Kirklees youth justice service needs urgent improvement
- Published
The service works with young offenders, aged between 10 and 17
A service dealing with young offenders must "urgently focus" on improving after a watchdog said it had "shortfalls in practice".
HM Inspectorate of Probation staff found Kirklees Youth Justice Service (YJS) required improvement.
It acknowledged the service had been through a period of "instability".
YJS work with children, aged 10 to 17, serving court sentences or who have received cautions or community resolutions.
A spokesperson for Kirklees Council said: "As the report makes clear, we had already recognised areas for improvement before the inspection took place and we were taking steps to address them.
"We are acting swiftly on future developments and we will continue working closely with young people and their families."
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The majority of children under its supervision are aged 15 to 17, male and white.
Justin Russell, chief inspector of probation, said: "Kirklees YJS has been through a period of instability and significant challenge, including a restructuring and the Covid-19 pandemic, and this is reflected in our ratings.
"Although staff and managers want to deliver a quality service for the children they work with, we found shortfalls in practice in a number of areas that this service needs to urgently focus on to improve."
The inspection said improvements were specifically needed in work with children who receive community resolutions, where fewer than half the cases inspectors looked at were satisfactory.
"The reason we focus on areas like community resolutions is that they indicate how well a service is assessing a child and managing their needs, at the earliest opportunity, as well as the risk of harm that child poses to themselves and others," Mr Russell said.
The report notes low staffing levels had impacted the quality of the service they were able to deliver. Though it said recruitment had improved.
Mr Russell also said training for staff was comprehensive and there was a "motivational attitude which I see as being key to the service's continued improvement".
The YJS is a multi-agency team comprising of staff from police, probation, health, education, children and young people services, careers, connexions, housing and drugs agencies in Kirklees.
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