Youth justice standards: consultation

Consultation Questions – Youth Justice Standards

The Scottish Government is consulting on these proposed Youth Justice Standards to ensure that they are as accessible and user-friendly as possible. We want these standards to improve the practice for those working with children and young people involved in offending and harmful behaviour in Scotland, which in turn improves the experience of those vulnerable children and young people. As such, we are particularly interested in your views on the standards, and in particular how we could improve these standards in any way.

The youth justice strategy ‘Preventing Offending Getting it Right for Children and Young People’, the Whole System Approach (WSA) and Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC) provide the overarching policy frameworks for youth justice practice in Scotland and underpin the proposed Youth Justice Standards. GIRFEC provides a consistent way for people to work with children and their families. It supports families by making sure children receive the right help, at the right time, from the right people. The aim is to help children grow up feeling loved, safe and respected so that they can realise their full potential.

The national youth justice key priority themes are: Advancing the Whole System Approach, Improving Life Chances, and Developing Capacity and Improvement

1. Do the proposed Youth Justice Standards reflect these national youth justice priorities?

Yes

No

Don’t know

Please provide a reason (or reasons) for your answer

The proposed Youth Justice Standards focus on the functions of youth justice, and are intended to influence service design and delivery to allow for flexibility to meet local needs.

2. Do the proposed Youth Justice Standards allow for flexibility to meet local needs?

Yes

No

Don’t know

Please provide a reason (or reasons) for your answer

As outlined, the Scottish Government wants to make sure that the proposed Youth Justice Standards are as helpful as possible to strengthening the delivery of services for children and young people.

3. What aspects stood out as being the most helpful?

Please provide a reason (or reasons) for your answer

4. What aspects stood out as being the least helpful?

Please provide a reason (or reasons) for your answer

Evidence-based decision making is central to the work of the Scottish Government and we have designed the proposed Youth Justice Standards to support internal and external evaluation of services which support children involved in, or at risk of, offending.

5. With reference to the core principles and data sets, will the proposed Youth Justice Standards allow for reliable local and national evaluation of services?

Yes

No

Don’t know

Please provide a reason (or reasons) for your answer

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that services delivered to children involved in offending are scrutinised appropriately.

Background

The Care Inspectorate is Scotland’s regulatory body for health and social care, early learning and childcare, social work, children’s services, and community justice.

Services that support children involved in offending are mainly included in inspections of services for children and young people in need of care and protection. This includes services for children under the age of 18 years and/or young people up to 26 years if they have ever been looked after. In addition, these services could overlap with criminal justice social work services for those children involved in the criminal justice system.

The quality framework for children and young people in need of care and protection outlines the Care Inspectorate’s expectation of the quality of service provision for children in need of care and protection across community planning partnerships. The framework is arranged under six high-level overarching domains. These are:

1. Key outcomes

2. Stakeholder’s needs

3. Delivery of services

4. Management

5. Leadership

6. Capacity for improvement

Care Inspectorate scrutiny activity addresses key questions in relation to these six domains by gathering information against a number of quality indicators arranged in 10 areas within the framework, with one or more of these being linked to each domain. The key questions include:

1. How good is the partnership at recognising and responding when children and young people need protection?

2. How good is the partnership at helping children and young people who have experienced abuse and neglect stay safe, healthy and recover from their experiences?

3. How good is the partnership at maximising the wellbeing of children and young people who are looked after?

4. How good is the partnership at enabling care experienced young people to succeed in their transition to adulthood?

5. How good is collaborative leadership?

6. Having read the background information above, do you think the current key questions are sufficient to ensure appropriate scrutiny of services provided to children involved in or at risk of offending, if no then please provide further reasoning and suggested alternatives below?

Yes

No

Don’t know

Please provide a reason (or reasons) for your answer