Background

An intervention plan is required for all supervised children, translating the assessment of the child’s needs and strengths into what needs to be done and the actions required. The plan should recognise the uniqueness of each child and the factors identified in the assessment.

AssetPlus – used by youth justice practitioners across England and Wales – has been designed to provide a holistic end-to-end assessment and intervention plan. Within the ‘pathways and planning’ section, there is a focus on the desired outcomes for the individual child and the priority actions required to achieve them.

Summary of the evidence

The research evidence indicates that planning should:

Individualised, holistic and joined-up planning

At the planning stage, a focus needs to be maintained upon how best to support the child’s desistance and keep the child and others safe. ‘Constructive casework’ highlights the need to think about both personal support and structural support when identifying appropriate constructive activities, interactions, and roles. Plans should build on strengths and protective factors wherever possible, such as facilitating a child’s return to full-time education, developing hobbies and interests, and helping the child to build emotional resiliency and understanding. Good planning will also take into consideration any cultural and diversity needs, and pay attention to neurodiversity and the child’s mental health and wellbeing.

In our Academic Insights paper 2021/08 (PDF, 542 kB), Professor Amanda Kirby highlights the prevalence of neurodiversity and the importance of an individualised formulation which pays attention to all the child’s strengths and challenges, enabling an inclusive, accessible, child-centred approach.

Plans should be proportionate to the needs of the child and to the disposal, with interventions and activities being sequenced in the most effective and manageable way for the child, taking into account the length of the disposal. Care should be taken to not overload the child and attention should be given to any help that the child might require to develop structure and routine. Plans may need to be broken down into a smaller number of ‘steps’, with realistic, short-term objectives. For a child who has received a first out-of-court disposal, a light touch may be all that is required.

Planning should always consider the work of other agencies engaged with the child to better coordinate and compliment plans and delivery. Joint planning can also identify services that other agencies may be able to continue delivering post-disposal – children with more entrenched and/or complex needs may require more extensive longer-term support at the individual, family and/or community levels.

Engaging the child

Children should be actively encouraged to participate in the development of their plan, and should be empowered to try and find their own solutions and to identify and pursue their own goals and aspirations. It should be a learning process which enables them to:

• think about how they would like to be in the future
• consider their goals and aspirations
• develop personal competence
• acquire the skills necessary to achieve this.

Wherever possible, parents and carers should also be actively involved to develop a shared understanding of the situation and how they can best support their child’s progress.

At the end of the planning process, there should be a shared understanding of the expectations, with the aim of all activities and interventions clearly specified. A plan that the child does not sufficiently understand or agree with is less likely to be successful.

 

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Last updated: 10 March 2023