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Policy & Practice: Judgment call - The dilemma

1 min read
Should you force the hand of social services colleagues if the multi-agency approach is not working? A youth justice worker tells how she ensured that a remand to local authority care met both the child's needs and the court's wishes.

Darren was arrested at 3am after committing a house burglary. He was 12and already known to the youth justice team following previousconvictions. We had many concerns about the level of parental care hewas getting, which was bordering on neglect. We had done our best toalert social services to these concerns but they did not believe therewas significant risk and were not involved with him.

After being arrested, Darren was kept in a police cell overnight andremanded to court the next day. Our enquiries revealed his parents hadleft him home alone at the weekend. They said they would "have him back"but we were concerned that if he went home, not only would there stillbe a question mark over his care but would be at a high risk ofreoffending.

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