To consider the role of Early Help in addressing disproportionality within the Youth Justice System.
Minutes:
Gill Gibson, Assistant Director for Children’s Services (Quality Assurance, Early Help, and Prevention) reported that early help had a critical role in supporting children and young people who were at risk of becoming involved in the youth justice system. The ongoing Charlie Taylor review of the youth justice system meant that the whole policy area was under review but some work had already begun to respond to the issues highlighted in the earlier interim review report. There was to be a shift to a more proactive approach and early intervention would be at the heart of reforms.
Gareth Morgan, Head of Early Help and Prevention, reported there were a number of overlapping risk factors, including educational under achievement and substance misuse. The interventions that were most likely to be successful were those driven by early identification of young people at risk so that these could be dealt with by services in partnerships, for example, with schools. There was a need to support young people at high risk of exclusion and non attendance and work was being done with schools and other providers to improve the identification of the early signs. Targeted programmes were also being developed at the Bruce Grove youth centre. These were for both boys and girls and focussed on young people’s good decision making and understanding risk.
Since 2009, Haringey Triage was the primary means of preventing entry into the youth justice system. Only 12% of those who went through Triage re-entered the Youth Justice system. The option of also offering those who went through Triage an early help package was being explored as one issue was the impact on younger siblings of an older brother or sister who had offended.
A lot of work had already been done to identify those at most risk of entering the youth justice system and high numbers of fixed term exclusions in year 9 and 10 was recognised as a significant risk factor. The Panel noted black boys who had been excluded often had very good school attendance records and officers were currently looking at the reasons behind this.
Jon Abbey, the Director of Children’s Services, reported that OFSTED had been looking at this issue of under achievement of Black African Caribbean children and young people at key stages 2 to 4. They had come to Haringey as part of a fact finding visit to look at the gap in outcomes between Black African Caribbean and White pupils. These mirrored the social-economic differences between the east and the west of the borough. Schools and education provided an opportunity for successful interventions to take place with families. Key stage 3 was a particularly crucial time and Headteachers had been involved in discussions on how and why issues developed at this stage and the type of interventions that were undertaken by schools. One particular issue was the absence of key family members, which created a void. Both Northumberland Park and Gladesmore schools had mentoring programmes that worked with young people to address this. There were a number of factors that could contribute to issues at Key State 3 but there was unlikely to be a single action that would resolve them. However, schools already undertook a range of actions that could prevent problems escalating.
Mr Abbey stated that there was a view that the curriculum was narrowing and that this could have a negative affect on some young people as they were less able to see a career path that they could follow. It was essential to gain their imagination and motivation.
The Panel noted that white working class young people were specifically under achieving. One factor in the stark difference between the attainment of black Caribbean and white young people may have been the fact that a number of schools in the borough had entered young people into the International GCSE for English or Maths but this had impacted negatively on some of them. This issue had been fed back to OFSTED. One other factor had been young people being entered early for exams and becoming de-motivated due to getting a low grade.
The Panel noted that, despite a drop of 60% in the number of young people who were incarcerated, the number of black and minority ethnic young people had remained the same.
In answer to a question, Mr Morgan commented that youth services had inevitably been reduced since last year following cuts to budgets. A consistent and strong service was now provided but this had to work within the available resources. Universal and targeted sessions were currently provided 5 days per week at Bruce Grove and on one day at Muswell Hill. Ongoing youth provision had been maintained and some families of young people with additional risk factors were being supported through the early help approach.
The Panel noted that 30% of families that were being worked with were white, 33.6 black African Caribbean, 5.35 Asian and 7.1% mixed heritage. The remaining percentage had not disclosed their ethnicity.
A Panel Member expressed concerns regarding the gangs matrix that was currently used within the justice system and which the new Mayor had pledged to review. He stated that he would be writing to the Cabinet Member for Communities regarding the issue. The Cabinet Member for Children and Families asked to be copied into relevant correspondence on the issue.