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An inspection of youth justice work with children and victims in Darlington

Published:

Foreword (Back to top)

This inspection is part of our programme of inspections across youth justice services (YJS) in England and Wales.[1] In this inspection we have inspected and rated work with children and victims in Darlington Young People’s Engagement and Justice Service (YPE&JS) across two broad areas: the quality of work done with children working with the YPE&JS and the quality of work done with victims.

Overall, Darlington YPE&JS was rated as ‘Requires improvement’.

We found strong work to achieve positive change for children across assessing, planning and delivery. YPE&JS staff and managers were committed and passionate about achieving positive outcomes for children. Practitioners knew their children and families well and were proactive and creative in engaging them. Practitioners ensured they captured children’s views and identified their strengths and motivations. Children contributed to discussions about their proposed interventions and worked together with practitioners to identify the places and spaces where they felt safe. Whilst we saw that practitioners were confident in recognising children with neurodiverse needs, they needed to ensure they consistently understood and considered the impact of children’s protected characteristics or diversity needs, particularly their culture and heritage.

Assessing and planning to keep the child and community safe needed to improve. We found there needed to be better consideration of children’s previous behaviours or changes in their current behaviours, and a fuller understanding of how these could impact on children’s safety or the safety of others. We also saw inconsistency in the multi-agency planning activity required to manage actual or potential concerns to the community. In contrast, it was positive to see that delivery to keep the child and the community safe was consistently strong.

Relationships with partnership agencies were positive. There was a range of services available to support children and practitioners used these well. There was clear evidence of practitioners offering children access to positive activities, alongside delivering targeted interventions addressing attitudes and interactions. Partnership staff needed to develop further their understanding of out-of-court processes and the implications and impact of these for children and their families.

We found work with victims was a significant strength and took an individualised, responsive and sensitive approach. Service leaders, however, acknowledged that they needed to prioritise the strategic oversight of work with victims and further develop analysis, evaluation and feedback from victims.

This inspection makes a number of recommendations to enable the YPE&JS to improve further.

Martin Jones CBE

HM Chief Inspector of Probation

Ratings (Back to top)

Fieldwork started August 2025Score 6/12
Overall ratingRequires improvement

Work with children

2.1 AssessingRequires improvement
2.2 PlanningRequires improvement
2.3 Implementation and deliveryGood

Work with victims

V1 Work with victimsGood

Recommendations (Back to top)

As a result of our inspection findings, we have made seven recommendations that we believe, if implemented, will have a positive impact on the quality of youth justice services in Darlington. This will improve the lives of the children in contact with youth justice services and better protect the public.

Darlington Young People’s Engagement and Justice Service should:

  1. improve assessing and planning, to ensure consistent and high-quality activity to keep children and communities safe
  2. strengthen the quality and consistency of management oversight so that it drives improvements in the quality of assessing and planning activity across the service
  3. make sure that the out-of-court disposal process is understood by all agencies, including the impact the outcome can have on children and families.

Darlington Young People’s Engagement and Justice Service Management Board should:

  1. prioritise the strategic oversight of work with victims and make sure there is regular monitoring, analysis and evaluation of this area of work, with effective quality assurance processes in place
  2. develop a victim policy to ensure that strategic and operational accountability, responsibilities and processes are outlined and understood
  3. work with Durham Police to improve work in relation to victim consent, to understand the profile and diversity needs of victims, ensure victim consent is informed, and understand why some victims do not consent 
  4. strengthen and develop the victim offer by including the voice of victims to inform service delivery.

Background (Back to top)

We conducted fieldwork in Darlington YPE&JS over a period of a week, beginning 18 August 2025. We inspected cases where the YPE&JS had started work with children subject to bail or remand, court disposals or out-of-court disposals between 17 February and 18 April 2025. We also conducted 15 interviews with case managers.

We inspected the organisational arrangements for work delivered with victims and looked at cases where the YJS had undertaken contact with victims between 17 February and 18 April 2025. We also conducted interviews with staff and managers responsible for the delivery of this work.

