6 days ago
Serious youth violence: not just a 'city problem'
Ofsted's report into multi-agency responses to serious youth violence: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/multi-agency-responses-to-serious-youth-violence-working-together-to-support-and-protect-children
Safer London's report: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/children-and-families-experiences-of-multi-agency-support-when-impacted-by-serious-youth-violence
Briony Balsom
Hello everyone, and welcome to this edition of Ofsted Talks. I'm Briony Balsam, and this time, we're focusing on serious youth violence and our recently released joint report. We released a joint targeted area inspection report, which we call a JTAI, on serious youth violence on the 20th of November, that report had a lengthy title for a weighty subject. It was called 'Multi agency responses to serious youth violence, working together to support and protect children'. Later in the podcast we'll be joined by Carly Adams Elias from Safer London, where she's director of practice, to talk about their work around serious youth violence, but first to explore with reports and findings, we're joined by some of those who contributed to it. We have Helen Davis, who's head of thematic and joint inspection at His Majesty's Inspectorate of Probation. Ade Solarin, the inspection lead for child protection at His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue services. Hello everyone. Jess Taylor Byrne, who is the Children's Services operations manager at the Care Quality Commission. Hi there. Hi everyone. And Wendy Ghaffar, who is Ofsted specialist advisor on cross remit safeguarding. Wendy, if I could come to you first so we can say a little bit about the scale of the problem. Many might assume it's a city issue, but is that really the case?
Wendy Ghaffar
No, it's definitely not the case. It's not just a city problem. I think we were shocked as a group of inspectorates to find that in all of the areas we visited, there were many children, including children as young as 11, carrying knives for their own protection. And in some of the areas, and for some children, it was absolutely the norm to carry a knife, often, not always, but often that was what children saw as a way of protecting themselves. And if you look at our report, at the beginning of that report, we talk about a very young teenage boy who was chased by a group of older teenagers in his local area, and he knew that those teenagers were carrying knives, and so he started carrying a knife because he saw that as the only way to protect himself. And we heard about children who were too frightened to leave their own homes, children not attending school because they were so fearful. And this is happening in small towns, out in the countryside, and we think that social media plays a role as well. If we look at the work of the youth endowment fund, they surveyed 7500 children last year, and one in four of those children had either been a victim of violence or perpetrated violence, and children also spoke about seeing real life episodes of violence on social media so they might see something that's happened in their locality on social media, and that's feeding into this sense of fear. And we don't think that adults are really sufficiently aware of this problem. And the other thing that came through is the impact that this has not just on children who are directly involved, but on their brothers and sisters, on their friends, on communities, on schools. So there's a kind of ripple effect when there's an incident and it's impacting on children's general well being, their sense of safety. I think we also need to think about the links there are with county lines and criminal exploitation. So some of this, not all of it, is happening in that context of county lines, which, as I'm sure people are aware, often organized crime gangs are forcing children to carry drugs out into the countryside, into smaller towns, and very often forcing children to carry knives. There's some groups of children who are particularly badly effective or more vulnerable, and that includes children with special educational needs and some children from some particular ethnic groups, and particularly with children who've got special educational needs. We know that nationally, there are delays in those children getting assessments, and delays in them getting the support they need, and we think this is actually putting them at increased risk of serious youth violence.
Briony Balsom
Thanks, Wendy and you mentioned the wider community impacts as well. I wonder whether anyone would like to come in and talk talk to that a little?
Wendy Ghaffar
We saw some very strong examples of where voluntary organizations were kind of harnessing, if you like, capacity within local communities to protect children, to offer other opportunities for children, to provide a venue for children and families, to provide different opportunities for children and families. But we also heard when we went out into those communities, the impact. That serious youth violence had on local communities, particularly on parents, how worried they were about their children, that it was affecting all sort of age ranges within the community, not just children. So it has a sort of really widespread impact. We also heard from schools as well, because we went out to schools, we talk to education leaders about the impact, and this is clearly an issue that they're having to address as well.
Briony Balsom
Jess, did the inspection look at everyone's input and the difference that they especially can make?
