Kirklees council: 'Right worker, right support, right time’

In line with the national picture, Kirklees experienced an increase in identification of child criminal exploitation and young people involved in offending in their area. The presenting circumstances of these young people meant that they often required support and involvement from multiple services and teams, and that their requirements for support changed over time. This resulted in young people receiving numerous contacts from new and different professionals as they were transferred between teams following escalation, de-escalation or changes in circumstances. Young people and their families found this unsettling and disruptive and this experience contributed to services struggling to reach some young people, who did not want to experience the disruption of ever-changing support workers. It was also identified that traditional child protection procedures, which focus on risk in the family environment, were often inappropriate for cases where criminal exploitation was the presenting issue and could sometimes alienate the family network.

An example of this is F, a 17-year-old who was deemed to be at significant risk of harm from exploitation outside of his family home. His family were finding the situation highly distressing and were engaged with the local authority, however despite consistent and considered efforts professionals had been unable to engage with F. This in turn meant that he was not receiving any intervention from the local authority

Kirklees’ Youth Engagement Service (YES) brought together multiple teams including the Youth Intervention Team, the Risk and Vulnerabilities Team and Kirklees Youth Justice Service. The YES provides an inclusive and flexible service that works collaboratively with internal services and partners including but not limited to early support, multi systemic therapy enhanced, detached youth work, Parents Against Child Exploitation, education, health, and police. YES staff also work closely with other providers such as substance misuse services, sexual health services, the police and the community and voluntary sector.

Kirklees’ YES overcomes the challenge of young people being unsettled by multiple workers and services by ensuring that good quality engagement is the principle that underpins all the work they do.

Where a young person requires support from multiple services, YES attempts to provide a constant in the young person’s life by utilising the right worker from the beginning and enables that worker to remain with the young person along their journey, facilitating where needed, the introduction of every new person becoming involved in their support to build and maintain trusting relationships.

In order to achieve the ‘right worker’ providing the ‘right support’ at the ‘right time’ the YES have worked to address organisational boundaries and support staff to go beyond the normal scope of their work as and when needs arise in young people. Examples of this include supporting YJT social workers to hold looked after child meetings and remain the key point of contact when a child is placed into local authority secure care rather than transferring support over to a new social work team.

The YJS maintains its distinct identity within the YES, in order to maintain a focus on its statutory duties but can leverage the full range of services including the detached youth work offer, specialist social workers focused on contextual safeguarding, health and wellbeing and systemic practitioners to enhance and complement the work they undertake with young people and their families.

The model of engagement is inspired by Carlene Firmin’s contextual safeguarding model and the service’s policies, procedures, and practice reflect this approach by understanding and responding to young people’s experiences of significant harm beyond their families.

For example, in response to the concerns around child F, it was agreed that their intervention planning would take place via an Alternative Pathway Pilot rather than the traditional route of a child protection plan. Following a Section 47 enquiry which concluded that F was at significant risk of harm relating to exploitation, a meeting replicating the functions of an Initial Child Protection Conference took place to plan engagement and interventions. All agencies and the family were made aware that whilst F would not be placed on a Child Protection (CP) Plan, that agency responsibilities would be the same as they would under a CP plan. At this point statutory responsibility for F transferred to a social worker based within the YES.

Rather than a traditional social work assessment, the YES social worker utilised a detailed exploitation assessment which covered fourteen separate factors to create a detailed understanding of the contextual risk for F and what could be done to both mitigate this risk and support existing strengths.

Planning sought to utilise strengths and manage risks via a focus on things that were achievable. The team sought to focus solely on engaging F as a precursor to other interventions and responsibility for engagement was placed with professionals and was focussed on

F’s wishes, ambitions and aspirations. Safety planning took place with F’s family and shifted focus from external unknowns and more onto safety planning around known risks with the family.

The YES also uses the information and intelligence gathered through return home interviews to develop a greater understanding of the contextual risks within localities. The Youth Engagement Service is also closely involved with the Youth Justice Service management board and works alongside strategic colleagues to deliver work through six working groups which are flexible in focus and respond to emerging needs. Recent examples of this include the delivery of initiatives to tackle the disproportionate criminalisation of Black young people through targeted work with police colleagues, as well as the delivery of participation initiatives that engage previously unreached groups of young people through pizza evenings, recording sessions at music studios and sports.

The flexible and engagement-led approach of YES results in greater levels of consistency for young people who can continue to be supported by one worker when traditionally they may have been moved from service to service as their needs changed. This approach has enabled the service to engage with young people who were previously not as easily reached by other services.

Kirklees have found that aligning the YJS to their YES has enabled the creation of a fully integrated approach to adolescent safeguarding and contextual risk within children’s services. It has enhanced the quality of information-sharing to improve decision making and plans contributing to our ability to deliver the contextualised safeguarding approach.

For F, who was supported by the YES, following their focus on contextual risk, and a continual recognition of the unknowns surrounding F, the multiagency plan was ended as it had effectively reduced the risks. Working collaboratively and ensuring that all professionals had a detailed understanding of how their role contributed to the overall approach, professionals were able to engage with F. F has achieved and maintained employment, is no longer being reported missing and has maintained a place at college.

Kirklees has dedicated significant investment to support for young people identified as at risk of exploitation as they recognise the significant link between exploitation and criminal justice involvement. They have also found that supporting people to work across boundaries enables the principles of ‘right person, right support, right time’ to be more effectively implemented and more easily managed.

This approach is further supported by an allocation process adopted by Kirklees, whereby once a young person at risk is identified, their circumstances are explored in a multi-agency forum where they are matched with the ‘right person’ based on a number of things including the support worker’s skills, identity and role.

Kirklees have learned that bespoke support for the individual young person is far more important than providing support based on a specific issue. Whilst Kirklees still identify the predominant need that the young person is experiencing, this decision does not send the young person down a pathway that is siloed from other intervention pathways. Flexibility and a commitment to ‘stay with the young person’ through the changing circumstances of their life is key to the successful delivery of the service.

The integration of varied teams has been supported by joint supervision for YES staff and case-holding social workers, which informs the direction of the intervention for the child.

Kirklees are tackling the challenge of measuring the success of a programme which is, by its nature, based on individualised support over long periods of time. Recognition of the value of qualitative data such as case studies has been important in measuring this success, as has the data which shows increased identification of young people at risk. Partners are now identifying young people at risk earlier and referring them to the service sooner. This evidences the YES's crucial role in educating a wider audience to recognise and respond to the signs and symptoms of young people at risk of criminal justice involvement.