Inspectors criticise Wetherby and Keppel YOI over education failings

During a scrutiny visit at Wetherby and Keppel YOI in January, HM Inspectorate of Prisons found that the impact of coronavirus restrictions “on children’s time out of cell and access to education remained poor”.

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Inspectors noted that face-to-face education had only resumed in the few weeks preceding the visit which began on 19 January.

“For much of the preceding nine months, most education had been delivered through in-cell packs and time out of cell was very limited," the report states. "Only about 30 per cent of children said they spent more than two hours out of their cell each day and very few said they found the in-cell education packs helpful.”

However, chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor said that there had been “improvements in safety and the care of children since the previous inspection in the early months of the pandemic”.

He added that at the start of the pandemic, children were placed in small “family groups” while managers established quarantine arrangements – known as cohorting – for new arrivals, those who were symptomatic or close contacts of symptomatic children and those who were particularly vulnerable to Covid-19.

“At the time of our visit, these cohorting arrangements were operating appropriately for the most part, although we were concerned that new admissions to the Keppel unit had little human interaction during their first few days,” he said.

The most recent report found that there had been some improvements: "Levels of both violence and self-harm among children had reduced, although oversight in these areas needed improvement. Children and staff said that the smaller group sizes had improved relationships and children’s perceptions were generally positive.”

Inspectors also found that health care was “well led and most services had been reinstated”, however, they raised concerns over delays for young people waiting to be transferred to inpatient mental health units. 

“Over the previous 12 months, all six children who had been transferred to mental health facilities had waited for too long,” the report states.

Taylor added: “These delays meant that very unwell children continued to live in an establishment with no capacity to provide the specialist care that they needed. These routine delays demonstrate a lack of will by the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Health and Social Care to provide adequate care for some of the most vulnerable children in society.”

Meanwhile, inspectors praised the continuation of social visits and successful recent work to increase the use of video calling.

Resettlement case workers had maintained contact with children, but sentence planning meetings too often took place without the child and they became detached from the process, the report adds.

Taylor said: “We found positive outcomes in the areas of safety and care, but future progress depends on managers’ ability to increase safely the number of children who can be unlocked together. 

“There is evidence that the prolonged use of very small ‘family groups’ had resulted in tension between groups and children becoming unused to mixing with others. This had understandably created anxiety among staff and children about mixing different groups together. This needs to be addressed so that more activity and interventions can be delivered for children at Wetherby and Keppel.”