Youth Custody: Children in Care

(asked on 2nd February 2024) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent steps her Department has taken to provide rehabilitation support to children who have lived in care who are in police custody or serving custodial sentences.


Answered by
David Johnston Portrait
David Johnston
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This question was answered on 12th February 2024

The department recognises that children in care are more likely than their peers in the general population to have contact with the criminal justice system. That is why, in 2018, the department published a joint national protocol with the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), on reducing the unnecessary criminalisation of looked after children and care leavers. This can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-protocol-on-reducing-criminalisation-of-looked-after-children. Since its publication, the proportion of children in care aged 10 to 17 who are charged with an offence or receive a caution has reduced from 3% in 2019 to 2% in 2023.

Latest data for the year ending March 2023 also show that 3% of care leavers age 19 to 21 were in custody. This figure has remained the same for the last five years.

All care leavers are entitled to a Personal Adviser to support them in making the transition from care to independence. Personal Advisers are required to keep in touch with the young person, work with them to develop a mandatory pathway plan and to advocate on behalf of the young person. If a care leaver receives a custodial sentence, their Personal Adviser is still expected to keep in touch, through visiting the young person in prison, and to maintain the young person’s pathway plan.

Through the care leaver Ministerial Board, the department is working closely with MoJ to improve support and outcomes of care-experienced people in the criminal justice system. MoJ is currently updating its strategy for people with care experience, to ensure that their time in the criminal justice system is used to support them to lead crime-free lives. MoJ is aiming to publish this strategy in 2024.

Reticulating Splines