Darlington is a large market town with its own unitary authority, in the borough of Darlington, County Durham, England and had a population of 107,800 at the 2021 census.  Darlington has a mainly White British population and there is no over-representation of Black and minority ethnic children within the YPE&JS cohort. In terms of deprivation, 27 per cent of children aged 0-19 are in relatively low-income families in Darlington compared with 21 per cent across England.

The service is located within Darlington’s people directorate with the building stronger families service and shares a service manager who reports to the Head of Service. The Head of Service has strategic responsibility for the YPE&JS alongside other service areas, including children’s front door team, building stronger family’s team, independent review service, and the safeguarding partnership. The YPE&JS service manager is also responsible for the building stronger families service, which includes early help provision and the supporting families’ programme. The YPE&JS is overseen by the management board, which is chaired by a chief superintendent from Durham constabulary.

At the time of the inspection, there had been a recent change in the management team and at the beginning of 2025 the YPE&JS had undergone two major accommodation moves. The main team office had moved to an annexe at the back of the town hall which had its own entrance for children and families and was a child-friendly space. The reparation and activity team had moved into a new purpose-specific youth space with the youth service called ‘The Haven’. This was an impressive space for children which included a kitchen, workshops, comfortable areas with large screen televisions, virtual reality headset room, and activity spaces for arts, crafts, music and playing pool.

When deciding the most appropriate out-of-court disposal for children, the YPE&JS had a process in place that included the police and the YPE&JS but did not convene a multi-agency panel. A proposal was made by the police which was discussed by the practitioner and team manager after an assessment had been completed. Information from other agencies was included as part of the assessing activity. However, we found through multi-agency case discussions that partner agencies had limited understanding of the out-of-court disposal process, how the decisions were made, and the impact the disposal could have on the child and their family.

The delivery of work with victims was a significant strength and we heard examples of work with victims which took an individualised and sensitive approach. Inspectors met child victims who had taken part in various activities with the YPE&JS including the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme. They spoke about how their involvement in these activities had helped them through difficult times, with support offered by their peers and staff, and how their self-esteem had increased. The service had also been proactive in working with corporate victims, and inspectors met the manager of a local shopping mall which had experienced antisocial behaviour. It was evident that a strong relationship had been built with local businesses, and this example highlighted the collaborative and effective partnership working across agencies.

Inspectors met parents who had worked with the YPE&JS to try to prevent their children from getting into trouble. They stated how much they had been helped as a family, praising workers for their advocacy with other agencies which had ensured they were getting the support they needed. We also met children who had finished their interventions with the YPE&JS and were now completing activity-based leadership qualifications to help teach other children.

At the time our inspection was announced, the YPE&JS was working with 17 children subject to a community sentence, one child on remand, one child on bail support, two children subject to a youth caution, and 21 on a community resolution or other out-of-court disposal. There were two children in custody. The profile of children included: seven per cent from a Black and minority ethnic heritage; 12 per cent girls; 67 per cent with an education, health and care plan (EHCP) or special educational needs and disability (SEND) support; and 37 per cent with substance misuse issues. Fourteen per cent were care-experienced children living within the area and seven per cent were care-experienced children living outside the area; 16 per cent had a child protection plan; and 14 per cent had a child in need plan.

Prior to the inspection, the YPE&JS had completed a multi-agency thematic review of the first-time entrant rates, which had been rising. This included working with the police to analyse charging decisions and with children’s social care and early help to look at the profile of the children and their families. The service identified that their numbers were decreasing. The first-time entrant rate was 162 per 100,000 of the 10 to 17 age population of Darlington YPE&JS. This was below the rate for the northeast region during January to December 2024, although still above the rate for England and Wales. There had been an increase in the YPE&JS reoffending rates, which between July 2022 and June 2023 were 38 per cent compared to 32 per cent for England and Wales. The service had had a period where no children were sentenced to custody, although more recently the service had seen a small number of children receiving custodial sentences. The service indicated they were intending to complete a review of the children receiving custodial sentences, so that the partnership could understand and learn from the factors contributing to these children’s sentences.

Domain two: Work with children

We took a detailed look at 15 cases where the YJS had worked with children subject to bail, remand, community sentences, resettlement or out-of-court disposals.

