Evaluation of Intensive Support and Monitoring Services (ISMS) within the Children's Hearings System

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Footnotes

  1. It should be noted that since this research was commissioned a new Scottish Government has been formed, which means that this report reflects commitments and strategic objectives conceived under the previous administration. The policies, strategies, objectives and commitments referred to in this report should not therefore be treated as current Government policy. The terms Scottish Government and Scottish Executive are both used within this report - Scottish Executive refers to pre-September 2007.
  2. The conditions are:
    (c) that the child, having previously absconded, is likely to abscond and, if s/he absconds, it is likely that his physical, mental or moral welfare will be at risk; and
    (d) that the child is likely to injure himself/herself or some other person.
  3. This differs from our original estimate of £11 million in the research findings summary paper Insight 39. This is due to full cost information now being available on all seven phase 1 LAs.
  4. See http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2002/04/1543 for details.
  5. The conditions for recommending ISMS are those specified under Section 70(10) of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995.These are also the conditions that have to be met for a Children's Hearing to ask for the child to be placed in secure accommodation as a supervision requirement.
  6. Ministers announced in the summer of 2007 that this area of youth justice is under review, therefore these proposals may not be implemented.
  7. The use of MRCs for older children was also found by SCRA (2007) in its research on the use of MRCs. 22 of its sample of 28 were 15 years and over.
  8. The research summary findings paper, Insight 39, reported 2 cases, but we have established that there were 3.
  9. Mid-2006 Population Estimates Scotland: http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/files/05mype-cahb-booklet.pdf
  10. Mid-2006 Population Estimates http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/files1/stats/mid-2006-population-estimates-scotland/j852715.htm
  11. Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2006. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/SIMD/simd2006statcompend1overa
  12. Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2006. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/SIMD/simd2006statcompend2domai
  13. School Meals in Scotland 2007. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/178917/0050920.xls
  14. Exclusions from Schools 2005/06. Published January 2007. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/01/30100624/0
  15. Looked After Children 2005/06 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2006/12/08105227/0
  16. Scottish Executive, "Fast Track Children's Hearing Pilot: final report of the evaluation of the Pilot". March 2005. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/54357/0013029.pdf
  17. GIRFEC stands for Getting It Right for Every Child. It is a programme of work produced by the then Scottish Executive for reform of children's services based on a wide consultation phase. At its heart, it is about ensuring that every child in Scotland gets the help it needs, reducing the bureaucracy that gets in the way of protecting children and taking action to protect others from children's behaviour where necessary. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/131460/0031397.pdf
  18. Based on police data analysed by the ISMS Team and reported to this evaluation.
  19. General Register of Scotland 2006 mid-year estimates
  20. Scottish Executive Urban Rural Classification, 2005/06 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/933/0034463.pdf
  21. Source: Scottish Index of Multile Deprivation 2006 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/SIMD/simd2006statcompend2domai
  22. Exclusions from Schools 2005/06. Published January 2007. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/164454/0044803.pdf
  23. Early intervention cases are those which did not at the time meet secure criteria but, without intervention, would be likely to, therefore avoiding the escalation of risk factors.
  24. Teen-Talk is a comprehensive resource for working with young people that includes assessment sessions and issue-based work sessions. It is young person focused and gets the young people to express their own views, seek their solutions for solving problems, etc.
  25. The ISMS Team in East Dunbartonshire is of the view that Children's Hearings Legislation does not allow for an assessment order other than for 21 days. Scottish Government guidance does state that an ISMS assessment should be for six weeks, but there may be some confusion here about whether ISMS is an actual 'order' or the attachment of an MRC as a supervision requirement (with intensive support having to be automatically provided).
  26. Universities of Stirling, Strathclyde and Glasgow, "Evaluation of Secure Accommodation." Scottish Executive: Edinburgh. June 2004. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/04/EvalSCIntR2