Jess Taylor-Beirne
The government has set out the serious violence duty, so which means local area partners all need to work together in these joint targeted area inspections, we really look at how all of those agencies work together. So what's it like to be a child in that area and have all of those different professionals working with you? So we saw children's social care, police, various education settings, Youth Justice Services with probation. We saw lots of different services, including the ambulance emergency department, some universal health services, sexual health services, and of course, like Wendy said, we saw the volunteering community sector as well. And whilst we found some really good work happening in some areas, it wasn't happening everywhere. As an example, one area didn't have a focus at all on serious youth violence as a major concern, and so many of the frontline staff across all of those agencies, hadn't had as much training or support to be able to identify those children at risk of harm. They just didn't know what to look out for and weren't able to recognize the signs that someone might be exploited or impacted by serious youth violence. The strongest work was when senior leaders at the top of organizations, they all understood that serious youth violence had to be a priority in that area. And it wasn't just one person's responsibility or one agency. It was collectively a priority for them all. And in those areas, they were gathering lots of data and information about what was occurring in their local area, and that's what filtered down to the practitioners, and that's when we saw that really good and innovative practice at times, multi agency training, information sharing, professional curiosity and really thorough assessments of children impacted by serious youth violence by all practitioners, there was a much better shared understanding of the experiences of those children, and within those areas, they were actively consulting with children and Families and the wider communities to find out about experiences, what support did they need, what did they want? So they very much understood the local issues. They were really creative with their roles, for example, embedding Speech and Language Therapists. And within Youth Justice Services, there was some really tenacious individual work with children, such as in social care. But like Wendy said, as well, with the community resources, that was where we saw some really interesting work and really impressive work. An example is, I think a couple of areas had their community services linking with the ambulance, and so they were promoting and training on the use of bleed kits, basic first aid, so if, if a young person or anyone was seriously harmed as a result of serious youth violence, the immediate medical attention would lead to much better outcomes for those children and others. Were giving children opportunities to help them develop skills to divert them away from those exploiting them. But I think most importantly, with those projects you know, so many of these children had really complex life experiences. Lots were outside of mainstream school. Lots had scnd, and where those professionals all worked together, they were very much understanding the impact of trauma on a child's experience. They were understanding the impact of abuse as well. And we'd see practitioners all working together on the ground as well. So for example, utilizing psychologists in the youth justice services to really create a good case formulation for that young person. So there was really creative use of practitioners already there, and that communication between them all just just led to much better outcomes. Where that happened
Briony Balsom
Ade, did you want to come in on that?
Ade Solarin
What we didn't always see was evaluation of some of those approaches to just get a sense from from the area of the local partnerships just how well they understood what was working well and what evaluation that they had considered. So it's really, it's really, really important that local partnerships do do more evaluate approaches to addressing serious youth violence and and use some of the available research that's out there, some of the learning that's out there, and also learn from each other as well as local partners. We did see a level of some inconsistencies in terms of approaches, but we also understand that some areas have some more committed funding. Some areas have have more resources. So so yeah, so we were sometimes seeing in some parts of the country was established what's called balance reduction units, and the utilization of those units and some of the funding that comes with that. Some of the other areas that didn't have the VRUs, as they're called, just meant that they had less resources. And also some that we did, one in particular that had, that did have a VRU just wasn't using it well, so there were some inconsistent approaches and practices across the country.
Briony Balsom
Yeah, thank you. Helen?
Helen Davies
Yes, just to say that the value of multi agency work was really underlined by what we saw in youth justice services in a number of areas. So Youth Justice teams are multi agency teams in themselves. So they already have a police officer, they already have social workers in the team, they have a probation officer, they have health workers. And to be able to respond swiftly, because you've got the right people in the team that made all the difference. I think the other important thing in terms of response was was that youth justice team has both the justice response and, importantly, the safeguarding response. So yes, once allocated somebody in the youth justice team, they were able to lead in, in many cases, a multi agency meeting and to get all the relevant agencies together, and what's called a formulation meeting, which is picked up earlier, but seem to be quite effective. And there are some good examples in the report.
Briony Balsom
Yeah. So the theme seems to be this kind of multi agency approach, being able to bring a holistic view, a more holistic view, to the subject. Wendy.
Wendy Ghaffar
So the multi agency approach isn't just about addressing knife crime, although that's a very important element of it. It's about meeting all of the range of needs of that child and often of their family as well, if the family is in need of support. And what our report is highlighting is that you have to address all of those needs. You can't look at this in a siloed way, and the importance of recognizing the safeguarding needs of these children is essential. And another important element, and another important sort of partner, if you like, is education. So we saw some really good work with partners working together to support children back into mainstream education, but that has to be done in a very kind of skilled way, and all of the partners working together, and it's only through that multi agency approach that you can address all of those needs and hopefully prevent any further harm to any other children.
