A service that works with young people who have committed crimes must improve after inspectors found case workers did not do enough to understand how to support a child’s safety.

The Kent Youth Justice Service (YJS), which works with children aged 10 to 17 who have appeared before the courts or have been given cautions or community resolutions by police, was inspected by HM Inspectorate of Probation.

Inspectors found that the services planning, assessment, staff and reviewing sectors were all either inadequate or required improvement and although YJS recognised the link between building relationships and successful outcomes, there was a lack of consistency in the quality of case management across teams.

However, the assessors did find staff had been under extreme pressure as a result of the pandemic, and had been working in difficult circumstances.

It was revealed the assessment reflected a ‘difficult period’ for practitioners with a significant impact of Covid-19 on staff, and children under their supervision.

Justin Russell, from HM Inspectorate of Probation, said: “This has been a difficult period for practitioners at Kent Youth Justice Service.

"We found inconsistencies in the level of management oversight and in the support offered to new staff.

"However, they have strong leadership and where we have made recommendations to strengthen the service, we have every confidence these will be implemented quickly and effectively.”

Despite the issues raised the inspectors did congratulate Kent YJS staff for their work in the pandemic and praised them for continuing to provide children with consistent access to essential services.

However, where the service may have excelled in stopping young people from re-offending, in too many cases inspectors found its planning to keep children and other people safe, did not meet the standards expected.

The report explained that not all staff have sufficient knowledge and skills to manage the cases allocated to them and work to keep victims safe was not given enough priority.

However, these problems aside, Kent YJS was rated as outstanding on its partnerships and services and information and facilities sectors.

Inspectors reported that practitioners are passionate about their work with children and the Kent County Youth Justice Board works effectively.

Mr Russell added: “There is a lot for Kent YJS to be proud of – it demonstrates outstanding commitment to integrated services, partnerships and to ensuring children under its supervision have access to appropriate facilities.

"The inconsistencies should be relatively straightforward to solve."

Mr Russell finished: “The accomplishment of the service in their work with children and understanding their needs, is countered with discrepancies in the quality of assessment and planning, and the priority given to protecting victims."

Recommendations made by the HM Inspectorate of Probation included that the YJS should focus more on protecting victims and should be more consistent with managing cases.

The Kent YSJ was rated on a scale-out of four categories which included: 'outstanding', 'good', 'requires improvement' and 'inadequate', its points were then tallied up for an overall rating of requires improvement.

Matt Dunkley, the director of children, young people and education at Kent County Council said: “The HMIP inspection of Kent Youth Justice highlighted the passion, commitment and achievements of the workforce, partners and leadership, during the challenging circumstances of the Covid pandemic.

“As reflected in the overall grading of ‘requires improvement’, Kent Youth Justice acknowledges that our articulation of assessments and plans were inadequate during the period inspected.

"We are investing in the training, support and capacity of front-line practitioners and managers to ensure we meet these standards.

"We're now recruiting for an exceptional operational Service Manager to lead our improvement journey and we share the HMIP confidence in our ability to achieve our ambitions quickly and effectively.

“Kent Youth Justice is a strong partnership which achieves its principle aim of reducing the offending and re-offending of children.

"HMIP noted our work to support the desistance of offending amongst children as 'excellent', and this is reflected in Kent’s rate of re-offending (34%) being lower than the national average (38%).

"We are proud that despite the challenges of the pandemic, our child-focussed approaches kept the public safe from harm during this exceptional time.”

To view the full report click here.

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