Recommendation 14

HM Government Acknowledged

The Government remains committed to reforming the youth secure estate following the Taylor Review in 2016 and recognises the importance of having a secure estate that is fit for purpose. We have made good progress in a number of reform areas: • Justice Officer Role: In 2018, as part of our workforce reform and commitment to introduce staff specifically trained to work with children and young people, we announced the introduction of the new Youth Justice Specialist role and provided funding for every prison officer in the youth secure estate the opportunity to obtain a foundation degree in youth justice. In March 2021, the YCS had 201 qualified officers in post, with an additional 227 staff signed up or undertaking learning. As the workforce reform programme draws to a close, and we move to a level 4 apprenticeship, we will enable all staff joining the YCS to take part in a specialist qualification focused on the ‘child first’. In addition, and following a training review, we are now updating the training modules to ensure they are child focussed and linked with the Youth Justice Board’s Skills Matrix. • Dedicated Officer: The Behaviour Management Strategy, supported by ‘Building Bridges: A Positive Behaviour Framework for the Children and Young People Secure Estate’, published in 2019,7 is a comprehensive range of initiatives, approaches and models of Enhanced Support. Under this strategy sits CuSP, with children and young people in public YOIs allocated a personal custody support officers who they work with on a weekly basis to build trust and consistency. Currently, the ‘COVID-19 Support Plan’, a less intensive and physical distanced version of CuSP, is also being delivered to children and young people. This plan takes into consideration the challenges of covid-19 by allowing sites within the youth secure estate to maintain key relationships between staff and children, while supporting those with the most significant needs. • Specialist Support Units: The youth secure estate accommodates some of the most vulnerable and complex children and young people in the country, which is why it is important to have systems in place to support these young people. To enable this support, the YCS opened Enhanced Support Units (ESU) at Feltham and Wetherby YOIs. They provide smaller specialist accommodation for those with exceptionally complex needs enabling the delivery of smaller more intensive rehabilitation work in a therapeutic environment. In 2020, the ESU at Feltham YOI was refurbished and re-opened. Feltham now has its own dedicated, multidisciplinary resource of managers and staff who have been up-skilled where needed, to better support children accommodated there. In addition, Enhanced Support Teams can also be deployed where additional multi-disciplinary support is considered beneficial outside of specialist units. • Secure schools: As part of the youth justice review it was recommended that YOIs and STCs were replaced with smaller secure schools situated in the regions they serve. The Government agreed with this recommendation and recognised the importance of having a site that could meet the needs of children and young people in London and the South East, who at the time, accounted for 38% of the youth custody population. Since then, work has been taking place to deliver on this recommendation. In July 2019, the Government announced Oasis Charitable Trust as the successful applicant to run the country’s first secure school in Medway, Kent. Since then, we have been working in partnership with the Department of Education and NHSE&I to progress its development. As referenced above, we are working towards opening the school in 2022 as we work through some challenges during the project. • Refurbishment: In summer 2020 we announced the additional investment we will provide to improve the youth secure estate (and Feltham B for young adults). We have set aside £13 million to progress plans with opening the first secure school and refurbishing the existing estate, which includes the installation of in-room showers at Feltham ‘A’, Werrington and Wetherby YOIs, improving facilities for education and the planned roll-out of secure in-room technology across public sector YOIs, to help children access services such as education and engage with family and delivery partners. Whilst we remain committed to long-term reform, our vision is that this investment will help improve the lives of children within the youth secure estate, providing greater facilities and opportunities to engage in constructive activities to support their future resettlement. More widely, HMPPS has secured significant investment for prison maintenance in 2021/22 through the recent one-year Spending Review settlement, with up to £7m designated to the youth secure estate which will facilitate further improvements to the condition of the estate. Due to the impact of covid-19, the progression of many reform initiatives either paused, progressed as desktop