Priorities 2024 - 2025

Through the introduction of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, children and young people are now recognised as victims of domestic abuse in their own right and it is the responsibility of the safeguarding system to ensure that they are being identified clearly as victims and receiving the appropriate response.  

West Yorkshire police report that in the 12 months to March 25 there were 22,247 domestic incidents recorded in Leeds, with 24.6% of these incidents having one or more children recorded as present at the time. This is noted to be a total of 5,473 incidents, which relates to 6988 individual children. Of the incidents with children present a quarter are stalking and harassment, 21% are violence without injury and 12% violent with injury. 

Whilst this is counting ‘children who were recorded as “present” on police systems, West Yorkshire police now take the view that presence at the scene of a domestic incident makes them victims by default and respond accordingly. 

The Front Door Safeguarding Hub (FDSH) continues to support victims-survivors and their families via Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC), Daily Risk Assessment Management Meeting (DRAMM) and Clare’s law. 

From April 2024 – March 2025 there were 3347 DRAM cases and 1764 MARAC Cases, resulting in a total of 5111 safety plans being put in place. This is a rise from last year, where the total figure was 4672.  

The number of cases discussed at MARAC with a child in the household was 1206, in the year, which equates to 3124 children. 

The My Health My School data for 2023-24 saw a slight decrease of the number of children who reported that they felt unsafe at home, with 3.33% of respondents feeling unsafe, compared to 3.53% the previous year. In relation to whether they felt that they received enough information from school/college in relation to domestic abuse and abusive relationship, 64.24% of children who responded thought that they had received enough information, which is slight decrease from the previous year of 68.9%. It is also noted that there had been a decrease in the number of children reporting that they knew where to access advice and support, with 70.58% reporting that they know where to go, compared to 75.51% the previous year. 

Individual education providers review their own My Health My School data, but in view of the statistics and the ongoing LSCP priority these will also be considered by the LSCP Education Safeguarding group. 

The impact of the work in relation to Domestic Abuse and specifically children as victims can be seen in the findings of the recent audit which was undertaken and outlined in the Audit and Review group section, with strong effective practice noted in several areas. 

Audits have also been undertaken in relation to the JTAI theme domestic abuse, with a focus on children from pre-birth to the age of seven. These audit findings have supported the partnerships to understand the impact of the work in relation to domestic abuse, identify areas of good practice as well as areas for development. 

Audit findings (themes): 

• Good practice from practitioners in observing and documenting children’s presentation and interactions where they are too young to verbalising their experiences directly
• Child and family-centred practice noted, with practitioners working flexibly to meet identified needs
• Varying levels of engagement with specialist domestic abuse services; offered in most cases, but some women declined this support
• Proactive referrals and involvement from the Probation service
• Good use of statutory processes and risk management forums; escalation from child protection to pre-proceedings, use of MAPPA, referrals to MARAC
• Good use of free nursery hours, with the outcome of improved child development, the identification of need and building the family’s support network outside of the home.
• Good examples of the early identification of learning needs
• Multi-agency involvement helped a number of parents access support for their mental health difficulties
• The appropriate use of other legal orders, such as Domestic Abuse Prevention Orders, which do not require victims to pursue prosecutions
• The need for practitioners to be creative in terms of routine or triggered enquiry when partners are present at appointments

Areas for further consideration: 

Opportunities for closer working with Safer Leeds in relation to this priority has been developed this year, with the Domestic Abuse Local Partnership (DALP) offering assurances to the Executive in terms of the local response to victims of Domestic Abuse, including children. This will be further developed in the coming year with a joint OBA event planned for practitioners in May 2025 and leaders and managers in June 2025, with a focus on the local response to children as victims of domestic abuse.   

The voice and influence of victim - survivors remains central to the work of both the LSCP and the DALP. The Domestic Abuse Voice and Accountability Forum (DAVA) continues to support the work of the DALP, acting as a critical friend offering support and challenge. The DAVA will ensure that the board is fully appraised of the views of victims-survivors and their families and that is uses this knowledge in delivering the strategy.

The DALP has also developed strong engagement with victims-survivors via the Women’s Victim Survivor Forum, set up with support from Leeds Women's Aid. This forum meets regularly, and the forum members regularly attend the Board to express their views to influence the strategic approach in the city. This group has developed and launched the Voices web pages showcasing the Women’s Voices work. LDVS marketing team consulted with the women regarding the design and content. The men’s, LGBT+ and children and young people’s pages will be developed over the next few months. In addition, they have worked directly with West Yorkshire Police to develop a podcast for frontline officers to improve responses to victims-survivors.

