Youth Offending Service in Northamptonshire rated ‘good’ as children say their lives have ‘changed for the better’

The Youth Offending Service (YOS) in Northamptonshire has been rated ‘good’ in its latest His Majesty Inspectorate of Probation inspection.

The service, which is part of Northamptonshire Children’s Trust (NCT), works with children who have been in trouble with the law - arrested or taken to court.

The inspection, which took place in July this year, is the first one since the establishment of the two unitary councils.

Inspectors looked at three main areas: the arrangements for organisational delivery of the service, the quality of work done with children sentenced by the courts and the quality of out-of-court disposal work.

Inspectors found that “delivery of work with children was of a consistently high standard”, which in turn meant that there are “positive working relationships with the children” and they “positively engaged with the YOS and could access appropriate services to support them”.

In a report published this month (October), inspectors said: “The delivery of work with children was of a consistently high standard across statutory and out-of-court disposals.

“The development of positive working relationships with the children, combined with the range of options for specialist referral available to case managers, meant that children positively engaged with the YOS and could access appropriate services to support them.

“The positive results from our children’s survey are a testament to the quality of working relationships on which the service is built.”

Children and young people were approached for comments as part of the inspection.

One said: “My YOS worker is absolutely amazing. They have helped me through a lot, and I can’t thank them enough. Ever since they came into my life a lot of things have changed for the better.”

The HM Inspectorate of Probation also made recommendations for the service to improve, which included a more consistent approach to ensuring all children have access to health-based services and giving greater consideration to children’s diversity, as inspectors found instances where a child’s heritage, learning ability or sexuality were identified but not included in plans for how they would be supervised.

Interim Chief Inspector of Probation Sue McAllister said: “Northamptonshire Youth Offending Service offers children under their supervision every chance to succeed.

“We were impressed with their approach to providing services for each child to access specialist support services, such as for substance misuse, speech, language, and communication and to meet their educational needs.

“The local community should know that the service is making every effort to stop children committing offences and provide opportunities towards a brighter future.”

Julian Wooster, chair of Northamptonshire Children’s Trust added: “We are extremely pleased that the fantastic work of our Youth Offending Service has been recognised in this inspection. We have an incredible team that works collaboratively with our partners to support young people, giving them every chance to succeed.

“The positive results from our children’s survey are a testament to the quality of working relationships on which the service is built.

“We welcome the recommendations that are in the report and will look at how to implement these so we can improve the service even further.”

The quality of resettlement policy and provision was also inspected, which was separately rated as ‘outstanding’.

Read the full report here.