Consultation response from Voice to Breaking the Cycle:Effective Punishment, Rehabilitation and Sentencing of Offenders

Introduction

Voice is one of the UK's leading voluntary organisations working and campaigning for children and young people in care of the state. We are committed to empowering children and young people and we campaign for change to improve their lives.

Voice provides advocacy for children and young people who are looked after children, in need and who are care leavers. Voice runs a national helpline providing advice and advocacy support to children and young people who have concerns about their care. We provide community based and visiting advocacy for children and young people in foster care and in children's homes and employ specialist advocates for unaccompanied asylum seeking child, mental health, disability and over 16s. We also provide an independent visitor service.

Voice also has extensive expertise of working with young people in the secure estate having provided advocacy services since 1989 to secure children’s homes and in 1998 to a secure training centre. In 2004 we were awarded a contract by the YJB to provide advocacy to YOIs and STCS. This contract was renewed in 2007 and we now provide visiting advocacy to six YOIs and one STC in the south of England. We also provide advocacy to eight secure children’s homes.

Amongst the policy principles of Voice is the expansion of independent advocacy services for young people in care of the state, the promotion of child centred care by those making decisions about children and young people and upholding the rights of children and young people under domestic legislation and the UN Convention on Children’s Rights.

Voice co-chairs the Alliance for Child-centred Care an alliance of 25 voluntary organisations with a representative from the ADCS. There are three subgroups focusing on specialist areas of concern one of which includes the resettlement of young offenders. The Resettlement Alliance has produced a detailed response to this consultation which Voice has facilitated.

Voice is also a member of the Standing Committee of Youth Justice (SCYJ) and we fully endorse the submission made by them to this consultation.

We do not intend to repeat what is said in both these responses but to highlight the key points that arise from our advocacy work with children in custody and the general principles that arise from our work with children who are not in custody.

Principles underpinning our response

We fully support the core principles of the SCYJ[1] in underpinning the approach of the state to children who offend.

  • The policies and practices of the youth justice system in England and Wales should be compliant with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the UN Standard Minimum Rules, and all other relevant international human rights standards, guidelines, treaties, rules and conventions
  • Youth justice arrangements for those below the age of 18 years should be distinct and separate from arrangements for adults
  • The primary focus of the youth justice system should be the prevention and reduction of re-offending, with the work of YOTs closely integrated with broader provision for children - prevention more generally conceived are the responsibility of children’s services
  • Family support work should be provided by mainstream or specialist non-criminal justice agencies
  • Children who offend should be treated as children first and foremost at every stage of the youth justice system
  • The age of criminal responsibility should be raised considerably, as recommended by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
  • Diversion from court should be expanded significantly for all children under 18 years
  • Custody should be a measure of last resort, and used for the shortest appropriate period
  • Children have the right to be heard and to participate in all stages of civil or criminal proceedings affecting them.

Voice would in addition add:

  • Children should have a statutory right to independent advocacy in all establishments of the secure estate.
  • Resettlement of children from custody to the community is critical to the prevention of further offending and to promotion of their holistic welfare needs.
  • Professionals working with children in the secure estate should be child centred in their practice

Independent advocacy

As stated in our introduction we have been providing advocacy to the secure children’s homes for over 20 years and to the YOI estate since 2004. Our most recent reports to the YJB for the years 2009 – 2010 from each establishment highlights the issues raised by children and the high level of satisfaction with outcomesgiven by young people in their feedback. Appendix A gives a joint overview of the work undertaken. You will see that issues concerning matters outside the establishment relate mainly to resettlement.

Advocacy in relation to resettlement

In our experience the way in which resettlement issues are taken up by the establishments varies depending on the composition of the YOS service within the establishment and the support given to case management functions. Where case managers actively work with local authorities to fulfil their legal responsibilities under section 17 Children Act 1989 towards the child good outcomes are more likely to occur. Otherwise, children are often without accommodation and other necessary support days before release. Sometimes this impinges on their right to early release because suitable accommodation is not in place to satisfy the conditions of the community part of a DTOor on licence under section 91 hence depriving them of their right to liberty.

It is often only with the intervention of advocacy that these children are likely to be provided with accommodation and support services in time for release. Sometimes this will require a referral to lawyers if the local authority fails to meet its statutory duties.

