Content

Case summary
Inspector’s comments
Important learning
Take-away learning

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This case example illustrates where the planning showed a good understanding of promoting a child’s desistance. We expect the plan to address:

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Case summary

James is a 14-year-old male sentenced to a 10-month referral order for possession of a knife. The offence occurred in school.

James was a looked after child who lived with foster parents. He had no previous involvement with youth justice services and the incident of possession of a knife at school was the first time that any concerns about him had been identified. Due to the nature of the offence, James was at risk of exclusion unless he complied with a package of work to support him.

During the assessment process, James was reluctant to talk to the case manager and was very withdrawn. From conversations with the school, the case manager realised that unless James engaged with the assessment and subsequent plan there was a risk he would be excluded. There was a specific teacher who James liked and trusted. With James’s permission, the teacher joined the meetings and James started to open up about his circumstances. James said he was struggling at home and in school. He was having arguments with his foster parents and he was being bullied at school. The foster parents had set strict boundaries for James and he was not allowed out on school nights. This had led to him being called names on social media and he reported feeling threatened. It was for this reason that he had started carrying a knife. The case manager recognised that James did not have many friends and often felt frightened.

The case manager had worked hard to engage James and build a relationship with him and had included him and his foster parents in the planning process. She knew that he would be reluctant to meet other professionals and that he would need time to adapt to any changes. This was reflected in the plan, which appropriately sequenced the interventions that would be put in place and which professionals would be working with James. This included the teacher at school working with James on how to keep himself safe, and the YOT police officer doing sessions around the consequences of carrying knives. His social worker would do family therapy sessions with the family, and his foster parents would be offered parenting support. The case manager would provide interventions to improve James’s self-esteem and teach him how to build positive friendships. As he enjoyed playing football, this would be used as a positive activity to keep him motivated and engaged.

The agencies agreed a single plan, which was jointly shared by the school, the social worker, the YOT police officer and the case manager. The case manager ensured that the plan was integrated with his looked after child plan, that agencies’ roles were clear and that there was a timeline in place for discussing progress.

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Inspector’s comments

Planning in this case was effective. There was a good record of why the professionals believed that planning the activities and sequencing the tasks would bring about good results. The case manager had successfully planned for positive relationships and constructive activities to support James’s desistance and safely manage this referral order.

The case manager saw that James did not have much trust in professionals, so she prioritised building a relationship with him first and then introduced a broader network of professionals to support the delivery of the plan in incremental stages. To develop the right plan, the case manager had to involve all the right specialist agencies that were also working with James and his family.

The inspector saw evidence that the plan had been discussed with and understood by James and his foster parents. When the plan was complete, the case manager discussed it with James. He agreed that, with the right support, he could achieve what was expected. The case manager saw a shift in his motivation to a more positive outlook.

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Important learning        

• The case manager identified the protective factors in the child’s network and focused on bringing these together.
• Joint working, information-sharing and planning with other professionals were good.
• The child was not excluded from school, which was a significant achievement given the nature of the index offence; the professionals worked hard to achieve this.

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Take-aways – applying the learning

For further information on this subject, please see HM Inspectorate of Probation’s Academic Insights publication by leading academics Shadd Maruna and Ruth Mann, Reconciling ‘Desistance’ and ‘What Works’.

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This case summary is intended for training/learning purposes and includes a fictional name.