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

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 Calderdale YJS across two broad areas: the quality of work done with children working with the YJS and the quality of work done with victims.

Overall, Calderdale YJS was rated as ‘Requires improvement’.

We found that practitioners worked hard to understand the children in their care and to support them to achieve positive change. It was positive to see that building trusting relationships with children was prioritised, and inspectors found evidence of practitioners working alongside children to ensure that their opinions and voices were heard. Children were actively involved in shaping their plans, and practitioners demonstrated a clear understanding of their circumstances, motivations, and capacity to engage.

Calderdale YJS had a strategic and operational commitment to understanding and meeting the diverse needs of children, victims, and staff. We found strong practice in understanding neurodiversity and communication needs. The quality of work to keep children and the community safe was variable. While there were many examples of effective multi-agency information sharing, this was not applied consistently. We found that assessing and planning activity needed greater analysis of the emergence of new concerns and potential risks, and it did not always sufficiently identify the support and interventions required to keep the child and community safe.

The YJS benefited from strong partnership relationships across most aspects. We saw high-quality delivery of work by health partners, including in mental health, wellbeing, and speech and language. There was excellent provision for education, training, and employment, and there was a clear focus on securing opportunities that helped children reconnect with learning or access vocational pathways. The YJS was based in an impressive youth space for children, which allowed it to offer a wide range of creative interventions and access to appropriate services. A positive partnership approach enabled practitioners to tailor interventions to encourage children’s reengagement. However, we were concerned that some children were progressing to court without sufficient advocacy on their behalf or consideration of alternative pathways. This meant practice across the partnership was not consistently child-centred and led to the unnecessary criminalisation of children.

Work with victims took an individualised, responsive, and sensitive approach, and the victim work practitioners were passionate and committed to improving the offer for victims. However, a more coordinated approach to safety planning was needed to ensure that victims were consistently protected, their needs remained central, and their voices strengthened.

Martin Jones CBE

HM Chief Inspector of Probation

Ratings (Back to top)

Fieldwork started May 2026Score 6/12
Overall ratingRequires improvement

Work with children

2.1 AssessingRequires improvement
2.2 PlanningRequires improvement
2.3 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 Calderdale. This will improve the lives of the children in contact with youth justice services and better protect the public.

The Calderdale Youth Justice Service should:

  1. improve assessing and planning to ensure consistent and high-quality activity to keep children and communities safe
  1. strengthen the quality and consistency of management oversight to drive improvements in the quality of assessing and planning activity.

The Youth Justice Strategic Partnership Board should:

  1. work with West Yorkshire Police, to review their approach to motoring offences to enable Calderdale children aged 16 and 17 to access effective diversion opportunities, when relevant, and ensure all out-of-court practice consistently prioritises effective diversion activity which avoids their unnecessarily criminalisation when appropriate to do so
  2. work with West Yorkshire Police to get a better understanding of the profile and diversity needs of victims
  3. strengthen victim safety procedures and ensure that processes are fully developed, embedded, and understood across the partnership
  4. continue to strengthen and develop the victim offer by including the voice of victims to inform service delivery.

Background (Back to top)

We conducted fieldwork in Calderdale YJS over a period of a week, beginning 18 May 2026. We inspected cases where the YJS had started work with children subject to bail or remand, court disposals or out-of-court resolutions between 19 May 2025 and 20 March 2026. We also conducted 13 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 November 2025 and 16 January 2026. We also conducted interviews with staff and managers responsible for the delivery of this work.

Calderdale is a metropolitan district in West Yorkshire, centred on the town of Halifax. It is part of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority. Although one of the smallest metropolitan districts in terms of population, it is one of the largest in area, with over 80 per cent being rural. According to the Office for National Statistics, in July 2025, there were 210,929 residents in the population, of whom 21,736 were aged 10-17. At the time of this inspection, the youth population figures showed that 16 per cent were Asian or Asian British, one per cent were Black British, African or Caribbean, four per cent mixed heritage or multiple ethnic, and 78 per cent White British. Calderdale had experienced significant deprivation and was ranked 55 out of 317 local authorities in the 2019 Indices of Multiple Deprivation. Key issues included health inequalities, child poverty, and inadequate housing.

