Recommendation 6

HM Government Acknowledged

20. We welcome the decline in the rates of self-harm during the covid-19 pandemic and agree we must seek to understand the reasons for the decline. As the Committee will be aware, at the start of the covid-19 pandemic the YCS took a number of measures to ensure children and young people were kept safe. This included a combined approach of adapting or enhancing elements of the Behaviour Management Strategy and implementing a reduced regime, with a focus on delivering essential activities. 21. The YCS worked with their partners NHSE&I to deliver an enhanced model of ‘SECURE STAIRS’, the integrated framework of care that provides the foundations for how the YCS works with children. This took into account the impact of covid-19, the vulnerabilities of children and young people with complex needs and the need to increase the core offering. 22. The YCS also created youth-specific Exceptional Delivery Models (EDMs), alongside those published by HMPPS, on key aspects of regime delivery (specifically Education and P.E, Advocacy, the CuSP, Interventions and Resettlement) to ensure the needs of children were seen as distinct and suitably met. 23. In addition to learning from the decline in self-harm incidents, the YCS is applying other lessons learned from the covid-19 period to recovery planning. To better understand these lessons, the YCS commissioned the covid-19 Research and Evaluation Programme in May 2020. The work is being undertaken by HMPPS, YCS Psychology Services with academic input and the final report is due to be published in late spring 2021.