mentorship

Inspiring stuff by a rural group active in addressing an issue often equated with urban places. This article tells us:

The North Yorkshire initiative, called No Wrong Door, is based on a dedicated team of specialists including a police officer, a clinical psychologist and a speech and language therapist who are based at each of the region’s two council-run children’s homes, in Scarborough and Harrogate. There are no uniforms, no suits and no appointments – the professionals have a mentor-like relationship with the children based on informal chats over breakfast, in the car, or at the gym.

And the scheme is having impressive results: an independent report by Loughborough University found a 38% drop in arrests, a 68% reduction in children going missing, a 33% fall in drug use, and hospital admissions reduced by 92% in its first 18 months from 2015 to 2017.

The programme is being rolled out to six other children’s services and has attracted interest from more than 100 councils across Britain, as well as further afield in Australia, the US and the Caribbean. It has won praise from Ofsted, the chief social worker for England, Isabelle Trowler, and Sir Martin Narey, the former director general of prisons.

The key to its success is having a specialist team all under one roof. “Kids fall out of bed and they need to speak to Ian [the clinical psychologist], they knock on his door,” said Cerena Butterworth, the team manager at the Scarborough home. Each child has a dedicated support worker, who is their consistent point of contact, while the police, council, psychologist and speech therapist – who ordinarily would have little contact with each other – work closely in the interests of the child.

Although a police officer is based at the children’s home every day, there are no handcuffs or helmets. “If uniform turns up here, the kids are in crisis because what’s the background for the kid? They see a very negative view of the police because it’s the police turning up arresting mum or dad,” said Neil Millican, the resident police officer, dressed casually in jeans and shirt. “They go into fight or flight mode and they just fight. Then we’re having to arrest them for assault and they are in that cycle.”