It is therefore essential that young people are referred to advocacy in good time before release. We therefore propose that there is an automatic referral to advocacy made through the sentence planning process at the follow points:

  • Where the parents do not attend the initial sentence planning meeting
  • Where there is no accommodation and other services in place for the release preparation meeting held four weeks prior to the release date

Statutory right to advocacy in the secure estate

Statutory provision under children legislation and statutory guidance

Looked after children, children in need and care leavers have a statutory right to advocacy in making a complaint under section 26A of the Children Act 1989. Statutory guidance[2] accompanying this statutory provision introduced by the Adoption and Children Act 2002 extended this to say that:

‘children and young people should be able to secure the support of an advocate in putting forward representations for a change to be made in the service that they receive, or the establishment they live in, without this having to be framed first as a specific complaint’

Statutory guidance[3] in relation to care planning, placement planning and reviews due for implementation on 1 April states clearly that:

‘Where a child has difficulty in expressing his/her wishes and feelings about any decisions being made about him/her, consideration must be given to securing the support of an advocate.’

Secure training centres

There is also a provision in the Secure Training Centre Rules (1998)as set out below for the appointment of independent persons to young people sentenced to custody in a Secure Training Centre:

‘Appointment of independent persons

44.—(1)The Secretary of State may appoint independent persons to visit a centre.

(2)Any trainee may make representations to a person appointed under this rule; and for that purpose the governor shall make arrangements for such a person to interview the trainee and to receive representations from him.

(3)A person appointed under this rule shall be entitled to have access to any records relating to the centre except that the medical records relating to any trainee or the personal records of any officer shall not be made available to him without the consent of the trainee or, as the case may be, officer concerned.

(4)A person appointed under this rule shall draw to the attention of the Secretary of State any matter which is of concern to him.’

While the term ‘independent person’ is used, in practice the function is one of advocacy. This has been adopted by the YJB in its contractual arrangements to agencies commissioned to provide advocacy to young people in YOIs and STCs.

We know that many of the children who are in custody have a range of needs including mental health, substance misuse, learning disabilities and histories of childhood trauma or neglect. 71% of children have been involved with social services or in care before entering custody. One in three girls has been reported as having been sexually abused prior to custody[4]. There is no doubt from our experience and that of Barnardo’s (the other YJB commissioned advocacy service) that the provision of independent advocacy not only provides an important safeguard within the establishment but also on resettlement. Involving young people more effectively in decisions and plans about their lives through the help of advocacy is more likely to secure their commitment to these plans.

Now is a good opportunity to both consolidate an existing and tried service in recognition also that it can contribute to the strategy to prevent re-offending. In any new legislation that may follow on from this Green Paper we would urge the inclusion of the right to independent advocacy through a provision that the Ministry of Justice is required to commission independent advocacy services for children under 18 in the secure estate.

As a minimum standard, we would strongly urge the inclusion of a similar provision to that in the STC Rules within the relevant YOI Rules so that there is consistency across the estate.

Since the YJB has funded advocacy support in the YOI estate since 2004, any extension of the right of children in custody to advocacy support would in practice incur no additional cost.

Young adults aged 18 – 21

We would also propose that consideration is given to the extension of advocacy for young adults aged 18 – 21 years in the juvenile estate. Unless they are care leaversunder the Children Act 1989 young people of this age group will not be able to access any support from children’s services on release. Evidence cited from Barnardo’s recent report (2011:8)[5] states that a Home Office evaluation concluded that 69 per cent of offenders with an accommodation need re-offended withintwo years, compared to 40 per centwho were in suitable accommodation. It adds that the then Social Exclusion Unitreported that stable accommodationcan reduce offending by as much as20 per cent. Inadequate support andaccommodation come at a price andthis report highlights the significantcosts to the young people themselves,their communities and the public purse.

Unless NOMs therefore are able to facilitate accommodation for young people on release together with the other resettlement pathways[6] young people will need considerable support to navigate the system to achieve this. Without such support there is a much greater likelihood of re-offending.