At the time of our inspection, Calderdale YJS was part of Calderdale’s early intervention and safeguarding directorate, part of children’s services. An early intervention and targeted support service manager had oversight for youth provisions across the borough, which included the youth justice service, targeted youth support, young carers, and voice and participation teams. There was a YJS team manager, supported by three YJS practice managers. The YJS was overseen by the strategic partnership board, chaired by the director for children’s services. The YJS was located at the Orange Box in Halifax town centre. This was an impressive youth space for children which included workshop rooms, comfortable individual areas with televisions, activity spaces for arts, crafts, music, and playing pool, a climbing wall, and a skate park. The YJS was co-located with other services, which enabled children to socialise at the venue as well as engage with professionals. Staff could also access other venues across the area.

Many aspects of the partnership working were a strength. The health provision was multidisciplinary and included access to a specialist nurse, child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) worker, speech, language, and communication therapist as well as a substance misuse service. A specialist substance misuse worker was due to take up post. We saw the importance that health practitioners gave to using the priority pathways for children. The work by the speech, language, and communication therapist was extremely positive, and they provided consultations and guidance as well as helping practitioners to create interventions to engage children based on their needs. We found many examples of excellent work from the education and training officer, who worked with schools liaising and advocating for children and families. The work with post-school-age children was also strong, with all practitioners motivating and supporting children so that they could engage with suitable education, training, and employment opportunities.

There was a policy in place by West Yorkshire Police which placed an age barrier on children being able to receive an out-of-court resolution for motoring offences, where appropriate. We were concerned that this policy and practice resulted in some older children (aged 16 plus) being unnecessarily progressed to court, without sufficient advocacy or consideration of alternative pathways.  We were pleased to see that the YJS had recognised this and (along with the other four West Yorkshire YJSs) had escalated this to senior police representatives. However, the escalation had not yet resulted in changes to the policy or practice. The partnership needed to review how all out-of-court resolution decision-making processes aligned across the range of children’s offences and ensure that practice across the partnership was consistently child-centred, proportionate, and did not lead to the unnecessary criminalisation of some children.

Our case discussions showed that YJS practitioners and partner agencies knew the children they were working with well and spoke positively of them and their families. Practitioners wanted to give children as many opportunities as they possibly could to enable them to excel and maximise their engagement with the services delivered. The YJS was creating opportunities for children to take part in meaningful activities to build their engagement and resilience. One example was working with the EdShift charity, who supported children affected by domestic abuse and sexual violence to produce care pack and bravery boxes, which included comforting and practical items such as fidget toys, worry dolls, positive messages, and safety plans. Another example was the YJS allotment project where children learned new skills in planting, growing, and maintaining crops. The produce grown was shared with families and local charities. The YJS also had access to AQA (Assessment and Qualifications Alliance) awards for children and arranged an award ceremony for them when they achieved a certificate for completing certain tasks.

At the time our inspection was announced, the YJS was working with 95 children, including those on prevention programmes, out-of-court resolutions, and subject to court orders. Not including the prevention programmes, 36 children were subject to a community sentence, two were on bail support, eight on a youth caution, six on a youth conditional caution, and 17 on a community resolution or other out-of-court resolution. No children were sentenced and in custody or on remand. Of the children: 12.6 per cent were from a Black, Asian or minority ethnic background; 28.4 per cent were girls; 54.7 per cent had an education, health, and care plan (EHCP) or received special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) support; and 8.4 per cent had substance misuse issues. For care experienced children, 5.2 per cent were living within the area, and 6.3 per cent were living outside the area. Of the children, 5.2 per cent had a child protection plan and 11.6 per cent a child in need plan.

Analysis of YJS performance data showed that the number of Calderdale’s first-time entrants to the formal youth justice system was above the average for the Yorkshire region and for England and Wales. The proportion of children who reoffended and the frequency with which they reoffended were lower than the average for England and Wales, although trend data was affected by the small numbers involved. The YJS was aware of the increase in violent offences, particularly among girls, and had responded appropriately by completing an analysis of this offending behaviour to explore the context and circumstances. As a result, the YJS had expanded its dedicated girls’ group to include those of a younger age and had developed a specific intervention for children involved in assaults on emergency workers.

