`Justice Professionals` are part of advisory councils, where their role is to bring a justice system perspective forward when providing strategic advice (for example, they are aware of community strengths, weaknesses, and issues from different perspectives). They also help identify possibilities for co-operation within their sector and associated initiatives or programs.
Child and family services, youth protection services, and police departments are often engaged as partners or stakeholders in IYS initiatives. They are engaged to help increase awareness and knowledge of the service, as well as the capacity to refer youth to the IYS initiative at hand. Essentially, this is meant to build up the community`s early identification capacity and create more robust referral pathways for youth who may be considered part of a `high-risk` population.
These partners, or members of advisory committees, are often engaged at the establishment stage of initiatives. Organizations tend to conduct some form of community assessment to identify the resources and services that are already available in the community, including child protective services, police-related programs, etc. The findings of these assessments are taken into consideration when identifying potential partners to engage.