2.1. AssessingRating
Assessing is well-informed and personalised, effectively analysing how to achieve positive change and keep children and the community safe.Requires improvement

Our rating[2] for assessing is based on the following key questions:

Does assessing sufficiently analyse how to:% ‘Yes’
achieve positive change for the child?87%
keep the child and the community safe?60%

In the majority of inspected cases, assessing activity to achieve positive change was detailed, comprehensive and analytical. The active participation of children was promoted and there was clear evidence of including children and capturing their views as part of the assessment process. We found that practitioners were proactive and creative in involving children and identifying their strengths and motivations, which they used well in informing their assessing activity.

The YPE&JS had established pathways with other services to ensure that information was accessible and available to inform assessing activity. During a multi-agency case discussion, we saw evidence that partners had a strong understanding of each other’s assessments and recognised the needs of the family. There was evidence of information sharing across all partners and a responsiveness to the changing circumstances of the child and the family. We saw evidence of professionals working together and a flexibility of approach, where work was adapted to support the child and meet the family’s needs.

As part of assessing activity, practitioners used information from children’s social care, building stronger families, police, health and the substance misuse service to help provide a holistic picture of the child’s strengths and needs. At the time of our inspection, the service did not have a specific education, training and employment practitioner post and, although there was the capability to access educational records, inspectors found there were missed opportunities to gather information. We saw instances where a fuller analysis and greater understanding of children’s educational circumstances and experience of school were required.

Inspectors found examples of the high priority given by practitioners to developing and maintaining effective working relationships with parents and carers, which enabled them to get a better understanding of children’s familial context and wider networks. However, this was not consistent across all the cases we inspected.

Assessing activity included a referral to the YPE&JS health and wellbeing worker who, where appropriate, completed a health assessment on the child. They worked with children to identify health needs, provided health education, and supported access to emotional mental health services, as required. Although there was no specific speech language and communication therapist, we found that practitioners assessed and explored children’s language needs appropriately as part of the assessing activity. We also found that practitioners were confident in recognising children with neurodiversity needs and understood the impact this had on their behaviours. Practitioners used information about children’s special educational needs and their education, health and care plans to assist in their assessing activity. However, in too many cases the child’s culture and heritage had not been fully explored, and the impact of children’s protected characteristics and diversity needs needed greater analysis and consideration.

When assessing children’s safety, we found that multi-agency meetings helped practitioners collate information about the child and their family to inform their assessing activity. These included YPE&JS practitioners attending children’s social care statutory meetings, the missing and exploitation group, and the community safety check-in meetings, which all shared information and ensured that agencies were up to date with children’s circumstances. We also saw examples of timely information sharing and effective joint working with social workers, as part of assessing activity.

However, we found some examples where information was gathered from other agencies but was not then adequately analysed to inform assessing activity to keep the child safe. This included children who were victims of domestic abuse, were subject to bullying, or who had parents who were misusing substances.

Practitioners had a good understanding of children’s risks of exploitation and understood contextual safeguarding approaches. However, in some cases, the potential risks to keeping children safe were not sufficiently analysed and did not always consider previous concerning behaviours that put the child’s safety at risk, for example their sexual health, emotional regulation, mental health and wellbeing.

In too many cases, assessing activity did not sufficiently identify the concerns or analyse the support and interventions needed to keep the community safe. We found examples of an underestimation of the level of risk the child could present to others, and lack of an understanding of how potential changes in their behaviour should be addressed to keep the community safe. In some cases, identifying how to keep other people safe, for example inappropriate sexualised behaviour and potential risks to others, had not been recognised or analysed effectively. Whilst there was a partnership framework for working with children who displayed harmful sexual behaviour, a limited number of practitioners in the YPE&JS were trained. This meant there was an over-reliance on a small number of people and, whilst joint work took place, wider training was needed to ensure all practitioners fully understood how to undertake effective analysis and assessing activity of harmful sexual behaviours.

We found that in nearly all relevant cases management oversight had not met the needs of the case and needed to be strengthened. The service needed to embed   proactive and robust management oversight to ensure consistent practice was evident across all assessing activity, particularly in relation to keeping the child and the community safe.

However, it was positive to see that assessment of the needs and safety of victims was considered in most cases. Inspectors found examples of practitioners and victim liaison officers working together to consider victims’ views, wishes and opportunities for restorative justice approaches.