Domain Two: Work with children (Back to top)

We took a detailed look at 14 cases where the YJS had worked with children who were subject to bail, remand, community sentences, resettlement or out-of-court resolutions.

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 rating2 for assessing is based on the following key questions:

Does assessing sufficiently analyse how to:% ‘Yes’
achieve positive change for the child?93%
keep the child and the community safe?57%

In nearly all the inspected cases, inspectors found that assessing activity for achieving positive change was thorough and analytical, with the appropriate level of detail. Practitioners were proactive in involving children and their parents or carers, and there was clear evidence of including children and capturing their views as part of the assessment process. This co-production ensured that the voices of children and their parents or carers were central, and we found that practitioners also consistently identified children’s strengths and motivations, which they used well in informing their assessing activity.

Practitioners accessed information from agencies such as education, the police, and children’s social care. Practitioners used the YJS health specialist screenings to collate information from the specialist nurse, the CAMHS worker, and the speech, language, and communication therapist. Assessing activity included consideration of children’s general health, mental health, and emotional wellbeing; speech, language, and communication; and substance misuse needs. Healthcare practitioners worked closely with YJS practitioners, and we found that children’s healthcare needs were explored fully as part of assessing activity. Practitioners were confident in recognising children with neurodiversity needs and the impact of these on their current behaviours. The information collected was assessed and used to help YJS professionals understand where changes were needed to achieve positive change in the lives of children and their parents or carers.

Practitioners took time to understand the children and their personal circumstances, including their experience of education, and their family background. There were examples of the high priority that staff had given to developing and maintaining effective working relationships with parents or carers, which enabled them to better understand children’s familial context and wider networks.

Practitioners had explored the impact of children’s early adverse childhood experiences, history of trauma, and experience of bullying. Broadly, they recognised children’s diversity issues, including potential neurodevelopment needs, and analysed them well. There were examples of staff sensitively exploring with children their sexuality and self-identity. This allowed them to gain a fuller understanding of how these factors had affected children’s behaviour and lived circumstances. There were positive examples of assessing diversity, particularly in speech and language needs, neurodiversity, and lived experience factors, such as bereavement and trauma. To further strengthen assessing analysis and activity the YJS needed to ensure that children’s ethnicity, cultural identity and family context were consistently explored.

Assessing activity explored children’s strengths, and practitioners focused on how children were spending their days, what leisure activities they were involved in, including their sporting pursuits, and interest in creative arts. The education and training officer was proactive in liaising with schools and colleges so that children’s aspirations for education, training, and employment formed part of assessing. In nearly all the inspected cases, analysis of children’s capacity for change, engagement with the YJS, and community integration was a strength.

The quality of assessing for the safety of the child and the community was variable. When assessing children’s safety, multi-agency meetings helped practitioners collate information about the child and their family to inform their assessing activity. These included practitioners attending children’s social care statutory meetings, the multi-agency triage panel, and the YJS multi-agency safety and wellbeing panel. Whilst the YJS had positive relationships with its partners and there were procedures and pathways for sharing information, this did not always translate into sufficient practice. We found instances where information was not consistently utilised, updated or analysed as part of assessing activity. This included where children witnessed or were potential victims of domestic abuse. In too many cases, risks to children’s vulnerability were not fully analysed, and it was not always evident that there was an understanding of the risk to children when they were missing and the potential for them to be exploited. Assessing activity did not consistently identify or analyse sufficiently the contextual safeguarding approaches needed to keep children safe.

In most cases parents or carers were involved in the assessing activity to keep children and the community safe and their views helped inform assessing.

We found some examples where they were actively engaged, there was ongoing

communication, and their insight helped shape children’s assessments. However, this was inconsistent, with some cases showing limited engagement with all relevant carers, insufficient exploration of family dynamics, and missed opportunities to respond to parental concerns, particularly on safeguarding.

Analysing the potential risks to keeping the community safe did not always consider previous concerning behaviours. In some cases, we found there needed to be greater focus on understanding how potential changes in children’s behaviour should be addressed and responded to, to keep the community safe. For example, consistently considering and responding to violent, school-based concerns, or domestically abusive behaviours communication, and their insight helped shape children’s assessments. However, this needed to be consistent across all work and the YJS needed to ensure it consistently undertook sufficient exploration of family dynamics and responsive engagement with parents and carers in all work undertaken, particularly when parents or carers identified safeguarding concerns.

