Memorandum submitted by the Youth Justice
Board for England and Wales (YJB)
INTRODUCTION
1. The Youth Justice Board for England and
Wales (YJB) welcomes the inquiry and the opportunity to submit
written evidence. We would be pleased to provide any further information
that may be of assistance.
ROLE OF
THE YJB
2. The role of the YJB is to oversee the
youth justice system in England and Wales. It works to prevent
offending and reoffending by children and young people under the
age of 18, and to ensure that custody for them is safe, secure,
and addresses the causes of their offending behaviour. The statutory
responsibilities of the YJB include:
— purchasing places for, and placing, children
and young people remanded or sentenced to custody;
— identifying and promoting effective practice;
— making grants to local authorities and
other bodies to support the development of effective practice,
and
— commissioning research and publishing
information.
While the YJB is responsible for overseeing
the performance of youth justice services including multi-agency
Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) and secure estate providers it does
not directly manage any of the services.
3. This paper seeks to provide the Committee
with information about a range of specialist training available
to social workers who work in the youth justice field. It provides
some general comments about the relationship between youth justice
services and the wider children's service workforce, and outlines
examples of existing training models available to youth justice
practitioners, highlighting cross over with social workers where
appropriate. The information provided here forms a brief overview
only and we would be pleased to provide the Committee with any
further details of the range of training available to the youth
justice workforce that may be of assistance to the inquiry.
THE RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN YOUTH
JUSTICE SERVICES,
SOCIAL WORKERS
AND WIDER
CHILDREN'S
SERVICES—GENERAL
COMMENTS
4. There are clear and interdependent links
between youth justice services and wider children and families'
services, including social workers. The great majority of YOTs
are located within children's service departments and all work
exclusively with children and young people. Social workers play
an important role in the multi-disciplinary YOT workforce. Whilst
police and probation officers bring good experience of the criminal
justice system to YOTs, social workers can bring well established
understanding of young people's development, issues around transitions
in young people's lives and safeguarding expertise. The training
and experience social workers bring to YOTs frequently provides
valuable insight into more complex cases and, as such, social
workers often come into contact and manage some of the most high
risk and vulnerable young people known to the YOT.
5. Social workers also play a key part in the
YOT's supervision of children and young people who are looked
after and are therefore also receiving services from local authority
children's services departments. The link back to the local authority
is vital and social workers are well placed to engage with a range
of local resources to support young people at risk of offending.
6. Youth justice services are an essential
component of the services available when measures to safeguard
a child's welfare are taken. Safeguarding the needs of children
and young people in the youth justice system is essential and
the YJB is keen to ensure that young people have access to mainstream
services at every stage of the youth justice system.
TRAINING AVAILABLE
TO THE
YOUTH JUSTICE
WORKFORCE, INCLUDING
SOCIAL WORKERS
7. Workforce development is one of the most
effective ways of improving the performance of youth justice services
and, as such, the YJB has implemented a workforce development
strategy for frontline staff in the youth justice system. Our
Workforce Development Strategy 2008-11, which sets out the latest
phase of our strategy, is designed to take account of Welsh Assembly
Government-led workforce developments in Wales and is aligned
with the Department for Children Schools and Families' recent
Children's Workforce Strategy in England. Given the relationship
between youth justice services and wider children's services,
our workforce development strategy has significant cross-over
with children service professionals including social workers.
8. The YJB has in place a range of professional
qualifications open to all youth justice staff both in the secure
estate and YOTs, including YOT-based social workers. The Youth
Justice National Qualification Framework (YJNQF), introduced in
2003, gives staff who work in YOTs the opportunity to undertake
specialist training within the youth justice field. At the heart
of the YJNQF is the Youth Justice Foundation Degree, one module
of which is the Professional Certificate in Effective Practice.
Between 2003 and 2006, 80% of the youth justice workforce gained
this qualification, including a significant number of social workers
who did so as a means of demonstrating their competence in Youth
Justice.
9. The current social work undergraduate
degree contains limited input on youth justice and unless a social
worker undertakes a placement in a YOT as part of their social
work degree, their specific knowledge of youth justice issues
can sometimes be incomplete upon completion of the course. The
YJNQF provides a comprehensive structure for social workers already
holding a social work qualification to add specific knowledge
and understanding of the youth justice field to their highly relevant
skills in working with children and young people.
10. To prepare practitioners for the changes
which will be introduced when the Youth Rehabilitation Order is
implemented in November 2009, the YJB is currently facilitating
an accredited training course, available through the Open University,
to provide practitioners with the knowledge and skills required
to implement the forthcoming changes. Social workers are encouraged
to undertake this course alongside other practitioners from YOTs
and the secure estate.
11. Social workers, like all other YOT staff,
have access to the Youth Justice Interactive Learning Space (YJILS),
an online learning resource developed by the YJB in partnership
with the Open University. YJILS allows YOT managers and staff
to build upon their knowledge of evidence-based effective practice
through a set of 10 professional development resources. The YJB
is continuing to develop YJILS, which will also contain common
core material and other essential areas including public protection,
safeguarding and working with children and young people in a secure
environment.
