Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to ensure best practice Contextual Safeguarding approaches within youth justice settings.

We believe that safeguarding children in the youth justice system is key and we continue to take steps to ensure children are properly protected.

The Youth Justice Board (YJB) are currently revising their Case Management Guidance for Youth Offending Teams, which will include contextual safeguarding approaches. In addition, the YJB’s AssetPlus assessment and planning interventions framework, encourages practitioners to consider peer as well as family relationships within the assessment and planning process.

In 2018 the Government updated statutory guidance ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ to emphasise that children may also be at risk of harm from outside the home and that practitioners should be aware of environmental or contextual factors when undertaking assessments.

In addition, in 2019 the Ministry of Justice published ‘County Lines Exploitation: Practice guidance for YOTs and frontline practitioners’ as a best practice template when responding to, and safeguarding children involved in county lines.

In youth custodial settings, we are aiming to develop more child focussed approaches to security management, which will include elements of contextual safeguarding, alongside our partners.