The involvement of the police was not always evident in children’s cases. Although police intelligence informed assessing activity at the start of YJS involvement, there was limited evidence of both the YJS and the police jointly and dynamically managing the child’s risk either to their own safety and wellbeing or to the community.

Assessing the needs and safety of victims was considered in most relevant cases. Information was shared with practitioners to inform their initial assessments and ensure they understood the victim’s needs and wishes. Inspectors did find positive examples of practitioners and the victim liaison officer working together to consider victims’ views, wishes, and opportunities for restorative justice approaches. However, assessing activity did not consistently include a full analysis of the impact that the offending had on the victim and their sense of safety.

We found that management oversight met the needs of the case in just over half of the cases inspected. A more proactive and robust approach was needed to gain consistency and improve the quality of work when assessing the safety of children and the community.

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 rating3 for planning is based on the following key questions:

Does planning focus sufficiently on how to:% ‘Yes’
achieve positive change for the child?93%
keep the child and community safe?64%

Planning built on children’s strengths, created opportunities for change, and was responsive to their needs. Inspectors found that all children were engaged actively in co-producing plans, and practitioners explored what might hinder engagement with both children and their parents or carers. YJS staff across the partnership knew the children in their care well, considered their personal circumstances, and understood their motivations. They considered children’s educational aspirations, learning needs, and discussed factors relating to their speech, language, and communication, and neurodiversity needs. The speech, language, and communication therapist completed ‘communication profiles’4 and shared them across agencies, so that they could plan how best to engage the children. However, the intersectionality of children’s diversity needs was not considered consistently, and there were some missed opportunities to understand and incorporate children’s lived experience, heritage, and cultural needs in planning.

The strong provision from healthcare professionals and the screening process helped support planning activity. Healthcare workers supported practitioners in developing plans for how best to engage children, and we saw examples of the positive impact of speech, language, and communication input to enhance planning to support the understanding of children’s needs. Children had also been appropriately referred and were working with ‘Branching Out’, which provided substance misuse services. Priority pathways to access mainstream health services were in place; we found examples where exit planning included sending children a WhatsApp message containing a link to access ongoing emotional health and wellbeing support.

Practitioners were aware of the structural barriers that children faced due to their vulnerabilities and complex needs. The YJS education and training officer was tenacious in building relationships with schools and colleges to ensure that children had access to appropriate educational provision. However, we found the response from schools to children’s assaults on peers could lead to their educational provision potentially breaking down. Inspectors noted that this was not always in the best interest of the child and there had been limited consideration to using restorative approaches. The YJS education and training officer ensured that planning activity prioritised re‑engagement in school, built positive relationships with schools, and put safety management plans in place. We found strong provision for post-16 education, training, and employment. The education and training officer, along with practitioners, considered how to prepare and motivate children to help them engage with these opportunities. Examples showed how the workers liaised with different education, training, and employment providers to ensure that children were offered various options to meet their needs.

It was encouraging to see that building a trusting relationship with children was integral to the planning process and practitioners took time to understand children’s motivation and ability to change. As part of planning activity, practitioners explored how to build children’s resilience and considered which wider support services were available for them to access in their local community. Planning contained opportunities for them to engage with new activities in which they were interested, making use of services in the community such as sports activities, attending a boxing club, and the various sports, music, and creative art activities available at the Orange Box facility where the YJS was based. Practitioners across the partnership had invested time to make sure they understood children’s capacity to engage and their motivation to complete potential interventions successfully.

The quality of planning to keep the child and community safe was more variable. We saw practitioners seeking updates about children and their families from other professionals, and information shared by agencies in various multi-agency meetings, to make sure that planning stayed relevant to the child’s current situation. There were some examples of joint planning with children’s social care services, through attendance at multi-agency statutory meetings, and practitioners had a clear understanding of the referral pathways into early help and children’s social care services. The YJS had its own risk management meeting structure through the safety and wellbeing panel. However, planning activity did not always take account of the pace at which children could positively engage with interventions. For some children, too many professionals were involved, and appropriate timelines had not been considered for the involvement of other specialist workers. Given that the YJS had access to a broad range of services and practitioners involved with children, it needed to ensure that children felt able to build healthy relationships with professionals and sequence work accordingly.