Dedicated DVA children’s workers contribute the voice of children to the Voices Project through their work with children and capture their input and collate through their work situated in schools and refuges. Leeds is unique in this endeavour as there is currently dedicated funding to get this input from children. The dedicated men, women’s and LGBT+ Voices teams look at the wider family experience from parents' point of view. This ensures all elements of the family, irrespective of dynamic can contribute and be heard. 

Through the above process the Children's Voices team has put together a hints and tips podcast for the Police on how to engage children impacted by DVA which can be accessed here: Voices Project – Engaging Survivors to Create Change - LDVS. 

The dedicated DVA children’s workers engage children in innovative ways and seek their contribution with appropriate and age aware activities. For example, they have been engaging with children impacted by DVA through drawings and art, then extrapolating their experiences into the Voices work through that medium.

Leeds Women’s Aid has continued to deliver the Elevate Project that provides support to children and young people in refuge and the community who have experienced domestic violence and abuse. Additional funding has been given to this project as part of the Voices Project so that those workers can also capture the views of children and young people to inform the work of the board.

There have been several other areas of development throughout the year. The Early Start Pathway in relation to domestic abuse has been reviewed to reflect legislative requirements and is now called the Domestic Abuse Pathway. The pathway describes how practitioners will support families around Domestic Abuse as part of the “4 tier Family Offer”, ensuring that the incident, impact, assessments and plans are seen through the lens of the child irrespective of if they were present at an incident. It recognises that the impact is often denied by victims and perpetrators and every child will be affected differently to the trauma of domestic abuse and requires a trauma informed response in their own right.

The newly launched family hubs each have a DVA co-ordinator ensuring Early Help practitioners have access to expertise.  

The Practitioner Quality Support Co-ordinator is now in post and having a positive impact on the Housing Related Support Commissioned providers activity. The focus of this post it to support the domestic abuse practitioners who are working in a non-domestic abuse specialist housing setting, providing opportunities for peer support, training to make sure that all the practitioners have appropriate levels of knowledge and skills, promoting consistency in vital area such as assessing risk, and offering casework advice supervision. Consideration is being given to how the scope for this provision to be expanded.

A Workforce Development Framework has been developed, which sets out the expectations of partner agencies to upskill their staff in responding to domestic violence and abuse. 

There is now a multi-agency training offer that is delivered by the Safeguarding and Domestic Violence Team with support from a pool of training including members with specialist knowledge, for example regarding migrant communities, which has proven invaluable.

The DVA workforce development modules include: 

• Introduction to DVA and the impact on Children
• Assessing risk, safety planning and MARAC
• Domestic Homicide Review (DHR) thematic lessons learned
• Honour Based Abuse and Forced Marriage
• Non-Fatal Strangulation briefing
• Stalking briefing

The modules are available online, can facilitate large amount number of attendees and have proved extremely popular with frontline practitioners. This approach is usually the preferred method of accessing learning since the Pandemic and numbers of people accessing the offer is significant and cost effective. In the last 12 months 2162 people have attended the briefings.

To enable practitioners to see Domestic Abuse through the lens of a child as a victim, Leeds Community Healthcare (LCH) now have a briefing session regarding Children as Victims in their own right”. The impact of this new briefing sessions is a better equipped workforce who identify and adopt a trauma informed respond to children who are victims. This is seen as good practice and opportunities will be explored to share this across the partnership. 

Leeds Teaching Hospital Trust (LTHT) have updated their e-Child and family Assessment to include routine safeguarding and safety (domestic abuse) questions for all in-patient children, which aids them to identify risks alongside capturing and responding to the voice of the child. 

Leeds and York Partnership Foundation Trust (LYPFT), now include the young people’s DASH risk assessment within electronic patient records providing quick easy access, ensuring young people are being offered the risk assessment, and they receive the appropriate support and escalation to other services. A Domestic Violence and Abuse flowchart has also been produced for use by staff so that they can display this one-page guide on walls in their bases, throughout LYPFT. This includes responding to any immediate danger and completing the DASH checklist, as well as referring to Children’s Social Work Services. There is specific guidance on the flowchart including use of the Think Family Work Family approach, checking if children are in contact with the victim/perpetrator/living in the family home, risk of harm to the children, and ensuring the children’s details are recorded on the LYPFT patient records.

Probation service in Leeds, highlight children as potential victims/victims where domestic abuse is present within assessments, leading to strengthened joined up working with partners and delivery of interventions with the person on probation.

Probation services have also recognised that processes could be improved in relation to following up of safeguarding checks where a child was previously known, and they are working with appropriate partners and internally to review this. 

