Gary Willding, Ashfield Young Offenders Institution
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Head of young people's services, Ashfield Young Offenders Institution.
Ashfield Young Offender Institute holds up to 400 males aged 15 to 18. I've worked here for nine years and before that I was a youth offending team worker. I also trained as a social worker.
I spend a lot of my day dealing with child protection issues. Around 30 per cent of young people here are children in care, so I have close links with children's social services and local authority-designated officers. As we take young people from 120 different sentencing courts, making these links can be difficult. Some social services drop young people when they arrive here, so the pressure is on us to make sure statutory reviews happen.
I also support our family liaison officer. For example, this morning one of our young people got released and found out his child had died. We arranged for him to have chaplaincy support and the family liaison officer met his family.
Most of my frustrations in this job have been dealt with. It's been difficult to find interventions for young people who sexually offend but we now have the Lucy Faithfull Foundation coming in. We also have really good links with The Prince's Trust. Young people can apply to it for grants, for example to buy a set of knives so they can go to catering college when they leave. We do the qualifications in our kitchens. We had one young person here who now works in a restaurant where he is more qualified than everyone except the head chef. Andy in the kitchen is a hero. He's got jobs for young people all around the country and keeps in touch with them all.
In my time here, I've had four kids who refused to leave. It's sad - we provide them with all this support and guidance and when they leave here all the signposting is lost. There is no consistency of support for them around the country.