In most cases, planning work was completed with children’s parents or carers, which enabled all involved to be responsive when circumstances changed and allowed parents or carers to be proactive in supporting their children. However, in too many cases, planning did not recognise how to keep children safe from harmful relationships and potential exploitation. We found that the signs that a child might be vulnerable were minimised, and that greater investigative activity was needed to be assured that children were safe.

Victim work staff attended various panel meetings to represent the views of the victims, and practitioners had been trained in restorative justice practice and victim work. In nearly all relevant cases, the victim’s needs and wishes, and opportunities for restorative justice, were considered as part of the planning activity. However, planning did not always consider how the risk to victims presented day to day, and examples included victims within the family home and vulnerable potential victims in the community. Safety planning needed more explicit coordination between the workers supporting the child who had harmed and the victim work staff to ensure a connected, robust risk management plan that protected victims and reinforced their sense of safety.

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

Our rating5 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?79%
keep the child and the community safe?71%

We found that practitioners knew the children and their families well, and we saw the priority they gave to developing and maintaining effective working relationships with children. They showed persistence, flexibility, and positive engagement skills, encouraging children to participate and engage. In all cases, practitioners swiftly identified the structural factors that could have blocked effective participation. This approach enabled them to resolve any emerging needs early and amend work that needed to be completed to achieve positive change. Practitioners also developed positive working relationships with parents or carers. Feedback from the children and parents or carers who we spoke to emphasised how important they found their relationship with the YJS practitioners, and how much they had been supported and helped by them.

YJS staff recognised what children described as the strengths in their lives and built on this knowledge when delivering services. They acknowledged the importance of children’s interests in determining the activities they would complete, and these took place alongside structured intervention sessions. They sought a range of creative approaches and resources to support change, including sports activities, music programmes, creative art, and cookery sessions, as well as access to boxing sessions and gyms. Practitioners also delivered a range of interventions, covering the consequences of offending, peer influences, weapon-focused work, and victim awareness, which they adapted to children’s individual learning needs. The inspected cases included several children who had committed motoring offences and interventions included increasing their understanding of driving laws, decision-making, and peer influence, as well as victim awareness sessions. A West Yorkshire Fire Service driving course could also be delivered in a group setting or adapted for one-to-one work. Given the interventions available on illegal motoring, delivery would be further enhanced by extending this opportunity to older children, pending a review of West Yorkshire Police’s approach to such offences.

Practitioners had a good understanding of the services available to support children. This included provision covering education, training, and employment; healthcare; substance misuse; mental health and emotional wellbeing; and speech, language, and communication. Healthcare practitioners engaged children and families proactively, and worked with them to identify children’s needs, as well as delivering interventions, offering consultations to practitioners, and supporting access to appropriate services, as needed. This resulted in access to timely support and the offer of interventions to help children with mental health and emotional wellbeing concerns. When speech, language, and communication issues were identified, there was a clear process to access timely provision. We saw the use of adapted materials and visual supports in sessions to meet children’s neurodiversity and communication needs, with communication passports shared across agencies and joint working between YJS staff, the speech, language, and communication therapist, and the education and training officer. Examples showed practitioners and specialist workers working together to support children to reintegrate into educational establishments, working flexibly around their college commitments, and supporting them into employment and training. We saw instances of children engaging with the YJS allotment and completing their construction skills certification scheme card.

Practitioners understood the context in which children were living, which was considered well in the delivery of services. This included the quality of children’s relationships with their immediate and extended families; it was clear that children and their parents or carers understood what staff expected of them and, in return, knew what to expect of staff. Interventions were delivered appropriately in a range of locations, and children had contributed to discussions on the places and spaces where they felt safe. We found that consideration was given to where and when interventions were delivered so that children felt comfortable and were not identifiable as YJS children. The Orange Box was an excellent resource which provided a safe, welcoming, and accessible environment for all children. Activities which took place there included wellbeing and identity groups for boys and girls, a group for children who identified as LGBTQ+, photography, make-up course, music, rapping, and song writing, as well as use of an indoor skate park and climbing wall. The co-location of services at the Orange Box helped multi-agency collaboration, enabled a coordinated approach to meeting children’s needs, and the variety of activities taking place there encouraged children’s engagement.