12. The YJB would support a more flexible
entry route and approach to training for social workers and is
currently working with the Open University to explore the possibility
of a joint social work/youth justice degree.
Social worker posts in the under-18 secure estate
13. The YJB believes it is vital for staff
working in the under-18 secure estate to receive training to effectively
safeguarding children and young people. The Children's Act 2004
places responsibility for safeguarding and promoting welfare on
the providers of custody for children and young people among others
and the YJB therefore has a key role to play in developing and
promoting effective safeguarding practice, ensuring secure establishments
are supported to deliver these measures and monitoring their performance.
14. Following a 2003 joint review of child protection
and safeguarding practices across young offender institutions
(YOIs) with HM Prison Service, the YJB undertook a programme of
work to improve safeguarding practices in the under-18 secure
estate. A key initiative was the introduction of local authority
social worker posts in YOIs housing under-18s to meet the welfare
needs of young people in custody. These dedicated social workers
undertake a range of functions, including services in relation
to looked-after children and relevant care leavers, safeguarding
measures and services where there is concern that a child is suffering
harm, is seriously injured or where a death in custody occurs.
15. These social workers fulfil an extremely
important function and the YJB therefore welcomed the recent announcement
from the Association of Directors of Children's Services that,
following discussions with government and stakeholder colleagues,
an agreement had been reached to continue funding social worker
posts in YOIs.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
INCLUDING LORD
LAMING'S
PROGRESS REPORT
16. The YJB broadly welcomes Lord Laming's
recent report The Protection of Children in England: A Progress
Report, which addresses a number of issues of relevance to
the youth justice system and provides a useful opportunity to
further embed youth justice services within the child protection
agenda. The focus on multi-agency working is welcome and the YJB
is keen to ensure that measures to improve child protection practices
are made available not only to staff in YOTs but also to those
working in the under-18 secure estate. In particular the YJB would
support the recommendation for senior leaders and managers across
frontline services to receive regular training on safeguarding
measures and effective leadership to include senior managers in
the youth justice system including YOT managers.
17. The Laming report includes a number of recommendations
for the Social Work Task Force around the development of a national
social worker supply strategy, clear progression routes for children's
social workers and national guidelines on caseloads. The YJB is
contributing to the deliberations of the Social Work Task Force
and it is hoped the Task Force's report, expected in October 2009,
will provide a useful opportunity to promote further synergy between
social worker qualifications and the YJNQF, and articulate precise
requirements on social workers in YOTs. Staff within YOTs form
a key part of the children's workforce and the YJB is keen to
ensure that measures to improve practitioner skills around child
protection and safeguarding are accessible to youth justice practitioners.
The YJB will therefore seek to work with the Department for Children,
Schools and Families (DCSF) to ensure that youth justice staff
have access to the multi-agency training required of Children's
Trusts in order to develop practitioners and managers confidence
in relation to safeguarding.
18. A number of discussions have taken place
between the YJB, DCSF, General Social Care Council, Children's
Workforce Development Council and Skills for Justice about the
needs of the youth justice workforce. The YJB is contributing
to the DCSF consultation on the young peoples workforce reform
programme including discussions about Youth Professional Status
and the Skills development framework.
ASSESSMENT OF
CHILDREN AND
YOUNG PEOPLE
19. The Laming report also makes a number
of references to the importance of assessing children and young
people's needs and the development of guidance on referral and
assessment systems for children affected by domestic violence,
adult mental health problems and alcohol misuse.
20. Youth justice practitioners currently have
access to a range of specialist youth justice assessment tools
which support the identification of needs and risks, understanding
of behaviour patterns and the planning of effective interventions.
21. The YJB has developed Asset, the common
structured framework used by YOTs in England and Wales for assessment
of all young people involved in the criminal justice system. Asset
is a standard assessment of factors contributing to a young person's
offending and the information gathered can be used to inform court
reports, allowing appropriate intervention programmes to be drawn
up.
22. On behalf of the YJB, the Centre for
Criminology, University of Oxford, developed the Onset referral
and assessment framework, designed to promote the YJB's prevention
strategy by helping to identify risk factors to be reduced and
protective factors to be enhanced. It also provides information
which might be helpful in selecting appropriate interventions
for those identified as needing early intervention. The YJB's
National Standards for Youth Justice include guidelines for assessment
and we have published our Key Elements of Effective Practice—Assessment,
Planning, Interventions and Supervision guidance document to support
practitioners use the assessment tools effectively.
23. The interface between these specialist
youth justice assessment tools and the Common Assessment Framework
(CAF), designed to assess the needs of children and young people
at the early intervention stage, is crucial to child protection
and safeguarding measures. The YJB published guidance in 2006
intended to help practitioners use CAF effectively while continuing
to use the Onset and Asset assessment method for young people
involved in, or at risk of being involved in, offending behaviour.
The YJB will seek to further clarify the relationship between
CAF and specialist youth justice assessment tools with DCSF. In
addition, we are currently undertaking work to scope the potential
for developing an assessment strategy for the youth justice system.
Among other issues, the need for youth justice services to communicate
the outcomes of assessments to partner agencies will be considered
as part of this work.
May 2009
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