Police chief urges leniency around childrens home incidents
Abstract
Olivia Pinkney, children and young people’s lead at the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) and deputy chief constable of Sussex Police, has stated that local police services and children’s homes providers should work together to reduce the number of times officers are called out to residential settings for what she described as minor incidents.
Read the full article by Derren Hayes in Children & Young People Now: Police chief urges leniency around childrens home incidents
Other reasonably current publications and articles (2014/15)
Note: This list is not exhaustive. Provided here in no particular order.
Children Act 1989 guidance and regulations volume 2: care planning, placement and case review by Department for Education. This statutory guidance sets out the responsibilities of care planning, placement and case review for looked after children and includes sections relevant to residential care and to youth justice services.
Isolation and Solitary Confinement of Children in the English Youth Justice Secure Estate by Office of the Children’s Commissioner September, 2015. Research Report identifies the benefits of more restorative approaches.
South-east protocol to reduce offending and criminalisation of children in care Local authorities and police services in the South East of England have signed up to this regional protocol. It is ‘designed to provide an overarching set of principles to inform the processes that will ensure [looked after children] are kept out of the criminal justice system wherever possible and that those who do enter the criminal justice system are provided with services that are most likely to reduce re-offending’. There is an aspiration for the protocol to be applied nationwide.
National Strategy for the Policing of Children & Young People This strategy provides the direction and focus needed to improve the quality of policing for children and young people in each police force.
Residential care in the English child welfare system by Department for Education. Review of the available research on residential care for looked-after children.
‘Risk map’ highlights challenge of where to put children’s homes This article by the Guardian draws attention to the way in which children’s homes are located in close proximity to numerous other risks such as: drug crime, registered sex offenders and prison releases.
Care experience and criminalisation – An Executive Summary from TACT 74% of the respondents in this study felt that looked after children are at a greater risk of unnecessary criminalisation.
Achieving justice for children in care and care-leavers by Howard League sets out the case for a renewed commitment to alternative methods of resolving conflict in residential homes, and an emphasis on multi-agency partnership working.
Restorative Justice Council response – Keeping children in care out of trouble – an independent review (2015) The RJC wants restorative justice to be increasingly used as a diversionary measure with children in care and in foster homes who display challenging behaviour; it calls for effective and proportionate responses to challenging behaviour and teaching young people the life skills they need to deal with conflict in a constructive way.
niromp.org 