1.How many children (up to 18 years) in the 2017/2018 financial year did you provide services to where the primary support need was due to a child exhibiting problematic or harmful sexual behaviour (HSB)?
We may hold this information in respect of mainstream Children’s Social Work and Child Protection but consider that “exhibiting problematic or harmful sexual behaviour (HSB)” is not a specific risk factor or abuse type or primary need type recorded in CareFirst but may be a subset of a broader risk factor / abuse type / primary need. To extract this information would require a manual review of child records in descriptions and looking at free text fields for any mention of “exhibiting problematic or harmful sexual behaviour (HSB)”. Given the number of broad risk factor/abuse type/primary need categories is around sixteen and each may have been applied separately to hundreds or thousands of records we have estimated that that the total time required to manually review all the records for the information in respect of Questions 1 and 2 below would take almost 600 hours. As this is more than the 18 hours specified under the Freedom of information Act 2000 Cost of Compliance the information is exempt.
The Youth Offending Team worked with 12 young people in this period who were up to the age of 18 years.
2. How many referrals were for children who were:
a) 9 years and younger
b) 10-12 years –
c) 13-15 –
d) 16+ – 7 – Youth Offending Team
Please see the response to Question 1 in respect of a – c.
3. Of those children referred for problematic or harmful sexual behaviour, how many were:
a) Boys
b) Girls
c) Not stated
Please see the response to Question 1. Disclosure of the information in respect of the Youth Offending Team may identify individuals and be in breach of Data Protection laws. Therefore, it is exempt under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 Section 40(2) Personal Data.
4. Do you have any trained specialists providing child HSB services?
a) Social Care specialists – a group of 25 practitioners and 6 team managers have recently been Assessment Intervention Moving On (AIM2) trained to assess young people displaying sexually harmful behaviour and to provide intervention. The team manager group has been trained to supervise the assessment and intervention and we are in the process of exploring supervision options for the team managers. An operational system is now being developed by a small project group to ensure that the process and system going forward is robust.
12 social work practitioners currently undergoing specialist training in child sexual abuse by the Centre for expertise in child sexual abuse – this includes a module on HSB.
b) NHS – we do not hold this information.
c) Commissioned private healthcare provider – we do not hold this information
d) YOT – 15 YOT staff are trained to undertake AIM2 specialist assessments with young people who have been involved in HSB and to carry out programmes of remedial work after these assessments using the Good Lives model.
e) Commissioned voluntary sector – we do not hold this information
f) Other – independent assessments and interventions have been used to date.
g) None
If you wish to state what ‘other’ provision you have or what non-specialist provision the child receives, please give details.
5. What is your local child specific HSB service offer?
a) Specialist risk assessment service, – we do not hold this information.
b) Court reports – YOT staff complete AIM2 assessment reports and submit these to Court alongside Pre-Sentence Reports.
c) Therapeutic intervention service – YOT staff carry out work after sentence with young people who have been involved in HSB.
d) Family support – YOT staff work with the families of young people who have been involved in HSB.
e) Offender resettlement YOT staff work with Social Care and others to tackle HSB offending both as part of sentences in the community and as part of resettlement in the community after a custodial sentence.
f) Other (please specify)
6. What guidance frames your current HSB practice? –we do not hold this information.
a) NICE guidelines on ‘harmful sexual behaviour among children and young people’ – we do not hold this information.
b) NSPCC HSB Framework – we do not hold this information.
c) Locally developed safeguarding guidance – Yes – Devon Procedures Online – this includes reference to NSPCC and NICE
d) Other guidance – Working Together to Safeguard Children, Devon Youth Offending Service relies partly on the guidance contained within the AIM2 manual but also works within general child protection process and other processes within Devon.
e) No specialist guidance