2.2 PlanningRating
Planning is well-informed, holistic and personalised, focusing on how to achieve positive change and keep children and communities safe.Requires improvement

Our rating[3] for planning is based on the following key questions:

Does planning focus sufficiently on how to:% ‘Yes’
achieve positive change for the child?87%
keep the child and community safe?60%

The YPE&JS prioritised planning and working alongside children to achieve positive change. Inspectors found some examples of practitioners collaborating with children and ensuring that their opinions and voices formed part of the planning activities. Children contributed to discussions on the proposed interventions and the places and spaces where they felt safe. Feedback from the children we spoke to confirmed that they had felt listened to and were given choices as part of the planning process. However, this was not consistent, and, in too many cases, plans had been presented to the child rather than co-produced with them. 

Recognising children’s experience of trauma and how this impacted on their engagement was considered as part of the planning process. We found examples of practitioners considering children’s neurodiversity needs and learning styles. Planning was aligned with work being carried out with other agencies, including building stronger families and children’s social care. In a multi-agency case discussion, we saw how regular care meetings had built trust across the agencies, and professionals worked together to understand the family dynamics and the child’s individual needs. This ensured the child experienced a coordinated approach by all involved.

The relationship between the YPE&JS and schools was variable. In the absence of a specialist education, training and employment worker, the responsibility to maintain positive relationships with schools lay with practitioners. We found most practitioners were confident in advocating for children and their families with educational establishments. There was also a framework in place to support children in their educational provision through the vulnerable pupil panel, and we saw examples of positive work that the pupil referral unit had undertaken with individual children. However, it would be beneficial to identify a link or conduit to build a better understanding with schools about the specific needs of youth justice children, as well as supporting schools to build stronger relationships with the service. We also found limited provision for post-16 education, training and employment, and some gaps in preparing and motivating children to help them to engage with post-16 opportunities.

Initial planning activity for children subject to an out-of-court disposal was completed by the YPE&JS, rather than a multi-agency panel, and during our multi-agency case discussions we found that partner agencies had limited understanding of the out-of-court disposal process, how the decisions were made, and the impact the disposal could have on the child and their family.

Planning built on children’s interests and skills and was responsive to their needs. It showed that the practitioners knew their children well, considered their personal circumstances, and understood their motivations and strengths. However, planning activity did not consistently capture children’s diversity needs and there were missed opportunities to understand and incorporate the child’s lived experience and heritage.

In nearly all cases, practitioners knew which wider support services were available for children to access in their local community when their involvement with the YPE&JS ended. Inspectors noted positive examples of planning with the child for the early revocation of orders based on the positive progress the child had made. For children in custodial establishments, we found strong communication with key workers and collaborative planning with children’s social care and CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service). Children were involved in their remand and resettlement meetings and professionals coordinated support to maintain consistent engagement with children. However, the YPE&JS needed to do more to engage parents and carers proactively in the planning process and ensure that families continued to be involved when plans were reviewed and changed.

Overall, planning to keep the child safe was stronger than planning to keep communities safe. There was communication across agencies, and we saw practitioners seeking information from other professionals to make sure that planning stayed relevant to the child’s current situation. There was evidence of positive multi-agency working with children’s social care, building stronger families, health, forensic CAMHS and substance misuse practitioners to keep children safe. We saw positive relationships with children’s social care with joint planning through attendance at multi-agency statutory meetings. Practitioners had a clear understanding of the referral pathways into early help and children’s social care.

We found that in most relevant cases the YPE&JS paid attention to what was needed to reduce concerns in relation to children’s vulnerability, victimisation and exploitation. Information provided by the police outlining children’s potential exploitation was evaluated and planning activity was responsive to potential increased risks to the child’s safety. This was supported by discussions at the missing and exploitation group, where the conversations contributed to planning activity which ensured that children who were missing from home, at risk of or being criminally and/or sexually exploited, and any adults of concern, were discussed. However, in a small number of instances the signs that a child might be experiencing potential exploitation were minimised and greater investigative activity was required to be assured that the child was safe.

