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

working outside the establishment five days a week for three weeks doing painting and
gardening. Another had attended work experience at a local company for one or two days at a
time over a number of weeks. Feelings about ROTL were generally positive: many of those
who had been granted it said they had enjoyed the experience, although two of the eight
young people did not feel that it would be specifically helpful in terms of their resettlement.
Comments included:
‘The man I do it with has got loads of contacts and will be a good reference for me.’
(Local business placement)
‘I found it interesting but not useful.’ (Gardening placement)
‘Barnardo's was very helpful – I learnt to work on the tills and helped sort out clothing.’
(Work placement in Barnardo’s shop)
7.13 Establishments did not all collect overall data on ROTL in the same way: some did not monitor
the use of ROTL and of those that did, all bar one only monitored the number of ROTL
movements rather than the number of young people involved. We were therefore unable to
collect data that was accurate for a specific period of time or about the number of young
people involved in ROTL across the six establishments. However, the figures we obtained
indicated a huge disparity in the ROTL opportunities within the young people’s estate. The
greatest number of ROTL movements over a period of 12 months was 772 at an establishment
with a population of over 300 young men and the lowest number was 20, despite the latter
establishment having a population of about 150. At the one site able to provide an accurate
figure of the number of placements and the number of young people involved, there had been
103 placements, involving 64 young people, which was a good level for the size of the
population. Although the other establishments were not monitoring the number of young
people obtaining ROTL, it was apparent from some figures that where some establishments
had a good number of movements they involved only a small number of young people. This
was due to some young people benefitting from good quality work placements which they
attended on a regular basis over a long period.
7.14 A common theme that emerged was the use of ROTL as a behaviour management tool, rather
than a core aspect of resettlement planning and reintegration. Consequently young people
could have their ROTL stopped because of an incidence of poor behaviour within the
establishment, even though there was no suggestion that it had increased the risk of them
absconding or misbehaving on the project. One young person, who was on a community
restoration project, told us that his ROTL had been stopped for arguing with a member of staff
at the wing servery. Managers at the same establishment said that it was common for young
people to be prevented from attending a project as late as the morning of the ROTL, because
of a reasonably minor misdemeanour. Some young people reported that other young men
would sometimes aggravate them in the hope that they would react and lose their ROTL.
7.15 Importantly, the ROTL progression routes in one establishment were closely linked with the
young people’s training plans, and it also used ROTL to build on the work undertaken by the
resettlement brokers and personal officers. In other establishments links with training planning
and ROTL were not as clear. In one we found an instance where the targets linked to the
training plan and the decisions made by the ROTL board conflicted, resulting in confusion and
upset for the young person. This could have been avoided if there had been a more coherent
approach to the complex set of decisions.
64