There was a framework to support children transitioning to the probation service when they turned 18 years old. The YJS-seconded probation officer had access to case management systems in both organisations, so that information could be shared, and meetings were held with practitioners to discuss potential transitions. Children who transitioned were supported by the probation officer, who coordinated introductory meetings with the supervising probation officer and the YJS case manager. However, we found in some instances that work completed by practitioners to achieve positive change was not always aligned with other agencies’ delivery of interventions or coordinated sufficiently well. Some planned interventions were not delivered on time due to delays in the management of the case and inappropriate sequencing of the sessions for children.

In most cases, work to achieve safety for the child and the community was sufficient. When delivering interventions, YJS staff applied the knowledge they had gained about the diverse needs of children. We saw examples of practitioners prioritising the need for children to understand their interventions, including what was being delivered and why. Practitioners used information from the specialist nurse and CAMHS practitioner to better understand children’s general health, emotional wellbeing, and mental health needs. They received guidance on working with children with neurodivergence needs, and also had consultations with the speech, language, and communication therapist to see how best to achieve positive engagement.

Responses to the emergence of new concerns, behaviours or offences were mostly appropriate, and we saw some interventions that were adapted in response to children’s changing circumstances. This included examples of professionals responding promptly to information from residential providers and schools to safeguard children when their behaviour or circumstances changed. However, we also saw examples where escalating concerns about children’s vulnerability had not led to interventions being adapted to explore their sense of safety. These included the impact of witnessing domestic abuse and the risk of potential exploitation for some children.

The range of interventions delivered included: improving and increasing education offers; meetings with the speech, language, and communication therapist, specialist nurse, and CAMHS practitioner; examination of offending behaviour; motivational work to maximise engagement; understanding the impact of lifestyles and choices; managing personal safety; and weapons awareness. In most cases, services and interventions were delivered collaboratively with children’s parents or carers to build safety and protection for children and the wider community. However, delivery needed to ensure that actual and potential victims were protected. To strengthen this area further, the safety of victims needed to be prioritised. We saw some instances of victim work that was not completed when it should have been, and limited discussions about the potential impact of children’s behaviour on the wider community.

When children’s interventions with the YJS were coming to an end, we saw consideration of continued involvement with, for example, the CAMHS worker, and referral to other partners, including targeted youth support services. We also found that practitioners’ response to children’s non-engagement was measured and timely.

Work with victims (Back to top)

We took a detailed look at 10 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 rating6 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:

  • The service had developed a victim dashboard, and there was evidence of discussions and analysis at the strategic partnership board that showed an understanding of the YJS’s victim work.
  • The victim liaison officer attended the partnership board to give members a better understanding of victims’ experiences and the work of the YJS.
  • There was a lead member for victims on the partnership board and work with victims was strategically linked to several forums.
  • The lead member for victims chaired the victim work operational meeting, and there were clear lines of accountability between the partnership board and the operational meeting. 
  • There was a victim work action plan which was monitored through the victim work operational meeting.
  • The YJS received some victim diversity data from West Yorkshire Police, and both agencies were considering how to improve their processes to gather information relating to victims’ protected characteristics.
  • There was clarity regarding the arrangements for gaining consent from victims and the sharing of victim details.
  • The YJS had a full-time victim liaison officer who managed all the victim cases. A restorative justice worker had also recently started in post.
  • Contact with victims was prompt and comprehensive, providing sufficient information to enable victims to decide how they wished to engage.
  • The victim liaison officer had recently delivered training to police officers regarding the YJS restorative process, the importance of gaining victims’ protected characteristics, and what the YJS could offer in support for victims.
  • Staff who worked with victims had experience of restorative justice approaches and had completed restorative justice training.
  • Support to victims was not time-limited, and ongoing support was based on the victim’s needs.
  • A victim consultation information form, which included a safety plan, was completed with all victims, and the victim liaison officer understood the importance of assessing the safety of the victim.
  • Staff directly involved in victim work were passionate and committed to the work they delivered and wanted to provide a high-quality service to victims which was responsive to their needs.
  • Children who were victims could access the same services and activities as those who had offended, and the victim liaison officer referred victims to other services, both external and those provided by the YJS.
  • The YJS had a wide range of restorative and reparation options, which gave victims a varied choice when considering options for restorative processes.
  • Positive examples were given of work with corporate victims.
  • There were regular audits of the quality of victim casework using a specific victim audit tool, and outcomes were reported to the partnership board.
  • Feedback from victims was gathered and discussed at the victim work operational meeting.

