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

However, there was also a worrying example where a young person who had been in his
establishment for two months said:
‘I’ve not had any DTO reviews [training planning meetings], not seen my YOT. My
YOT case manager left before I came in – they were supposed to replace them but
I’ve not heard anything.’
4.34 Outside of training planning meetings, the level of engagement between case supervisors and
YOT case managers throughout a young person’s time in custody varied, from daily contact
between some to no contact between others. Case supervisors said that they would generally
contact YOT case managers if there had been an incident or problem with the young person
between meetings, but that they would mostly contact YOT case managers to keep up to date
with plans for release, including accommodation and ETE plans. Although case supervisors
said that plans were often not confirmed until near to the end of the sentence, they were
generally positive about YOT case managers’ contribution in review meetings and felt that
resettlement plans were discussed openly and realistically with the young person. In our survey
87% of young men reported that their YOT case manager had been in touch since they had
arrived at their current establishment, and 62% said they knew how to get in touch with their
YOT case manager if they wanted to.
4.35 There were also examples of specialist YOT workers (such as those specialising in
accommodation, education or careers; see Table 2) attending training planning meetings. IRS
workers had attended at least one meeting for 10 young people (17%) in our sample. However,
it was not always clear from the paperwork if a specialist YOT worker had attended as they
were sometimes just noted as ‘YOT’. Interviews with heads of learning and skills said that
education staff did not always have links with the specialist YOT education workers and, where
there were links, these were because the case supervisors, Connexions personal advisors or
resettlement brokers had established them.
Family or carers
4.36 Many young people return to live with their families or carers on release, and even if they do
not, families/carers can often play a key role in supporting young people in custody and on
release, where appropriate. However it was not clear whether families and carers always
received invitations to initial training planning meetings. The majority of establishments told us
they left it to the YOT case manager to invite families/carers to initial meetings and often this
relied on the case manager’s more detailed knowledge of the young person and their
circumstances. However, attendance by families/carers at initial meetings was inconsistent,
even though this was when targets should have been agreed and plans for release first
discussed. Where families/carers did not attend the initial meeting, case supervisors said they
often took on the responsibility for inviting them to subsequent meetings. For our sample,
families/carers were generally invited to these meetings, although case supervisors and young
people said they could not always attend due to the distance involved or the timing of the
meeting. Although figures on the attendance of families/carers were not collected, case
supervisors across the establishments reported that overall attendance by families/carers at
review meetings was only 40–50%. In our case sample, family/carers had attended at least
one training planning meeting for 52% (n=31) of young people, but a family support worker or a
family liaison officer, whose role it was to support and develop family relationships, had only
attended four young people’s meetings (7%).
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