working which improve services’, as well as winning the overall title.
Multi-agency approach
3.79 A Joint Authority Multi-Agency Steering Group covering East and West Dunbartonshire was set up to oversee the strategic direction of the programme and advise the areas’ respective youth justice organisations. In East Dunbartonshire, this is the Youth Issues Strategy Group.
Recently, both LAs have begun to develop their own local strategies and this is viewed as a natural progression.
23 Early intervention cases are those which did not at the time meet secure criteria but, without intervention, would be likely to, therefore avoiding the escalation of risk factors.
3.80 Overall responsibility for the programme within the LA rests with the Social Work Children
& Young People Fieldwork Manager, the lead officer for Youth Justice. In addition to her regular lines of reporting, she reports directly to the Youth Issues Strategy Group and to the Multi-Agency Steering Group.
Assessment
3.81 ISMS is considered in all cases that meet the Section 70(10) criteria, however, the most common reasons for it being unsuitable are for vulnerable girls who may not be safe in their home (in these cases an MRC will not prevent absconding, but will cause additional stress for the young person). Other young people often do not have home environments that are able to support an MRC, although the LA is considering providing training for a small group of ISMS foster carers to address this issue.
Screening
3.82 Screening is carried out by the existing Authority Liaison Group, which meets regularly and brings together senior managers in Social Work, Education and Integrated Children’s Services and the Principal Psychologist. This group also carries out secure screening.
Assessment methods
3.83 After screening, the young person attends the ISMS base and a variety of assessment methods are used, e.g. forensic assessment tools such as SAVRY (assesses risk of violent behaviour), the BarOn scale (provides an emotional intelligence rating) and SPSI (a social problem solving scale). These assessments are carried out by trainee forensic psychologists. In addition, the ISMS team uses YLS and the Adolescent Wellbeing Scale. These assessments indicate the areas on which the young person’s care plan should concentrate as well as providing baseline measures and considering change.
3.84 The assessment also involves relationship building with the young person and their carers and getting their input into the process. Teen-Talk sessions24 are held to do this. The Programme Manager believes that more could be done, however, to extend the involvement of the young people and their carers in the assessment process.
Reporting
3.85 A report is produced by the ISMS Programme Manager after the assessment that goes to the Children’s Hearing. At the last Hearing, a joint report was produced with Social Work (previously independent reports were produced). Feedback from the Panel was favourable and doing this for subsequent assessments is being considered.
24 Teen-Talk is a comprehensive resource for working with young people that includes assessment sessions and issue-based work sessions. It is young person focused and gets the young people to express their own views, seek their solutions for solving problems, etc.
Length of assessment
3.86 It is felt that 21 days is not enough for a full ISMS assessment and that the period should be extended to 6-8 weeks25. The Hearing can agree to return for a further review at an agreed time to allow the assessment to be completed.
Partnership working
3.87 East Dunbartonshire has agreed procedures and protocols with all its partners (police, Includem, Reliance, Education, Mental Health, etc). One of the focuses of ISMS in East Dunbartonshire is to integrate it with Youth Justice in general.
3.88 There has been multi-agency joint training, and joint service delivery for offending children, in the Step Out programme, which is a cognitive behavioural programme that works with young people in gangs with the aim of reducing gang violence. Gangs are a particular problem in the LA area. The ISMS and Youth Justice teams also jointly provided Panel Member training, which combined a session in the ISMS base and another session off-site.
Service provision
3.89 Individual ISMS programmes are delivered by ISMS core staff, Includem, the Intensive Family Support service (internal council service) and various other partner organisations as required.
3.90 There has been a learning curve in the introduction of ISMS, however, systems have been developed and put into place. Relationships with Includem, Education and the police are strong, but there is work to do to develop the relationships with Housing and Mental Health Services. The relationship with the monitoring provider was thought to be better when Reliance delivered this service than with Serco, which is not considered as responsive and less child-centred.
Education
3.91 The LA does much of the teaching itself and the ISMS Team includes two teachers and an auxiliary. Where the educational needs of ISMS children cannot be met by the ISMS Team, the Team either undergoes the relevant training (e.g. one Team member is now trained to deliver careers guidance) or develops linkages with other providers, such as colleges and schools (e.g. an ECDL course with Cumbernauld College). Given that the ISMS cases have been older than expected, this has been particularly important.
25 The ISMS Team in East Dunbartonshire is of the view that Children’s Hearings Legislation does not allow for an assessment order other than for 21 days. Scottish Government guidance does state that an ISMS assessment should be for six weeks, but there may be some confusion here about whether ISMS is an actual ‘order’ or the attachment of an MRC as a supervision requirement (with intensive support having to be automatically provided).
Housing
3.92 There is a shortage of supported and affordable accommodation in East Dunbartonshire. This has resulted, so far, in one person not being recommended for ISMS given the need under the programme for local accommodation, and it may affect numbers of recommendations in the future. Some other programmes within the LA are similarly affected.
Support from Includem has helped to improve the situation, but it remains critical. Developing links with through care housing services and foster parent training mentioned above are the main steps being taken to improve this.
3.93 Establishing residential respite services within the area is being considered locally and jointly with West Dunbartonshire, but this may not prove possible within the budget approved by the Scottish Executive. For the moment, the LA has the option of using Includem’s facilities in Beith and at Faifley.
Preventative work
3.94 In an effort to integrate the ISMS programme with the rest of the LA’s social services provision, the ISMS Team is working cooperatively with the Youth Justice Team. Activity has focused on preventative work with children and young people to help prevent the escalation of problem behaviour.
Monitoring and evaluation
3.95 Monitoring and evaluation is being carried out internally by the ISMS Team, which has set-up a database that captures the monitoring and evaluative data required by the Scottish Executive.
No substantial monitoring or evaluation activities beyond this are undertaken, although the Council has collected a certain amount of data that might provide further evidence of changes in behaviour, e.g. interviews with young people on covering outcomes and reflections. There has, however, only been limited analysis of this information.
3.96 The ISMS team received early assistance from the Council’s Performance and Development Division in identifying sources for the data. Some of the data will be drawn from the CareFirst Social Work System, which East Dunbartonshire subscribes to and which captures information on all children receiving social services (e.g. age, gender and history of cases). Additional fields have been added to CareFirst to accommodate some of the additional data required under the ISMS programme. An ISMS database is being developed to collect detailed data, but IT problems have held back its development. Much of the data for the database (e.g. grounds for referral, school attendance and engagement with substance abuse services) will need to be drawn from a variety of sources, such as minutes of Steering Group meetings, the Strathclyde Educational Establishment Management Information System and, importantly, the Case Workers.
3.97 East Dunbartonshire has developed a list of indicators for predicting whether a child will meet Section 70(10) criteria. The list is based on existing research on children and young people that ended up in secure accommodation. The LA will use the indicators to correlate characteristics of children and young people receiving ISMS.
Success measures
3.98 The ISMS Team believes that ISMS has been effective. Two of the three cases have performed particularly well.
3.99 Since ISMS and intensive support services have been offered in the LA, there has been