“Encouraging” work with children and victims found at ‘Good’ Wakefield Youth Justice Service 

Wakefield (YJS) has received an overall rating of ‘Good’ following an inspection of youth justice work with children and victims (IYJWCV) by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation.   

Chief Inspector of Probation, Martin Jones, said: “Practitioners at Wakefield YJS had a strong understanding of the children they were working with, and their ability to focus on the strengths and relevant diversity factors of the child to promote positive change was highly encouraging.” 

The quality of work with victims was strong, with a comprehensive offer of support for victims across services and partners to meet their needs. A recognition of the importance of victim work was seen at a strategic level, and the commissioned victim worker role was embedded into the structure of Wakefield YJS. 

In addition, inspectors found a collaborative, personalised approach to planning activity, with practitioners identifying opportunities such as encouraging engagement with education and participation in pro-social activities to support desistance. Planning activity was responsive to changes in children’s circumstances, with practitioners seeing assessing to achieve positive change as a dynamic activity rather than a static process.  

However, assessing activity to keep the community safe needed to improve, and inspectors found instances where the complexity of children and their behaviours were not adequately reflected upon or analysed sufficiently. 

Mr Jones continued: “Overall, the quality of service delivery was impressive. This is a well-resourced YJS with a resilience in arrangements that meant children could always expect to receive a high level of support from the partnership.” 

The Inspectorate’s report makes five recommendations. Three are for Wakefield YJS, including to ensure assessing activity for children subject to out-of-court disposals consistently analyses and identifies how best to keep the community safe; and one recommendation is for Wakefield Youth Justice Management Board, to ensure resourcing for victim work is sufficient. 

ENDS  

Notes to editor  

1. Inspections of youth justice work with children and victims (IYJWCV) is one of two separate types of youth justice inspection undertaken by the Inspectorate. 

2. In this inspection we have inspected and rated work with children and victims in Wakefield Youth Justice Service across two broad areas: the quality of work done with children working with the YJS and the quality of work done with victims.  

3. This service works with children aged 10 to 17. The YJS supervise children with complex needs and some in the care of the local authority. 

4. The Inspectorate uses a four-point scale: ‘Outstanding’; ‘Good’; ‘Requires improvement’ and ‘Inadequate’; rating specific aspects of each service and giving an overall rating. 

5. The inspection looked at standards of organisational delivery (leadership; staffing and facilities); their management of children serving court sentences (court disposals) and children serving cautions or community sentences (out-of-court disposals).  

6. The report is available on the HM Inspectorate of Probation website on 09 September 2025 at 00.01. 

7. HM Inspectorate of Probation is the independent inspector of youth justice and probation services across England and Wales.  

8. Fieldwork for this inspection took place in June 2025. 

9. For media enquiries; please contact Head of Communications: media@hmiprobation.gov.uk