  27. This section of the report draws on details from Glasgow City Council's own evaluation of ISMS in its area. See N. Vaswani, ISMS: experiences from the first two years of operations in Glasgow: full report. Glasgow Social Work Services. July 2007.
  28. Mid-2006 Population Estimates Scotland
  29. Exclusions from Schools 2004/05. Published January 2007
  30. This is more fully detailed in Vaswani (2007)
  31. For full details, see N. Vaswani, ISMS: experiences from the first two years of operations in Glasgow: full report. Glasgow Social Work Services. July 2007.
  32. This includes data from 13 ISS cases, which are deemed as ' ISMS Orders' in Glasgow as they went to a Hearing that gave them this, but there is no MRC attached to the Order. Where, we are using this figures for this group of cases, this is stipulated in a footnote, otherwise it should be assumed that we are dealing with ISMS cases that include the MRC element.
  33. N. Vaswani, ISMS: experiences from the first two years of operations in Glasgow: full report. Glasgow Social Work Services. July 2007.
  34. N. Vaswani, ISMS: experiences from the first two years of operations in Glasgow: full report. Glasgow Social Work Services. July 2007.
  35. Data throughout this sub section from N. Vaswani, ISMS: experiences from the first two years of operations in Glasgow: full report. Glasgow Social Work Services. July 2007.
  36. As above, this includes 13 ISS cases.
  37. According to GROS 2006 mid-year estimates.
  38. Information on aims and research methodology is detailed in, "Specification for the External Evaluation of Highland Integrated Services for Children and Families", prepared by Dr. Bob Stradling and Dr. Morag MacNeil in 2003.
  39. According to GROS 2006 mid-year estimates.
  40. Exclusions from Schools 2005/06. Published January 2007
  41. These are police estimates based on the number of actual offences. It does differ from data provided by SCRA and the Scottish Executive, which counts persistent offenders based on the number of referrals to the Children's Hearings System in the Scottish Youth Justice Performance Update report 2004-05. Referrals can 'roll up' a number of offences in one referral, hence the discrepancy between the figures.
    http://www.scra.gov.uk/documents/Scottish_Youth_Justice_Annual_Update_Report_v00h1.pdf.
  42. Award Scheme Development and Accreditation Network, an approved body offering programmes and qualifications to develop key skills and life skills.
  43. According to GROS 2006 mid-year estimates.
  44. School Meals in Scotland 2006
  45. Exclusions from Schools 2005/06. Published January 2007
  46. Furzana Khan and Professor Malcolm Hill, "Evaluation of Includem's Intensive Support Services." Includem: Glasgow. September 2007.
  47. Typically around 25% to 30% for this type of survey. See Bryman (2004).
  48. This may be crisis response offered by the external providers, the ISMS Team or other social work services.
  49. The other measures asked about were: at home under supervision of social work; in secure accommodation; in other (non-secure) accommodation e.g. a children's home or residential school); intensive support only (no MRC).
  50. In purposive sampling, a sample is constructed with a purpose in mind. It is usual to have one or more specific predefined groups to seek. Purposive sampling is very useful for situations where there is a need to reach a targeted sample quickly and where sampling for proportionality is not the primary concern. With a purposive sample, you are likely to get the opinions of your target population, but you are also likely to overweight subgroups in your population that are more readily accessible.
  51. Contractually, even these short absences are counted as breaches, although they are likely to be viewed as 'technical' breaches rather than actual breaches of conditions. Discretion to raise a breach action seems to have been the responsibility of the social worker and was used very infrequently in the cases we reviewed.
  52. Tables and graphs within this section refer to Intensive Support Services as ISS.
  53. See: Risk Assessment Tools Evaluation Directory, Risk Management Authority Scotland, 13 July 2007 http://www.rmascotland.gov.uk
  54. This differs from our initial estimate of £11 million published in Insight 39 at the end of 2007. This figure has been superseded because we now have more accurate information for the Edinburgh and Highland areas.
  55. Stakeholders include teachers and other education services staff, social workers, intensive support providers, those working in the voluntary sector, Serco (monitoring) staff, Reporters, NHS employees, those involved in the legal process, and those working in LA antisocial behaviour services.
  56. It should be noted that this evaluation pre-dates the publication of Getting it Right for Children and Young People Who Pose a Risk of Serious Harm (Scottish Government, 2008).
  57. This differs from our earlier estimate contained in Insight 39: Evaluation of Intensive Support and Monitoring Services ( ISMS) within the Children's Hearings System (2007) ( http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/12/07154352/6 ) as we now have full cost data for Edinburgh and Highland.

Page updated: Tuesday, August 05, 2008