Briony Balsom
Ade, I'm going to come to you now, just to kick us off on what happens when agencies don't work so well together, and what impact that can have.
Ade Solarin
What we often saw was just a failure by partner agencies to consistently identify serious youth violence as and see it as a safeguarding issue. And I think where partners are looking at trying to respond to the, say, violence, elements of serious youth violence, and taking, perhaps a siloedapproach and trying to tackle the issue because of the headline of serious youth violence, you're not addressing, or at least trying to address or understand some of the other underlying factors for for some of those children, many of those children often have special education needs and disabilities, often termed SEND, and other risk factors as well. So I think what we saw, especially from the police, for example, was just inconsistent approach in terms of recognizing some of the risk factors, recognizing some of the risk posed to children, and once, when you don't recognize that risk initially, it means that there's limited understanding and limited capturing of that information, and then that means what you're then sharing with your partners. And what we saw in the inspection is what was then shared with partners was also limited.
Jess Taylor-Beirne
There were some areas where they were very much focused on children being in crisis, rather than trying to preempt it as well. And we saw some really good practice when children were in crisis, like Helen has said, once they're in youth justice, they could access a huge range of resources. But that earlier approach to identifying need more of a public health approach wasn't consistent everywhere, and again, where it was, there were much, much more positive outcomes.
Helen Davies
If it's not recognized as a safeguarding issue, and we found this in particular for some black children, and a process of adultification where their needs as children weren't prioritized. So some some comments, more generally as well, that we heard were about children placing themselves at risk, as opposed to children being exploited. And some children are more vulnerable to that than others, children with special education needs, for example, so when you don't recognize that, that there's a risk, that some of the language around it starts to locate the problem with the child placing themselves at risk, as opposed of they are being exploited.
Wendy Ghaffar
Yeah, there were a couple of couple of examples that really stood out. For me, one was ambulance staff, and I think to some extent, in one of the emergency departments in the hospitals where professionals weren't asking children about what had happened to them, they weren't showing curiosity, they weren't showing that care that those children really needed, which meant those children weren't accessing the support that they needed. And I don't know Ade, do you want to mention about custody suites? Because I think we saw really different kind of responses from the police in custody suites, depending on where children were.
Ade Solarin
Yes, thank you. Wendy, yeah, we did. We did see some different responses, especially when you look at custody. Custody is a place where a child who's been arrested for some form of exploitation, for example. And custody isn't always a pleasant place for the child, but we have seen that some areas who have invested in training, trauma informed training, really, we did see some benefits for children where the officers demonstrated that understanding and recognized some of the risks that some of the children would have been exposed to, and in one particular area, because of the level of training that those officers had received, we saw some really good responses to that child, and also it just really highlights the importance of joint working, because obviously they meant that the police forces and their they were thinking about some of the actions that they needed to take whilst the child is in their care and custody, liaising with partners in the youth justice service, liaison with partners in children's social care so that there is a holistic package of care for the child when the child is eventually released from custody.
Jess Taylor-Beirne
That language that you would see in in reports, and then you'd be having discussions with practitioners, and it would come out that they didn't realize that that child did have additional needs and needed to respond in a different way. And so that was very, very telling throughout the inspection, that we were the ones to to be picking up on those things and bring practitioners through that and in the areas where it didn't work well, it was very, very sad hearing about a lot of those experiences, of those children that hadn't had the support they needed, and very vulnerable children in custody suites without the support that they needed, or accessing health services without being seen as as a child as they were.
Wendy Ghaffar
So I think, as we've described, once children got into the system, particularly if they if they got service from the Youth Justice team that enabled them to have access to the kinds of assessment they needed, and also often the kinds of supports they needed? If their speech and language needs were identified at a much, much earlier age, you know, very early on in primary school, for example, then it's going to be much easier for those children to engage in education. And potentially, their kind of outcomes in life might be might be different. It might not be as simple as simple as that, but that's just one example, I guess, where if children were receiving the assessments early enough and their support early enough, then at least there may be a way of preventing some of these problems arising so they're not getting to 13, 14, 15 before their special educational needs, and particular things like their speech and language needs are being addressed. Because in some ways, that's too late for these children.
Briony Balsom
Yeah, and what's coming across really clearly, and you've all spoken very clearly about the multitude of ways in which the system could, just could do things better. It's not all going wrong all the time, but there are lots of different things, the lack of curiosity about local context, lack of curiosity about child situation, the failure to recognize vulnerability as a result of that, the inconsistency and often siloed approach. Helen, can I come to you, if these things are going wrong, what is the report calling for?
