Resettlement provision for children and young ... - Ministry of Justice

Despite their key role, the attendance of social workers at training planning meetings for looked
after children was poor. In contrast, relationships with community-based youth offending teams
(YOTs) were well developed and YOT case managers normally attended training planning
meetings. However, plans were not always finalised in time for the pre-release meeting which,
understandably, worried young people and frustrated case supervisors. Two of the 61 young
men interviewed said that not having accommodation had prevented their early release, but no
establishments monitored this. It was not evident that discussions were taking place about
whether accommodation arrangements set up at the point of release were suitable and
sustainable.
In our case sample, 61% of young men said they would be living with family on release and the
majority were optimistic about it as they felt their family’s support was the key to their
successful resettlement. Although establishments realised the importance of young people
maintaining contact with family where appropriate and encouraged it, more structured work
needed to be done to rebuild or maintain relationships while young people were in custody.
This left two-fifths of our sample who required accommodation to be arranged for their release,
which was a vital step before other release plans could be put in place. Case supervisors
reported a range of barriers to finding suitable accommodation, including a limited supply of
local authority housing and issues around the young person’s behaviour or offence. They also
reported a range of barriers to arranging ETE for release, including limited availability in the
community. At the time of interview, only 14 of the 48 young men who said they wanted to
continue education had a place arranged. Worryingly, of the 42 young men who said they
wanted to work (either full-time or part-time alongside education), only nine reported that they
had a job arranged on release – and for seven of these it had been arranged through family,
without help from the establishment or the YOT.
Follow-up information was requested from case supervisors on what happened to the young
men in our case sample on release and a month later, with information received for 41 and 37
of the young men respectively. Only 13 young men (32%) had both suitable accommodation
(as assessed by case supervisors) and ETE on release. Two, including a looked after child,
were forced to report as homeless. One in five were placed in accommodation assessed as
unsuitable by case supervisors; this included three young men who had had to go into bed and
breakfast lodgings – one was still there a month later – and two who were living with family
where this was a cause for concern. Only a third of young men had an ETE placement
arranged on release, only half of these were still attending a month later and only a fifth of
those who had not got a placement on release had one confirmed a month later. Where ETE
placements had fallen through, case supervisors felt this was due to unstable accommodation,
a lack of family support, the young person’s lack of motivation or problems due to the timing of
course start dates. A month after release six of the young men were in custody and one was
‘on the run’ – three of the young people who had returned to custody were looked after
children.
This report raises a key question – how effective is the resettlement work conducted in custody
in terms of the actual outcomes for young people This was not monitored by establishments
and our follow-up information highlights the need to look beyond the gate in order to evaluate
the effectiveness of resettlement work. Overall the outcomes for our sample were very
disappointing. The Heron unit, although we can make no conclusions based on our small
sample, seemed a promising initiative, as did the resettlement consortia, although the young
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