northumbria Police, RESPOND and Street Triage Service, aim to improve the way that police and other agencies respond to individuals with mental health issues.
Previously known as the Alcohol Diversion scheme, this course is targeted at first-time offenders or those who commit low-level crimes whilst drunk and offers them the opportunity to pay for and attend a training course on alcohol misuse and risk-taking behaviours.
This screening tool has been developed to allow non-specialist frontline services to be able to identify if someone is affected by problematic gambling and try to engage them into an appropriate treatment option.
This scheme was set up in order to avoid criminalising children unnecessarily. In the police triage scheme, specially-trained officers deal with incidents involving young people within the school environment.
This scheme thuses GPS tagging to monitor the movements of individuals on prison and probation licence conditions in order to track the compliance of prolific offenders with their licence conditions.
Project Future is a coproduced holistic well-being and mental health service that is community-based and works with young people and families who have experience in the criminal justice system (CJS).
The anti-stalking unit was set up to tackle stalking-related incidents and the clinics provide wrap-around support to victims and intervention work is done with perpetrators to prevent and minimise risk.
This diversion scheme was set up to tackle the root causes of offending by offering deferred prosecution and a conditional caution as well as help with issues such as housing, mental health and substance misuse.
The Drug Education Programme (DEP) is a programme that offers individuals caught in possession of drugs a one-time opportunity to attend a course on the topic of addiction within Avon and Somerset.
Project SHE is a point-of-arrest diversion scheme for women who offend within Avon and Somerset. It aims to provide tailored support for women across multiple areas so that they can avoid returning to the criminal justice system.
This youth justice partnership has been working with practitioners from the criminal justice system to pioneer participatory research with young people in the criminal justice system.

This map charts innovative projects happening across the UK’s justice systems. You can search and filter the projects to find things that are most interesting to you.

The Centre for Justice Innovation regularly engages with practitioners to find out what’s exciting them in the world of justice. We want to know what projects practitioners are running that they are most proud of and, just as importantly, the ones a few counties away that are inspiring them.

We are expanding the map so that it not only includes innovations in criminal justice, but also in public family law and the child welfare system. We are keen to hear from practitioners from across the UK about new and exciting initiatives that we can add in all areas. If you would like your work to be included, please get in touch

Before you get in touch, please be aware that in order to be included on our map we require that your project:

  • is led by, delivered in partnership or commissioned by a statutory agency;
  • can demonstrate improved outcomes. In criminal justice, this might be for victims or service-users, or in family justice, for parents and children.
  • is innovative! By that we mean, it is trying something new in your locality or for that particular target group.