Youth Justice Case Formulation

Award outcome

Description

Kent County Council's Youth Justice Service (YJ) is a statutory service working with children known to the criminal justice system, and their families, to manage the risk those children pose to others; to safeguard them and to reduce their offending. Practitioners and managers within Kent Youth Justice have been trained in case formulation and trauma awareness. Further support is needed to fully embed case formulation so that assessment and plans for managing risk of harm to others, including contingency planning, meets standards. The 5-P model of case formulation is used to analyse the presenting, predisposing, precipitating, perpetuating and protective factors that influence a child's offending. The approach hypothesises what is going on for the child and helps to identify both suitable interventions and the sequencing of them. The commission is to embed case formulation within the four Youth Justice Units, and Team Managers to progress to independently leading these in sufficient depth and to required standards by the end of the contract. The provider will role model case formulation in each team, in the team dedicated group supervision time (which may be able to be negotiated). The provider should participate (including virtually) in 10 meetings with each Team in the 12-month period (a total of 40 meetings) each of two - three hours duration (80-120 hours). In advance of the meeting, the provider should prepare for the formulation by reading sufficient historical case records of the identified two to three cases on the meeting agenda. The provider should understand current national standards and expectations of Youth Justice record keeping and be able to quickly learn the basics of how Kent Youth Justice use the CorePlus recording system, to be able to navigate and identify the pertinent case information. The provider should be expert in case formulation and its application to youth justice. This requires the provider having sufficient competence in the assessment, planning, contingency planning, and multi-agency delivery of risk of harm to others and safeguarding of children. The successful provider must conduct a proportionate number of case audits at the halfway point of the contract, to evaluate progress in each team and identify any improvements needed. A second audit towards the end of the contract should identify progress and any exit strategy from the contract. Precise timings will be discussed with the provider by the service in the mobilisation period. Audits, using the His Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) Youth Justice audit tool, must meet the HMIP quality standards, which the provider must be able to evidence extensive recent (last two years) experience with. References from a Youth Justice team within the last 18 months would be sufficient evidence. Benchmarking and audit standards will be overseen by the Youth Justice Service senior management team.

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