Routine Enquiry in relation to domestic abuse is promoted across primary care within Leeds and now includes asking all females aged 16 and 17 years of age who attend surgery on their own about their experience of domestic violence and abuse.

A programme of Train the Trainer sessions has been delivered to Primary Care in Leeds and will continue to be delivered through 2025-26, to promote the implementation of Routine Enquiry, and including specifically the subject of children as victims.

Leeds was allocated New Burdens funding to develop a range of projects to support victims and children across the city which has had funding agreed for 25-26. There is close working with the commissioning teams in Adults and Health who support the commissioning of existing services to manage projects, and the needs assessment informs how our budget and the New Burdens allocation is spent.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) funding for an Independent Domestic Violence Advisor (IDVA) to work with young people (16–18-year-olds) at the Front Door is on-going with funding having been extended, which supports the continuation of this work.

Operation Encompass is a process that allows for notifications to be made to schools where there has been an incident of domestic violence and abuse reported to the police where children are present in the previous 24 hours, and as continued throughout the year. This allows schools to provide a welfare or safeguarding response in the immediate aftermath of the incident. West Yorkshire Police are moving to an IT based solutions in the coming year allowing notifications to be made directly to schools and further education establishments through a fully automated process, every day of the year. Leeds will continue to work with colleagues to ensure that any new system enhances the safeguarding process already in place. 

16 Days of Action and White Ribbon

Partners in Leeds continue to engage, promote, and take part in the 16 Days of Action and White Ribbon Day campaigns where we aim to raise awareness of gender-based violence against women and girls, encourage people to take the White Ribbon promise, and promote Leeds City Council’s White Ribbon accreditation. 

Throughout the campaign period, awareness of the support available was promoted, key messages were developed through an organic social media content plan and press/media release, and a schedule of events to run throughout the 16 days was delivered including an   awareness stall at Full Council meeting, webinars up-skilling practitioners, briefing session for Cllr's & EDI champions, lighting up buildings, participation in the Race against the Dark event, updated and shared toolkit of resource and delivered promotional materials and staff communications. 

 Evaluation results for the 16 Days of action: 

• Combined views of posts: 26,791
• Combined clicks to White Ribbon promise (Instagram, FB, and LinkedIn): 60
• Clicks to White Ribbon promise from email signature: 5,237
• News release picked up by BBC and Leeds City Magazine
• Sessions and webinars were good with quality conversations
• Good session with full council and briefings with elected members
• Ambassadors increased from 9 to 35 during the campaign period

Family Help 

The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care was published in May 2022, and the government’s response to the review and their proposals for implementation and consultation were published in February 2023 in a document entitled ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’. The Review concluded that the children’s social care system needed a ‘radical reset,’ as it is currently characterised by crisis intervention, poor outcomes, and rising costs. The Review argued that many of the challenges within the system could be improved with a renewed focus on relationships, asserting that the system too often tries to replace organic bonds and relationships with practitioners and services, and does not sufficiently draw on the resources of children’s wider family and community.

In March 2025 the Families First Partnership Programme Guide was issued that describes the programme vision and objectives and sets out the practice change the DfE expects to see to improve the support provided to children and their families. The guide has been produced to support safeguarding partners implement Family Help and multi-agency child protection reforms and make greater use of Family Group Decision Making; it provides us with a set of steps and measures that will be used to develop our response in Leeds. 

There are many elements of activity in the Family Help guidance, that are already delivered in Leeds either as part of the Family Hubs, the Early Help review, the Leeds Practice Model and the Family Group Conferencing (FGC) service. It is reassuring that Leeds is in a strong position to reflect on the guidance, with a view to understanding what is currently delivered that would be considered “Family Help” and to then focus attention on developing the additional elements it contains.

Leeds is committed to social care reform and to improving its family help and child protection provision across all agencies in Leeds. Work was initiated in 2024 on developing a pilot model to be based in East Leeds with planning to develop provision in line with the national reform programme across the city in line with the timelines set out in guidance now issued by Government.  

In July 2024, an options appraisal was produced by the Transformation Team in collaboration with the service and it was agreed that an in-house service would be developed, with the intention of running a 12-month pilot in east Leeds, with the focus on adolescents. The intention was to develop a model that could be adapted in line with the (then) anticipated guidance and subject to internal evaluation demonstrating its effectiveness, rolled out across the city.

