Children held at Oakhill Secure Training Centre will benefit from more education and time out of cell as part of measures to improve the failings at the centre, the government has announced.
Prisons Minister Victoria Atkins has outlined urgent action to address the ‘unacceptable’ failings at the STC in Milton Keynes run by G4S.
The move follows a joint inspection which found that children and young people at Oakhill were being held in their rooms for 23 hours a day. The Ofsted inspection in October triggered an Urgent Notification (UN).
Prisons Minister Victoria Atkins MP said: “The findings at Oakhill were completely unacceptable and we are considering all options.”
“Action needs to be swift to ensure these vulnerable children are given the best chance to turn their lives around in a calm, safe and secure environment,” she added.
Since inspectors issued their notification last month, improvements have been implemented:
The government introduced the Urgent Notification protocol in 2017 to ensure immediate action is taken to address serious concerns identified by inspectors. The process is triggered when inspectorates write to the Justice Secretary following an inspection, with Ministers having 28 days to respond and set out a detailed action plan.
The Youth Custody Service will continue to monitor performance and ensure further steps are taken to improve the care and wellbeing of children at the site in Milton Keynes.
A look back at 2022 with WillisPalmer's Head of Practice, Lucy Hopkins…
2022 saw people trying to get back to some degree of normality following the Covid-19 lockdowns, restrictions and school closures that we had faced for the previous two years. However, the impact of Covid-19 continued and many services experienced, and continue to experience, backlogs and difficulties, including those services relating to children and families.
Social worker [...]Every year people are excited to see what the theme of the John Lewis & Partners Christmas advert will be. This year's advert reminded our Head of Practice, Lucy Hopkins, of all the times she arrived at the homes of foster carers with children or young people who were anxious, scared, worried and hungry, having just [...]
The WillisPalmer Christmas Tree Decorating Competition 2022
We have two Christmas trees at the WillisPalmer office and this year the staff upstairs are going to compete with the staff downstairs to see who has the best decorated tree... and we want YOU to decide on the winner!
Tree 1 - Downstairs
Tree [...]
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