Agenda item

Kay Dargue, Manager - Head of Partnerships will provide a presentation in relation to South Tees Youth Offending Services.

The Chair welcomed the Head of Partnerships to the meeting to provide an overview  of the South Tees Youth Offending Service (STYOS) and its support for children looked after.

A briefing paper had been circulated prior to the meeting and therefore the Head of Service outline she would provide the key points to the Board.

 

In terms of the National context, the Youth Justice Board (YJB) for England and Wales is an independent public body appointed by the Secretary of State for Justice, who have a statutory responsibility to oversee the whole of the youth justice system.  The YJB published their Strategic plan 2021-2024 in October 2021 and the document outlines their vision, mission statement, and three strategic priorities which are underpinned by the central guiding principle of a ‘Child First’ youth justice system.  

 

The YJB are clear that the justice system must see “children as children first, and offenders second”. In line with the Child First vision, the YJB wants to make sure that children are not unnecessarily criminalised as a result of their vulnerabilities and the challenges they face.

In order to achieve these strategic aims, Youth Offending Service’s are required to produce a Youth Justice Plan each year which details their local priorities. South Tees Youth Offending Service has developed a strategic youth justice plan for 2021-22 aligned to the values of the YJB, and as part of this will look to embed the child first principle in to operational practice.

Youth Offending Service’s have three key strategic priorities on which they are measured;

 

Ø  To reduce first time entrants to the youth justice system

Ø  To prevent re-offending by children and young people

Ø  Reduce the use of custody for young people (both sentenced and remanded)

Quarterly performance data is returned to the YJB in relation to the three national outcome measures, and also reported to the STYOS Management Board along with a number of other performance indicators. 

 

In terms of the role of Youth Offending Services;

 

Ø  Youth offending teams (YOTs) supervise 10–18-year-olds who have been sentenced by a court, or who have come to the attention of the police because of their offending behaviour but have not been charged – instead, they were dealt with out of court (Out Of Court Disposal).

Ø  YOTs are statutory partnerships, and are multidisciplinary, to deal with the needs of the whole child.

Ø  The service was required to have staff from local authority social care and education, the police, the National Probation Service and local health services

Ø  The Youth Justice Board (YJB) provides some funding to YOTs. The YJB also monitors our performance and issues guidance about how things are to be done (for example National Standards)

Ø  HMIP are their regulating body

 

In terms of the Youth Justice Plan, The STYOS 2021-2022 Youth Justice Plan was submitted to the YJB in June 21. The Plan details:

Ø  YOS Performance 2020-21

Ø  The YOS Budget for 2021-22

Ø  Details of Service Structures

Ø  Staffing Arrangements

Ø  Partnership Arrangements

Ø  Risks to Service Delivery

Ø  Service Priorities for 2021-22

In terms of caseload demographics, the Head of service showed a table which showed a data snapshot, which outlined that the majority of young people who have been open to the service within this six month time frame were white British boys aged 17, 15% of whom were looked after children, however this figure is changeable.

The profile of the types of offences committed by young people and the factors impacting on the offending by young people were detailed in the STYOS Youth Justice Plan.

 

In terms of what STYOS can offer children looked after, the Head of service outlined that: STYOS:

•          Work with care home staff and Police to identify appropriate responses to young people who offend in residential settings, including the use of restorative intervention as a solution to challenging behaviours

•          Ensure active STYOS attendance at all planning or strategy meetings for young people with CLA status

•          STYOS safeguarding case managers provide an essential link to Children’s Services teams in both Local Authorities as well as providing advice and guidance to colleagues on safeguarding issues and processes.

•          Ensure all Intervention Plans for CLA are shared with young people, their carers and colleagues from Children’s Services

•          Developed joint supervision arrangements between STYOS and Middlesbrough Children’s Services

•          Developed a working agreement between STYOS and Early Help to ensure joint planning and supervision arrangements are in place, the aim being to reduce escalation in the criminal justice and / or looked after system by working collaboratively.

•          STYOS provide a ‘single points of contact’ for the Multi Agency Children’s Hub to provide information and advice on young people known to STYOS.