Areas for improvement:

  • There was limited analysis of victim‑related data, and the service did not have a full understanding of its victim profile.
  • The consideration of victims’ wishes, needs, and safety needed to be included in all relevant YJS policies.
  • Further work was required to ensure that all staff across the YJS considered the responsibility for victim work, specifically in relation to their sense of safety.
  • Safety planning needed to be more explicitly coordinated to ensure a joined‑up, robust risk management plan that protected victims and reinforced their sense of safety. 
  • Management oversight to meet the needs of the victims’ cases needed to improve.
  • The YJS needed to look at different ways to engage more victims in the feedback process to ensure that all were offered the opportunity to express their views and help develop victim services.
  • The strategic partnership board should oversee the quality of victim work to assure itself that services provided by the YJS and partner agencies were high quality, individualised, and responsive to the needs of all victims.

Participation of children and their parents or carers (Back to top)

Calderdale YJS had a strong commitment to hearing from children and families. ‘Vocalderdale’ was Calderdale’s children and young people’s voice and influence strategy, co-produced with children and children’s voice groups who contributed to its vision and values. It outlined the ambitions, goals, and priorities based on what children and young people had said to improve the services they received. Participation by children and families to inform YJS service development was also a priority in the youth justice plan. This included the aspiration to develop a YJS children’s youth justice board, with YJS children providing feedback on the service received and future development areas.

The service promoted a relational model, which was 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 and using children’s interests and activities as part of their interventions. Children were actively engaged in co-producing their plans for interventions, which also included their parents or carers when appropriate. The Orange Box, where the YJS was based, had recently been refurbished and children had been encouraged to give their views on the proposed changes.

The YJS gathered feedback from children and their parents or carers in several ways. This included feedback forms using QR codes sent to children and parents or carers as well as displayed throughout the Orange Box building. The YJS quality assurance framework also included contacting children and their parents or carers for feedback on their experiences and the services they had received. The quality assurance officer and managers collated and reviewed all feedback. Any themes identified were shared with staff and used to inform changes to practice. One example given to inspectors was how feedback had led to a greater emphasis on explaining YJS processes more thoroughly to parents. The service also held celebration events for children and parents or carers to attend at the end of their intervention to acknowledge children’s achievement and attainment.

The YJS contacted, on our behalf, children who were or had been working with the YJS to gain their consent for their information to be shared and to enable them and their parents or carers to feed back on their experience of the YJS. 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).

The feedback to inspectors from children and their parents or carers was overwhelmingly positive; all felt respected and valued by YJS staff and other people working with them. One child, when talking about what had worked well for them, said:7

“Just mainly talking and listening to me, that was the most important thing for me, so I could speak openly about my problems.”

When asked about what it was like working with the YJS, another child commented:

“They understood how hard I have tried to try and fix where I have gone wrong.”

When asked if they felt included in the work that was being completed, one parent said:

“Yes, they discussed a lot, they covered all bases and asked loads of questions, and me and my child felt very at ease. They seemed really interested in my point of view and how I felt about everything.”

When considering children’s needs, one parent commented:

“They completed a speech, language, and communication assessment, they knew how to communicate with my child and shared it with us so that I knew how to communicate with them, and other people knew. They really worked with my child and built their confidence.”

Another parent commented on how the YJS had supported them:

“The worker really helped us. My child is very different now and took accountability, and the worker acknowledged when they did well. They kept me up to date with what was going on as communication had broken down between my child and I. The worker played a huge part in advocating for us both and building our relationship.”

One parent commented on where meetings took place:

“… they were not judgemental and I didn’t feel shame visiting the Orange Box; they really supported me to feel comfortable engaging.”