Through multi-agency meetings the YPE&JS collaborated with other agencies to manage the safety of children, but this was not as evident when considering the safety of the community. The service did not have its own risk management meeting structure for those children assessed as presenting a risk to the community. This impacted on the YPE&JS’ ability to ensure information was shared and agencies kept up to date with the child’s circumstances, and we found that there was inconsistency in planning for safety to others.

Greater emphasis was also needed on ensuring that planning consistently considered the specific needs of victims and potential victims. For example, we found some instances where planning to keep victims safe from further victimisation had not been considered or the potential impact on the victim had been minimised. We also found that recognising wider risks to other people and planning for children’s potential future harmful behaviour were not always fully considered. For example, instances where there was risk to other children and staff in a school setting were not considered, nor was police information concerning children’s escalating risk-taking behaviour in the community taken into account.

2.3 DeliveryRating
High-quality, well-focused, personalised and coordinated services are delivered, achieving positive change and keeping children and communities safe.Good

Our rating[4] for delivery is based on the following key questions:

Does the delivery of well-focused, personalised and co-ordinated services:% ‘Yes’
achieve positive change for the child?93%
keep the child and the community safe?73%

The delivery of services and interventions to achieve positive change was a strength. Delivery was child-centred, and trauma-informed, with interventions focusing on children’s strengths and protective factors. We saw the high priority that practitioners gave to developing and maintaining effective working relationships with children, encouraging them to participate and engage. Practitioners recognised barriers to engagement promptly; this proactive approach enabled early resolution and repositioning of work needing to be completed to achieve positive change. For example, after a child received a speech, language and communication assessment the practitioner considered how to adapt interventions to support the child’s engagement.

We found there was clear evidence of practitioners offering children access to positive activities and community reparation, while delivering targeted interventions to address attitudes and motivations. Children were offered the opportunity to attend activities and interventions that were adapted to meet their needs, innovative and tailored to engage them. Practitioners were skilled at identifying places and spaces where children felt safe and where their engagement could be maximised. All cases showed that practitioners used activities, reparation work and intervention sessions to help children build relationships and integrate them into the community. The wide range of projects enabled children to be matched to activities based on their interests and hobbies.

We saw various interventions that practitioners could offer children, which were based on discussion and tailored to each child. These included the ‘One Punch’ programme linked to youth violence, a bike simulator for motoring offences and peer influences and consequences work. Practitioners used flash cards to help with children’s understanding and engagement. Children were involved in creative activities including at a local equestrian centre, woodwork workshop, bike maintenance sessions, music and art groups and the opportunity to complete the Duke of Edinburgh programme. Activity sessions were adapted to children’s interests and hobbies, for example fishing and providing gym passes. Practitioners also considered children’s future ambitions, for example helping them to get to the required level of fitness to join the army and supporting them to complete the construction skills certification scheme. Inspectors met children who, on completion of their intervention, were continuing voluntarily to complete activity-based leadership qualifications, for example the mountain bike leadership course.

Practitioners understood which services were available to support children and worked alongside other agencies to ensure that the services delivered met the child’s needs. These included ‘WithYou’ substance misuse service, building stronger families, police, health and wellbeing worker, forensic CAMHS, community safety and children’s social care. The importance of education, training and employment opportunities was recognised, and, in the absence of a specific YPE&JS education, training and employment worker, there was evidence of practitioners doing all they could to advocate for children to make sure they received their educational entitlement.

There was a framework in place to support children transitioning to the probation service. This included a YPE&JS seconded probation officer who had access to both case management systems so that information could be shared and a monthly meeting held with the senior probation officer to discuss potential transitions.  

Delivery of services and interventions was a strong area of practice and work to keep children and the community safe was also positive. We saw timely and effective information-sharing between the YPE&JS, police, children’s social care and health, which resulted in a clear response to support the delivery of services to children.

We found instances of timely contact and discussions with children’s social care when there were emerging concerns about a child’s safety.

Practitioners delivering interventions also developed positive working relationships with parents and carers and involved them in reviewing the child’s progress.

Practitioners had access to the health and wellbeing worker who was co-located with the YPE&JS and available for case consultation, assessments, providing interventions, as well as using the health pathway to other services, including CAMHS, where required. There was a positive relationship with the ‘WithYou’ substance misuse service which offered support and guidance for staff, and the inspected cases showed a range of interventions that took place with children.

