The Youth Justice Team undertook a Multi-Agency Practice Evaluation (MAPE) exercise in June 2023 following the conviction of two 14-year-old male children for Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH) Section 20 offence (inflicting bodily injury with or without a weapon).
Their co-defendant was the father of one of the children. Both children had been involved in multiple reported incidents involving violence within their family networks, including domestic violence and had been involved with anti-social behaviour. This culminated in a significant incident which resulted in both boys pleading guilty to GBH.
The purpose of a MAPE is to learn as much as possible about how multi-agency working is helping to improve outcomes for children and families, using real case examples. It is a chance to highlight effective and collaborative practice, and to discuss ideas about how joint working practice can be further developed. It is also a good opportunity to reflect with colleagues across agencies. The purpose of the MAPE is to identify learning and is not part of care planning activity.
Key strengths identified were:
- multi-agency communication and collaboration
- impactful intervention
- resilience, persistence and creativity
Area for improvement identified were:
- responding to multiple incidents resulting in ‘No Further Action’ (NFAs)
- barriers to sharing and recording information with agencies
- proportionate and appropriate responses to repeated incidents
- expectations of strategy discussions
- further exploration in children’s social care assessments
- gaps in education provision and assessments
- overcoming barriers to parental issues
- interrogating cultural and generational influences
- barriers to implementing voluntary services or programme
An action plan was developed, and all have been completed apart from the responses of the use of ‘No Further Action’ which is included in the Youth Justice Plan 2024 to 2027.