Advocacy support is not confined to one single issue and there is no doubt that when young people are able to participate in decisions about their lives more effectively there is more chance that they will commit to their plans for the future. The improvements for under 18s resulting from independent advocacy could be as important for 18 – 21 year olds and form part of a very effective strategy for reducing reoffending on release.

This measure would of course incur an additional cost to implement in order to achieve the benefits that have been demonstrated for children under 18. We would recommend that this is considered as part of a medium to long–term strategy and could be piloted in the first instance.

Resettlement

Having facilitated the response to this consultation from the Resettlement Alliance we fully endorse those recommendations. These are contained in Appendix B to this submission.

We would also take the opportunity to highlight the importance of the legal status of young people in custody under the Children Act and hence the role of the local authority in making arrangements for effective resettlement.

Legal status of children in custody

Local authorities have specific duties to looked after children subject to care orders under section 31 Children Act 1989 (CA89) and to those who have left care and are defined as relevant children (section 23B, CA89). Overall this includes a duty to promote and safeguard their welfare and to plan for their holistic needs including accommodation, education, finance and health needs. Children who were voluntarily accommodated under section 20 of the CA89 lose this status on detention but there are requirements under the Children and Young Persons Act 2008, and associated regulations and guidance due for implementation on 1 April 2011, for the local authority to visit and make an assessment of their needs in custody and on release.

We believe that the vast majority of all other children in custody fall within the definition of children in need as defined under section 17 Children Act 1989. This does not necessarily mean that children’s services will be required to carry out an assessment of need but that there should be established links between custodial establishments and the local authority to ensure that each child’s needs for resettlement are properly assessed as set out in our proposals below.

We propose that the National Standards for Youth Justice Services are amended so that within 24 hours of the child’s detention, the YOT practitioner or manager notifies the child’s home local authority (children’s services) of the child’s detention, requesting information and documentation about legal status within five working days.

National Standards should also be strengthened to highlight the importance of discussions about resettlement at the initial sentence planning meeting. The person responsible for chairing the initial sentence planning meeting (whether YOT or case manager from the establishment) must consider resettlement at that meeting as set out in National Standards. Unless the chair is satisfied that the child’s parents or wider family will be able to appropriately resume care of the child on release from custody, solely with supervision from the YOT, the chair must authorise the YOT practitioner to make a referral to the local authority for an assessment under section 17 of the Children Act 1989 and where the child cannot return home, for accommodation under section 20. Where the parents are not present at that meeting, the YOT must be required to meet with them and ensure attendance at a further sentence planning meeting. The failure of parents to attend this adjourned meeting should trigger an automatic referral to the local authority for a section 17 assessment and referral to the advocacy service.

This proposal not only clarifies the legal status of young people in custody but gives effect to the ruling in K v Manchester City Council[7] that it is the duty of the local authority and not that of the YOT to assess for accommodation and services and that this assessment takes place prior to release.

Voice

March 2011

Appendix A

Voice Secure Advocacy - extracts from reports to the YJB

2009-2010

Our staff and how we work

Working to the National Standards for the Provision of Children’s Advocacy Services[8] Voice advocates have provided independent information, representation and support to the young people. We have helped young people put forward their views, wishes and needs to the adults making decisions about them. Primarily this has been to YOI staff, Youth Offending Teams, Solicitors, the Police and Local Authority Children’s Services.

The Voice advocacy team is highly experienced with advocates coming from various backgrounds including mental health, learning and behavioural difficulties, education, housing and counselling. All have undergone training on Voice’s specialist three day advocacy course “Being a Voice” which includes one day on the law and children’s rights). All have undergone additional training such as Safeguarding and Children’s Rights, Advocacy using Sections 17 and 20 of the Children Act, Advocacy in Secure Settings, Advocacy with Care Leavers, Advocacy with Refugee and Separated Children and Proactive Responses to Discrimination.

Advocates are able to draw on resources from our specialist advocates in London who cover disability, mental health, leaving care and asylum seeking children and advice on behalf of young people from our in house legal adviser. These services allow advocates to seek professional advice regarding any of the above matters ensuring young people receive prompt, accurate independent support and information.

The advocacy service provided by Voice meets the quality standards measured against the Department of Health National Standards for the Provision of Children’s Advocacy Services 2002 and ensures that the service is accessible to all.