While inspectors found strengths in the delivery of services to keep children and communities safe, this was inconsistent, for example delivery of interventions to address vulnerability and exploitation risks on a child’s release from custody. We also found that work to keep communities safe was not always responsive to the emergence of new concerns, behaviours or offences, and saw instances where a greater focus was needed in delivery to ensure that actual and potential victims were protected. The YPE&JS needed to ensure that concerns for victims’ safety were not minimised and give more consistent consideration to how safety for victims would be achieved, particularly if there was the possibility of future contact between the child and the victim.

When interventions with the YPE&JS were coming to an end, practitioners were flexible in their approach, for example continuing to work with a child while a speech, language and communication assessment could be completed and the results shared with the school. We also saw examples of the YPE&JS working with other agencies at the end of interventions to make sure that exit planning helped children and families to access universal provision.

Inspectors were informed of multi-agency operations to respond to community safety incidents, including offering reassurance to communities after the event. We heard examples of collaborative and effective responses following incidents of antisocial behaviour, and it was clear that there were strengths across the partnership when working with children in their local communities.

Work with victims (Back to top)

We took a detailed look at nine victim cases where the YJS has offered a service to victims who have consented for their information to be shared.

Work with victimsRating
Work with victims is high-quality, individualised and responsive driving positive outcomes and safety for victims.Good

Our rating[5] for work with victims is based on the following key questions:

V 1.1 Is work with victims high-quality, individualised and responsive? 

V 1.2 Do organisational arrangements and activity drive a high-quality, individualised and responsive service for victims? 

Strengths:

  • Work with victims and the YPE&JS restorative approach were explained in the YPE&JS plan for 2025-2026.
  • There was a strategic lead on the management board for victims, and the board received some victim data as part of the regular performance reporting requirements.
  • Improving work with victims was included in the service’s action plan, which was regularly presented to the management board.
  • The YPE&JS received additional funding for victim work through the office for the police and crime commissioner, and it was clear how the resources for delivering this work were formulated and agreed.
  • The YPE&JS police officer was part of the newly recruited police officer training offer and delivered regular briefings to ensure that police officers understood the restorative offer from the YPE&JS.
  • The partnership had agreed an ‘opt out’ service for victims, so their contact details were shared automatically. This ensured as many victims as possible were offered the opportunity to receive a service.
  • There were two full-time victim liaison officers, one focused on providing services to victims who were children and the other to adult and corporate victims. Both had experience of restorative justice approaches and working with victims and had completed restorative justice training.
  • Practitioners were passionate and committed to their work and motivated to provide a high-quality service to victims which was responsive to their needs.
  • The YPE&JS provided services to young victims of both youth and adult crimes and children who were victims could access the same services and activities as children who had offended.
  • A victim assessment was completed with all victims. The victim liaison officers understood the importance of assessing the safety of the victim and this was included in the assessment.
  • Support to victims was not time-limited and ongoing support was based on the victim’s needs.
  • There were many examples of work with victims using an individualised, responsive and sensitive approach. This included funding for a range of activities including music lessons and the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme.
  • The victim liaison officers signposted and referred victims to other services, and examples were given of victims being offered these services when appropriate.
  • The YPE&JS provided a varied range of reparation activities, giving victims a wide choice when considering options for indirect reparation.
  • There was evidence of community-based victim initiatives and partnership work, and strong links with the community safety partnership.
  • The service had been targeted and proactive in working with corporate victims, and this had helped to establish a strong relationship with local businesses and the local community. There was an excellent example of collaborative working with a shopping mall which highlighted the effective partnership working across agencies.
  • The YPE&JS had an online feedback survey using a QR code which was given to children, parents, families and victims. Response rates from victims were poor, although the victim liaison officers also spoke to victims at the end of their interventions and collected additional qualitative and anecdotal feedback to strengthen the feedback process.