Helen Davies
So we're calling for serious youth violence to be prioritized in all local areas and to recognize that this is happening across England. We looked at England, no doubt happening across Wales as well, and that need to work together to support those that are affected, but also to prevent further serious youth violence and to support communities as well and to protect communities. So it's really important. Guidance from government would help, just to steer partners, I think, now, on how to work together to help children they're experiencing harm from outside the home. So partners are more used to focusing on protecting children within the home. On this topic important to look beyond, to look at how children are experiencing harm outside of the home.
Briony Balsom
So before we say goodbye to you all, I would love to come back to Wendy to reflect on some of the really excellent practice that you did see. On the day type?
Wendy Ghaffar
Yeah, I think, I think the message we'd like to leave with everybody is that multi agency working can work in terms of addressing and preventing serious youth violence. It can make a real positive and significant difference for children and communities. We saw some fantastic examples, both in terms of individual work with children and families, but also in terms of some of the projects that are out there in communities and really opening up opportunities for children, we saw some really effective work, as we've mentioned, between the police and local communities and between children social care and local communities. So we feel very positive that if partnerships prioritize this, if they really understand the issue of serious youth violence and the impact it's having on children, then further good work can be done. But at the moment, we know this isn't happening for all children across all of England, and that's where we need to drive improvement
Briony Balsom
Wendy, you're going to stay with us. And joining us is Carly Adams Elias from Safer London, where she's the director of practice. Safer London works with and advocates on behalf of children and families who've been impacted by violence and exploitation. We've been really delighted to work with Safer London, who've entirely independently from the inspectorates, brought together their report called Who Cares, which explores the direct experiences of children and families on our behalf and to inform our work like the joint report who cares came out in mid November, and it takes a really detailed and compelling look at children's experiences of serious youth violence and what help and support is available to them. The children who took part in the consultation were different from the children and families involved in the JTAI inspections, and the majority lived in different areas to those we inspected. The inspections and the consultation work are quite separate, but do focus on the same issues of multi agency work to address serious youth violence. Carly, is the issue of serious youth violence getting worse?
Carly Adams Elias
The UK has seen increasing evidence of the scale and impact of serious youth violence over the past decade. The report highlights that numbers of children who've lost their lives to violence is higher than it was 10 years ago. For context, London recorded its worst ever annual death toll of teenage murders, with 30 young people killed in 2021 and that's similar for the number of young people admitted to hospital for knife assaults, which has increased by 47% in the last 10 years. We also know that issues such as poverty, mental ill health, childhood experiences of abuse and harm and other forms of trauma increase the risk to serious youth violence. And what I would say is that the landscape around these issues is changing, and we're seeing the impact of things like budget cuts and austerity that have an impact on the way that services that are available to support children and young people function. Thresholds are quite high, and opportunities to engage with children and young people often come after harm has happened, rather than earlier opportunities. We're also kind of in a position where we're only really, I would say, starting to see serious youth violence as a safeguarding issue across the sector, and so I think that will obviously have an impact on the data and the numbers of people that are coming into contact with services. And so I think whilst there are improvements, there's still a long way to go in terms of really understanding the scale of the issue.
Briony Balsom
Yeah, and what's our understanding of what the drivers are for this violence in the first place? I mean, it's a it's an easy sounding question with I'm I'm imagining an incredibly complex response!
Carly Adams Elias
Things such as kind of racism, poverty, ableism, that are all kind of woven into our our systems and kind of exacerbate the experiences of children and young people and families who may become vulnerable to violence as a result of some of these issues, some of the social conditions, in the context where children and young people and families are living their lives, whether that's kind of local communities, in schools or online spaces.
Briony Balsom
Thanks. I mean, there's a massive breadth there of intervention and change. What particularly are Safer London doing in response?
