CYP Now - Recognise failure for successful secure schools

This April would have been the 25th anniversary of the opening of Medway Secure Training Centre (STC). Like most, if not all, secure establishments it had a rocky start but represented the beginning of a major reform in youth justice. As we await the birth of the new secure school on the site of the original STC it is worth reflecting on the past 25 years.

Nathan Ward is vicar of St Margaret’s Church, Rainham, and a former youth custody deputy director

Medway was intended to be the first of five STCs in the country and originally staffed with managers with significant experience working with children within residential care who led a team who on the whole cared about the children in their care. In essence it was a good concept that on paper should have worked – and, indeed, for many it did – but still systematically failed to protect some of the most vulnerable children in our society. The result of this failure was a dramatic reduction in the numbers of young people in STCs and eventually closure.

With the government announcing the new secure school, called Oasis Restore and run by the Oasis Charitable Trust, will be open by the end of 2022, what if anything can we learn from STCs?

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