Areas for improvement:

  • The time it took for the YPE&JS to receive victim contact details from the police varied significantly. This process needed reviewing to ensure victims were offered timely opportunities to have their needs met.
  • The service did not produce a local profile report with details of victims of youth crime in Darlington and no demographic analysis of the victim cohort was being monitored by the management board. As there was no analysis or understanding of victims’ diversity needs, it was not clear what was required by the YPE&JS and partners to address their needs.
  • Information on victims’ protected characteristics was not gathered, analysed or monitored to understand if certain victims were over-represented.
  • There was no annual report that collated victim work performance data.
  • Monitoring of victim consent rates was limited and there had been no analysis of the reasons why some victims did not consent.
  • There was a lack of strategic oversight of the quality of victim work. The board had limited understanding of victims’ experiences and the support and interventions that they received.
  • Although there was a ‘Work with Victims’ pathway document, there was no victim policy setting out the arrangements and parameters for the delivery of restorative processes and work with victims. There was, therefore, no specific victim policy in place to capture the management of risk to victims, outline how vulnerable victims were considered and consulted, or whether they had an opportunity to take part in the restorative process.
  • The YPE&JS resettlement policy did not refer to victims or explain how they would be involved and their safety considered in the resettlement process.
  • The victim liaison officers needed further strategic and operational support to make sure that victims had a high profile in the service and that their needs and wishes were consistently considered by all staff across the organisation.
  • Although the victims’ assessments were quality assured, no regular audits of work had been undertaken with victims, using a consistent, victim-specific, quality assurance audit tool.
  • The voice of the victim was not always consistently clear and explicit in the children’s casework.
  • The YPE&JS acknowledged that higher priority needed to be given to gathering victim feedback, engaging victims in this process, and using their feedback to develop victim services.

Participation of children and their parents or carers

Darlington YPE&JS had a strong commitment to hearing from children and families, and the name of the service was developed and chosen by children in the service. As part of the recent accommodation moves, the service had engaged children to help design the new spaces, considered their feedback on the décor and furniture, and responded to the suggestions children made. Children were also involved in the recruitment process for staff.

The service promoted a relational model, which we found to be a strength in the cases inspected. There were examples of practitioners building strong working relationships and engaging children by using a flexible approach to appointments, using children’s interests and hobbies as part of their interventions, and helping to solve practical barriers such as transport issues. 

The YPE&JS used a Microsoft form to capture both direct and indirect qualitative feedback from colleagues, children, families, partner agencies and victims. The survey was on all staff mobile phones and could be completed on the device or via a link through text or email. Feedback the service gathered from children and families highlighted the quality of relationships with practitioners and the positive impact they had on engagement.

We found there was an inconsistent approach to completing the self-assessment tools which were available to help practitioners understand children’s and families’ perception of themselves. The YPE&JS used the ‘what’s working well’ section in the child’s intervention plan to promote a more qualitative approach. They also completed a life events session with children to explore their own self-assessment further. However, these approaches were not always applied across the cases we inspected which led to gaps in practitioners’ understanding of children’s and families’ views of themselves.

The YPE&JS contacted, on our behalf, children who were working with the YPE&JS at the time of the inspection, to gain their consent and enable them and their parents or carers to feed back their experience of the YPE&JS. We spoke to nine children and 13 parents or carers.

We provided a variety of opportunities for children and their parents or carers to participate in the inspection process (text survey, one-to-one meetings, focus groups, and video or telephone calls). During the inspection we also met parents and heard about the positive impact that early intervention services had had on their children and families.

The feedback to inspectors from children and their parents or carers was overwhelmingly positive. All felt respected and valued by YPE&JS staff and other people working with them, and all felt that they were involved in planning how they would be supported. When asked about how well the YPE&JS had helped them, nearly all responded with either ‘quite’ or ‘very’ well. One child, talking about whether they were included in planning said:[6]

“I am able to contribute, and I am always able to give my input before any plans are finalised. I feel really listened to.”

When asked how much the YPE&JS had helped them, one chid responded:

“They helped me lots, helped me get my ADHD diagnosis and now I am medicated which helps me loads. Also helped me at home, making it better with my mum. We used to always be on at each other, but they helped me see that what I was doing was wrong.”

When asked what was good about working with the YPE&JS one parent commented:

“They’re great and I can’t fault them. They’re supportive, and the relationships they have with the kids is really good. They can come down to their level and there’s no judgement.”

When asked how their identity and needs were recognised, one parent said:

“They helped the child to access a speech language and communication assessment which means that it helps us to understand how to engage with the child better and consistently.”

