Reductions in funding for youth justice interventions and increased workloads have created a need for the effective management and allocation of scarce resources. With the knowledge that many referrals to the service are very low risk and that intervention - and even contact with YJS - could potentially exasperate minor behavioural issues, Ceredigion Youth Justice and Prevention Service (CYJPS) instigated the development of a screening tool to assist case manager’s decision making.

Sitting procedurally before ASSET+, CYSTEM (Ceredigion Youth Screening Tool) has reliably screened out approximately a third of first-time referrals with a very small error rate (<10%). Alongside measures of offending behaviour/anti-social attitudes, importantly CYSTEM identifies vulnerability as a key issue in case management and the need for further assessment. Recently, CYSTEM has been reliably used to identify medium to high risk young people to undertake interventions through a SOC project.