•          Reciprocal arrangements are in place to offer access to case management systems and this allows the MACH to ascertain if the case is open to STYOS and/or YOS staff to systems to identify if new referrals are known to children’s services and ensure that joint working commences at the earliest opportunity.

In terms of key development over the past year towards supporting children looked after.

In 2019, STYOS was inspected and HMIP recommended that ‘there is specialist education provision, in the Youth Offending Service to meet the needs of children and young people who are not accessing suitable education’.  The link between education and YOS was key as we know there is a risk of ‘NEET’ young people becoming involved in criminality. A member of staff was employed to specifically look at this and there have been three key developments in the last 12 months:

 

1. Strengthened the relationship with the Virtual school and have developed a joint protocol. This joint working improves communication and supports the Virtual school to create robust Personal Education Plans, and enables young people to be identified for support at an earlier point.
2. They have developed a Children looked After (CLA) ‘NEET’ forum – Information Sharing Agreement in place with Middlesbrough College has been written which enables Looked After Children to be supported by the College to reduce their risk of becoming NEET.
3. Joint Custody protocol - for young people who are given custodial sentences. Protocol aims to improve information flow, and robust planning in place to improve the transition between the community and custodial establishment to aid resettlement.

STYOS recognises the needs to offer an ‘over and above’ service to our Looked After Children.

• Caseloads are monitored to ensure we do not have over representation in the criminal justice system
• Systems and processes in place to robustly manage our CLA in our service
• Collaborative and joined up work with partners. Protocols and joint working arrangements ensure clear lines of accountability.
• Young people are offered a good service, appropriate to their need and supported by trained, skilled professionals

Challenges and next steps:

•          Covid – adapted ways of working with our young people, and will continue to ensuring the right digital solutions are in place.

•          Developing  understanding and responding to the risks presented by young people at risk of or involved in serious violent crime and exploitation. This was a strategic priority.

•          Prevention – longer term sustainability of the current model to divert young people including CLA away from the criminal justice system. Prevention is not a statutory function and YOTs do not receive specific funding, therefore we are exploring longer term funding solutions and continue to work with colleagues in community safety and the police to try and divert young people from the CJS.

•          Embed the positive developments in ETE and monitor the impact of this work

•          Progress will be monitored via YOS Management, YOS Board and YJB.

Following the presentation, a Board member queried whether the service sees new cases or generally repeat offenders. In response, the Head of Service advised it was a mix, as they do have a reduction of first time entrants coming through the system but have a challenge as have about 50% who come through as repeat offenders.

 

Another Board member asked for clarity in terms of STYOS partners and what were the consequences for the young people who did not comply to their terms.

 

In terms of Statutory partners, STYOS link with the Local Authority, collegues in Social Care, Cleveland police, the national probation service, and health but also have partnerships with numerous voluntary services e.g. who deal with substance misuse.

 

In terms of the consequences for young people, it depends at what starting point they come in to the system. There are numerous sanctions and disposals (out of court/ in court). Regardless, the disposals and outcomes are carefully considered to ensure the decision is right for the young person and also the community, SYTOS have offending behavior programmes (1:1 or group) and restorative justice practitioners engage with all identifiable victims of youth crime, restorative practice was a strategic priority for STYOS in 21/22 and the service is working towards an accreditation status. In terms of consequences for those who don’t comply with their disposal they are either returned to Police (if on an out of court disposal), or dealt with via breach process in the Court arena. Non-compliance is taken very seriously and the service ensure that enforcement action is taken where appropriate.

A Board member also asked whether it would be possible to look at the reoffending rates of when they do end the order, looking at the whole situation and why they do reoffend.

STYOS carefully track and monitor re-offending however are not currently informed of offences committed by a young person after the age of 17. These post-18 offences impact the reoffending data and so is not comparable with nationally published reoffending statistics. Re-offending figures are reported to the Board and YJB on a quarterly basis.

 

The Head of Service was thanked for her presentation.

 

AGREED- that the information be noted.