Equity, diversity and inclusion (Back to top)

Darlington was not an ethnically diverse borough, and the ethnicity of children open to the YPE&JS at the time of our inspection was predominantly White British. The youth justice plan outlined the service’s commitment to completing an annual review using the disproportionality toolkit and this work confirmed that there were no concerns about the ethnic composition of children within the YPE&JS. The number of girls was slightly higher than the national cohort, although this figure was affected by low numbers of girls in the cohort. Disproportionality and children’s protected characteristics were not included in the performance figures presented to the management board. More could be done to monitor disproportionality. A detailed analysis was also needed to understand the demographic profile of children known to the YPE&JS and to drive a tangible response to ensuring that all children’s protected characteristics and needs were met.

The youth justice plan recognised that children in care continued to be an over-represented group, and the YJPE&JS needed to ensure that children in care were not escalated through the youth justice system unnecessarily, when preventative or diversionary approaches were appropriate and available. The YPE&JS highlighted to us that recent work with local children’s homes, raising staff awareness across the partnership, and setting up links with the Corporate Parenting Board, were focused upon ensuring that care-experienced children were not brought into the criminal justice system unnecessarily.  

As part of this inspection, we considered how the service responded to the diverse needs and protected characteristics of children and victims. Recording of protected characteristics of victims was only clear in one out of nine cases inspected. However, the victim liaison workers prioritised home visits to victims to ensure they could develop an understanding of the victims’ individual needs.

In the inspection of work with children, we found that recording of the protected characteristics of children was variable and assessing did not consistently consider the child’s diversity needs sufficiently, with this occurring in less than half the inspected cases. This improved in planning and in the delivery of services and interventions, where consideration of children’s diversity needs had been given in the majority of cases.

By using a relational model with children, practitioners were able to be responsive and adapt the delivery of services to meet individual needs. However, the service should consider reviewing training with staff on equity, inclusion and diversity to enable practitioners to build and demonstrate confidence in having conversations with children about their diverse needs, culture, heritage and identity.

We found practitioners were confident in identifying children’s neurodiversity and speech, language and communication needs and we saw examples of interventions that were adapted and delivered to respond to these needs. Other examples included an understanding of how a child’s care experience impacted on their sense of vulnerability and identity, and consideration of a child’s previous trauma, emotional wellbeing and the structural barriers they faced. The inclusive approach of the YPE&JS staff delivering the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme meant that it had successfully engaged children from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences.

Data annexe (Back to top)

Darlington Youth Data Annexe
(XLSX, 129 KB)

Press release (Back to top)

‘Work to achieve positive change’ taking place at Darlington YPE&JS, rated ‘Requires improvement’

Further information (Back to top)

A glossary of terms used in this report can be found on our website.

This inspection was led by HM Inspector Pauline Burke, supported by a team of inspectors and colleagues from across the Inspectorate. We would like to thank all those who helped plan and took part in the inspection; without their help and cooperation, the inspection would not have been possible.

[1] There are two types of inspections as part of the current youth inspection programme across England and Wales: inspections of youth justice work with children and victims (IYJWCV), and inspections of youth justice services (IYJS).  Further information about these inspections can be found on our website Youth Justice Services – HM Inspectorate of Probation

[2] The rating for the standard is driven by the lowest score of the key questions, which is placed in a rating band, indicated in bold in the table. A more detailed explanation is available on our website Standards and ratings – HM Inspectorate of Probation.

[3] The rating for the standard is driven by the lowest score of the key questions, which is placed in a rating band, indicated in bold in the table. A more detailed explanation is available on our website Standards and ratings – HM Inspectorate of Probation.

[4] The rating for the standard is driven by the lowest score of the key questions, which is placed in a rating band, indicated in bold in the table. A more detailed explanation is available on our website Standards and ratings – HM Inspectorate of Probation.

[5] The rating for the victims’ standard is derived from the scores from case inspection for V 1.1 and the qualitative evidence for V 1.2. Case inspection scores and a more detailed explanation of the rating process is available on our website Standards and ratings – HM Inspectorate of Probation.

[6] Quotes are directly from children, parents and carers.