Some YOTs fail to understand case management

Some youth offending team workers do not “understand the concept of case management” and in a few cases are “philosophically opposed” to involving other professionals in a young person’s supervision, inspectors have found.

Confusion between youth offending teams and children’s services workers about their respective referral thresholds has resulted in poor working relationships in some areas, according the third annual report of the YOT inspection programme.

There was little or no contact between the YOT and children’s services workers in a “high proportion” of cases involving looked-after children, the report reveals.

Training in child protection “was not always part of the core programme for YOT staff and volunteers”, in some cases resulting in “little understanding or awareness of the issues involved”.

The inspectors found more attention was being given to compliance and managing risk of harm to others since previous inspections, but there was an apparent drop in priority for safeguarding issues.

While YOTs generally provided a good service to their local courts, the inspectors criticised the quality of their pre-sentence reports, saying not enough attention was given to vulnerability issues.

More on youth offending teams:

Youth Justice Board

Every Child Matters