Talking about the Orange Box a child also said:

 “….my worker always sees me where I feel safe. The youth justice office is a nice place to be.”

Equity, diversity, and inclusion (Back to top)

Calderdale YJS had a strategic and operational commitment to understanding and meeting the diverse needs of children, victims, and staff. The local authority outlined its practices in the Calderdale council equality and diversity policy and its equality and diversity policy statement. The service had developed an anti-racist policy which was overseen by the strategic partnership board and shared with the team and the children engaged with the service. The YJS ethnicity data showed a disproportionate profile of children engaged with the YJS: 88 per cent of children were White and seven per cent mixed heritage compared with the wider demographic characteristics of Calderdale in which 78 per cent of children were White and four per cent mixed heritage.

Disproportionality and children’s characteristics were included in the performance and quality analysis reports presented at the partnership board. Data showed that Calderdale continued to have a higher proportion of girls in the YJS caseload for 2024/2025 than nationally. The proportion of White children in the YJS caseload was higher than for the Calderdale population secondary school-age population. There was also a higher proportion of 10- to 14-year-olds in the Calderdale YJS caseload than nationally, and a higher proportion of the YJS caseload than the Calderdale population had had contact with children’s social care.

At the time of the inspection announcement, 28.4 per cent of children known to the YJS were girls. The service had responded appropriately, analysing the data in detail and completing case audits which were presented to the partnership board. Programmes designed by YJS practitioners included the young women’s resilience programme, which aimed to provide a safe space, informally educate, facilitate peer learning, and support girls to increase their resilience, confidence, and aspirations. The violence reduction partnership also funded programmes to support the safety of women and girls, as well as children engaged in serious youth violence. It was important that the YJS continued to monitor the number of girls known to the service and prioritise prevention of violence and abuse, as well as providing early intervention services to girls and their families. There was a young men’s group which looked at masculinity and culture to support boys and empower and encourage progressive views and healthy attitudes towards women and girls. An LGBTQ+ group was also held at the Orange Box venue, which was an accessible space and inclusive environment for all children.

The YJS monitored disproportionality through performance data and case audits and had presented thematic audits of overrepresented children to the partnership board, practitioners, and partners. When trends were identified, such as the overrepresentation of younger girls and care experienced children, the service had provided training and awareness to partners, schools, and residential homes. For example, the victim worker had delivered restorative approaches training to staff in residential homes and to police colleagues. YJS managers attended the local police scrutiny panel for children who were arrested and monitored information data on the use of stop and search. The service had also widened its recruitment strategy to encourage applications for referral order panel members from diverse backgrounds.

The service had completed staff training on children’s individual needs and emotional wellbeing, and staff had received cultural competency training to support awareness of the barriers and intersectionality of issues facing children.

As part of this inspection, we considered how the service responded to the diverse needs and protected characteristics of children and victims. The recording of the protected characteristics of victims was clear in most inspected cases and contact with victims was mainly informed by an understanding of their individual needs. In the inspection of work with children, we found that assessing considered the child’s diversity needs sufficiently in nearly all cases. Practitioners had created safe spaces to facilitate conversations with children to understand their lived experiences, and we saw interventions that had been adapted and delivered to respond to their individual and diverse needs. There were examples of how practitioners had built a rapport with children, understood their emotional maturity, and adapted their language accordingly. Interventions considered the child’s context, strengths, and risks, including understanding their neurodiversity needs and their experience of being bullied. Practitioners demonstrated a commitment to understanding and responding to diverse needs, considered barriers to engagement, and promoted inclusion and co-production with children and families.

Data annexe (Back to top)

Calderdale Youth Data Annexe (XLSX, 123 KB)

Press release (Back to top)

Calderdale Youth Justice Service rated ‘Requires improvement’ following inspection

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.

Footnotes (Back to top)

  1. There are two types of inspections as part of the current youth inspection programme across England and Wales. Inspection of youth justice work with children and victims (IYJWCV) and inspection 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 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. ↩︎
  6. 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 are available on our website Standards and ratings – HM Inspectorate of Probation. ↩︎
  7. Quotes are directly from children, parents, and carers. ↩︎