The creation of 1,000 community hubs for teenagers, recruiting an “army” of youth practitioners to be trusted adults for vulnerable young people and putting tackling child criminal exploitation at the top of the political agenda are some of the recommendations of a review led by former children’s commissioner for England Anne Longfield.
Hidden in Plain Sight, the final report of the year-long Commission on Young Lives, sets out a national action plan with a range of recommendations to the government, councils, the police and schools to tackle what it calls “deep rooted” problems in support systems for children and young people at risk of criminal exploitation and violence (see box).
For Longfield, it pulls together some of the key issues she highlighted as children’s commissioner, a role she left in March 2021 after her six-year stint came to an end. During her tenure, her office produced agenda-setting reports on the scale of young people’s involvement with gangs, how school exclusion policies were failing vulnerable pupils and the inadequacies of children’s mental health services to name but three.
These are themes explored in the commission’s final report and many of the proposed reforms aim to tackle shortcomings in these systems.
You set out plans for 1,000 Sure Start for Teenagers hubs across England by 2027. How would these work?
They would be based on Sure Start principles of being place-based, universal in nature, but put where the need is greatest. They would be run jointly by health and education services – so you would have mental health, wellbeing and education provision together – and there would be a joint unit in the Department for Education and Department for Health and Social Care to oversee them.
Where would the hubs be located and who would staff them?
We costed for a small core team of a co-ordinator and two or three other staff including family support workers through the Supporting Families programme.
In some cases they would be located in or near schools, but in others it could be outside that. It doesn’t mean everything has to be around the school – it’s about where the co-ordination happens. There would be an army of youth practitioners working directly with the school and hub, and targeting the most vulnerable kids.
We also want psychologists to be part of that partnership, and for the points of obvious risk, for example when a child is excluded, as being the trigger for an assessment – if you can assess their wellbeing at that point, you can get the right support in place.
Why are youth workers best placed to support vulnerable young people?
We’re talking about youth practitioners: we’ve also been impressed by the guides that the Shift Project has and the Oasis hospital navigators, and youth offending team workers too. We want there to be a workforce that spans from universal right up to targeted and specialist as well.
One of the interesting things is to reform the young person workforce that not only builds on existing community youth work and embraces qualifications and statutory element of youth work, but that also has that highly targeted approach that identifies kids that are struggling early on and works with them over 12 or 18 months.
We calculated that there would be three youth practitioners per secondary school. In Manchester, for example, there are 30 youth workers for the entire city. If you had this army of youth practitioners, it would mean an additional 90 or 100. That would transform the lives of young people.
What gave you the idea for hubs for teenagers?
Some of the local visits we did were instructive. We went to Birmingham and literally followed kids around outside school. They’d go to a chicken shop or park, but didn’t really want to be there because they knew problems could arise.
We visited the Oasis Academy in Hadley, Enfield, which opens at 6.30am and by 7am there are 100 kids there. And they say they have to sweep them out in the evenings. If not there, they’d be outside cold and scared.
We spoke to children’s mental health services about what it would take for them to be part of it. Young people said they didn’t want it to be medicalised, but instead be offered support to help build their wellbeing.
These were light-bulb moments. We realised we need to wrap services around them.
How would it be organised?
We’re not looking at some massive state intervention, but there needs to be a national framework. This would be a national government programme that would bring together work around vulnerable teenagers in this way.
You can calculate the 1,000 most disadvantaged areas, but then you’d be working with local authorities and health agencies to ensure they work together and that the government gives money for that.
Care Review chair Josh MacAlister talks about a new safeguarding partnership locally – we support that. We’ve said the Sure Start hubs would come on top of that and handle local delivery.
And would it be funded by central government?
This is a mechanism to save in the long run, even though there’s some investment in the short term.
We were often told that when kids were known by the authority, they would have possibly 20 workers around them, but no one taking the lead responsibility. We’re looking to have a systemic approach that is accepted as the way to support vulnerable teenagers and instead of those 20 professionals swirling around a young person, there might only be two.
We’ve tried to be creative about where some of that money might come from, namely the proceeds of crime which is so self-evidently the right thing to do.
Would these measures be part of wider reforms of support services for young people?
The government is putting some money into activities for teenagers, but none of it is in any way working towards the same aim or is accountable across government, and most young people won’t know anything about it.
In terms of delivery, there’s no clarity about which government department has lead responsibility. There are cross-department groups, but having a clear programme of delivery and knowing what the overarching aims are is what makes the difference.
It’s madness it is not in the DfE – we should put it in there with youth justice along the continuum of welfare and make a minister responsible to cabinet for reporting on it.
What would this mean in terms of funding?
When the Serious Violence Taskforce was set up in 2018/19, we calculated there were 11 different pots of money – all worth around £30-40m – put into tackling knife crime. I’m sure there’s an accounting trial for all of them, but no one really knows what happened to them.
As a government wanting to make the best use of money and making change, it can’t tell you what was achieved for vulnerable children as a result. If you put them all together, you have a £400m programme – then you can start to really move things, that’s your army of youth practitioners funded.
It is not that the government doesn’t spend money, but unless you are doing it within a framework of concerted action and clear joint outcomes, then it dissipates.
Do you think ministers are open to adopting your recommendations?
We’re putting forward a reform plan that can inform the next spending review and the manifestos for the next general election. There are some things in train and this is the direction of travel, but nonetheless there’s an 18-month lead in.
We hope this will be part of all political parties’ programmes.
We think it is possible for a Prime Minister to make this a priority and a national threat. David Cameron did that for child sexual exploitation; he held a summit and all the police forces had to report on it. That doesn’t fix everything, but gives a clear indication that this is a threat.
I think child criminal exploitation is of that standing: my push to the Prime Minister is to make it at such a level. Part of that is to put the engine of government behind it.
Are you worried the current economic turmoil could undermine efforts to tackle this?
We’re here for a reason: the government took its eye off the ball for these kids. We’ve had decades of support around them that’s dwindled, the pandemic has hit them hardest and now there’s the cost-of-living crisis. If there’s austerity on top of that, it would be a gift for exploiters.
Othe commission recommendations:
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The Prime Minister convenes regular Cobra meetings to tackle the root causes of serious violence and criminal exploitation.
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The DfE returns to its previous incarnation of Children, Schools and Families, reflecting the central importance of thriving children and families as part of the education system.
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A new drive across the government to reduce and eventually eliminate child poverty, including the re-establishment of a Child Poverty Unit in Whitehall.
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The government leads a national mission to identify and remove racial bias in the systems that are currently failing minority ethnic children.
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The government takes a “Family First” approach that supports families with children at risk of becoming involved with gangs, serious violence or criminal exploitation.
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Reform of the children’s social care system to provide high-quality care for all teenagers, taking an invest-to-save approach and delivered in partnership by the government and charities.
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Opening all secondary school buildings before and after school, at weekends and during holidays to provide safe places for teenagers, funded by dormant bank accounts.
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The government to promote a new era of inclusive education, ending the culture of exclusion and helping all children to succeed in their education.
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A one-off £1bn children and young people’s mental health recovery programme, part-financed by a levy on social media companies and mobile phone providers.
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Reform the youth justice system to accelerate moves towards a fully welfare-based, trauma-informed Child First approach.