Speaker 8
we mainly work individually with children and families. We provide one to one support to children and young people that have been impacted by exploitation and violence. And our approach is to really make sure that we're taking kind of a Relational Approach, which really centers trust and building trust with children and young people and their families, and that we really understand the individual complex experiences of trauma, whether that's their physical safety or their emotional safety, but also their relational safety and kind of the safety that they might experience in different relationships and different contexts of their lives. You know, we really try and position our work from a place of being person centered, non judgmental, making sure that we're working at the pace that works for that particular child or young person. Is there any capacity for us to support change within the context where that young person might be being harmed? For us, it's really important to try and work with a whole family, because we're aware that issues like violence and exploitation don't just impact the young person when they experience harm, but it impacts the whole family and wider communities such as their peer groups and other social networks are the ones that are going to have much longer term sustainable relationships with them. So we think it's really important that we try and invest in those and try and help create safety in those so that the young person has a longer term level of support. And what we often see is that young people's presentation of trauma responses are often seen as behavioral issues in the way that they engage with others, how they're able to kind of function and participate in their education, how they're able to hold and maintain relationships, their ability to kind of seek help, kind of help that they've received when they're first experiencing issues. So whether they've shared something with someone and not believe that's then going to have an impact on how they're able to trust if they're, you know, coming into contact with a police officer that maybe they're feeling unsafe with in that interaction, then they're going to be less likely to be able to maybe share their experiences. But that will then also have an impact on how they're able to recover from those harmful and traumatic experiences.
Briony Balsom
That feeling that children were sometimes being blamed for the harm they experience.
Carly Adams Elias
And sadly, that isn't then just limited to the way that the young person is talked about. That's going to have an individual impact for that young person who might feel quite labeled by the adults or professionals that are kind of talking in that manner, but it also has a significant impact in terms of how decisions are made for that young person, what kind of support that young person gets. It might impact on that young person being further marginalized, excluded from school. It might mean that they're more likely to become engaged with the criminal justice system, rather than agencies that are in place to kind of prioritize and take forward, kind of safeguarding measures.
Wendy Ghaffar
It makes me think about some of the responses children got from the ambulance service, and particularly in emergency departments in hospitals. So for some children, where the staff have been trained, they've got the support. They understand the issues. They're asking, the right questions. They have a sort of caring, appropriate response to children, and like Carly said, that can open the door then to support for them in the longer term, for support for their family, and importantly, support for their siblings. And I think also the responses children get in school is really important. And again, we went to one area where education were very much seen as part of the partnership in responding to children and in preventing serious youth violence. Staff were trained. They knew what signs to look for. They knew how to talk to children about these issues.
Briony Balsom
Importantly, you worked with a group of children and young people and parents to co create the report. So they were at the very heart of it.
Carly Adams Elias
I just want to take a moment to thank the children and the families that participated, because I was actually quite overwhelmed by how much they did share. And you you'll see in the report that they're, you know, we we've included as much as we can in terms of direct quotes. What they were really asking for is improved communication and clearer communication. And they were really clear that they wanted to be able to be involved in that decision making. They were really clear that they wanted communication to be empathetic and compassionate. They wanted a safeguarding response, which was something that they didn't always feel. That they had some children and families that spoke to us, they said, you know, that that looked like real, tangible, practical, helpful intervention. So that might be things like, the whole family is experiencing threats of violence, that then has often quite significant impacts on their ability to feel safe in their own home. And a lot of the children and families that we were talking to had real difficulties in securing safe housing. But actually, you know, when they had multi agency professionals that were working together to achieve real, tangible changes, like achieving safety in their home environment, that that felt like it was a helpful level of intervention. It was often also in relation to kind of their individual needs, such as kind of having their neuro diversity properly assessed and understood and responded to. You know, we spoke. To some young people that felt like their neuro diversity was seen as a problem and it wasn't something that was supported or honored, particularly in education, and that might then mean that they were moved from one education provision to another, and then that created more kind of uncertainty and change for them at a period when actually what they really needed was those sort of consistent relationships and having their basic needs met in a place where they felt safe and familiar.
Briony Balsom
And presumably promisingly, there is a significant crossover between what they're asking for and what we're hearing from them and what we know works?
Carly Adams Elias
There are definitely lots of examples of good practice going on. And what we were hearing from children and young people was that when organizations were engaging with them in a way where their needs were centered, where their voice was centered and heard, where they had opportunities to kind of build relationship and connection, and that support was offered in a way that was compassionate and empathetic, that that means that you've you've kind of providing a bit of a solid basis there for kind of further interactions. And if you can build on those kind of foundations, you really kind of have centered that Relational Approach. And we do know that through speaking to children and young people that they did receive that in some context with some organizations, we heard from young people that really spoke highly of support that they received through youth service and voluntary sector services. So yeah, it is available, and it does exist, perhaps not yet on the scale that we would like it for the children and young people.
Briony Balsom
Carly, a massive thanks for joining us and thanks to everyone who's listening. You'll find the Safer London report alongside our own report on the gov.uk website. We'll put the links into the transcript for the podcast so that you can check it out. Thanks to everyone who joined us today, and thank you for listening.
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