In November 2024, a Children and Family working group was formed to develop the pilot project. This group is led by a Head of Social Work, with support from the Transformation Team and engagement with a wide range of Children and Family service areas. The group has been working towards developing a pilot project in East Leeds, in anticipation of the national guidance and in being cognisant of the development of the Family Hubs model and other reform led changes in Leeds.

The original savings proposal identified the adolescent age group as the focus for this pilot project. However, further interrogation of data shows that whilst adolescents are still the highest age group for being taken into care, there has been an increase in the 6-11 age group. Discussion with practitioners also recommended that a service that works across age groups would allow for better support to families with several children and create the opportunity to work earlier with those children who are not experiencing challenges but may grow to do so. The guidance is also clear that “Services should address the needs of children of all ages. And a whole family approach means that understanding the needs of the adults in the household is also important.” However, having ‘edge of care support’ within Family Help will be important to consider when developing this service and within the pilot.

The pilot provides an opportunity to innovate with the ways in which families are supported at different points of the social care system. The intended cohort for the pilot would be cases that are defined as Child in Need (CIN) or becoming CIN cases. By safely supporting and supervising family support workers (not social workers) to hold CIN cases, will shift the emphasis of their intervention away from statutory process and towards a supportive and empowering relationship, that can be maintained (in certain circumstances) for as long as the family needs targeted support or statutory intervention.

The guidance provides detail on the new role of Family Help Lead Practitioners. These are practitioners from different disciplines with the right knowledge, skills and experience to support families who need help and support. Some will be social work qualified, and others will have alternative appropriate skills or qualifications. The detail of how this role will be developed has yet to be worked out, but the working group are proposing that the pilot would be an appropriate way to test out this way of working in a focussed way.

The pilot project working group are mapping out the areas that the guidance describes as Family Help that Leeds currently is providing, mainly through the delivery of the new Family Hubs and what requires further development. The next step is to outline how the Family Hubs can be gateways into Family Help for those families that need additional support, with the pilot in the East being used to define and develop this Family Help Approach. 

Additionally, Leeds are active participants in the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Family Help Delivery group which serves to engage as a region around the development of Family Help as part of the wide reforms and to share learning and plans. The group also engage with the DfE regarding pathfinders learning and the region has been partnered with Warwickshire and this included a visit to Warwickshire in May 2025 to further understand their implementation process and the learning and challenges they have experienced in developing Family Help.

 A partnership event is being arranged for Q1 2025-26 to galvanise partners around the reforms and to seek their engagement in developing and co-producing a multi-agency Family Help model and the proposed East Leeds pilot.

Once the pilot is launched, it is intended to have an evaluation of impact at six months and a final review after 12 months. A set of indicators is being developed that will allow for the tracking of delivery and impact of the project throughout, with a formal review at the mid-point so that operational changes can be made if required.

Family Hubs

The early help review concluded in April 2024, sought to review the delivery of services, make cost savings and develop a model of multi-disciplinary and integrated Family Hubs. Seven Family Hubs have now been established in Leeds which bring together social work, family support, specialist coordinators from established third sector organisations providing specialist support in relation to mental health, domestic abuse and substance use and the police. In recognition of the demand for SEND services, a SEND coordinator for each Family Hub has also been recruited.

The Family Hubs take a multi-disciplinary and integrated approach to supporting families and teams benefit from weekly, group supervision to review their work with families through a multi-disciplinary lens. 

The Family Hubs take an asset-based community development approach to delivery and a key part of their remit is engaging with communities and the wider partnership to tailor their approaches to the specific needs of localities. 

Family feedback is regularly sought to ensure the hubs do more of what works well, and this supports positive outcomes for children and families. Let’s Talk events have been arranged to ensure that Family Hubs hear the voices of people with lived experience who can influence service delivery of early help within these spaces.

Family Help Partnership Board

The Family Help Partnership Board replaces the previous Early Help Partnership Board. The Board consists of representatives from a cross section of agencies, including children’s services, health, education, third sector, communities and the police, and is chaired by the Chief Officer for Social Work and Family Help.

The overarching aim of the Board is to oversee the development and delivery of Family Help to ensure families can access the support the need, when it is needed, provided by the most appropriate agency by way of a whole system, collaborative approach. The board will take a thematic approach to Family Help and will support the identification of gaps in services and provision. 

The Board proactively supports consultation with families and communities and ensures the voices of families with lived experience to champion services. A key priority for the board is to ensure there is engagement of families from minoritized ethnic communities to address the over representation of these groups in statutory services, and the under representation in early help and this will be developed further in the coming year. 

Best Start and Beyond

Leeds best start strategy is embedded within the "Best City Ambition" and focuses on addressing health and social inequalities by providing a strong foundation for children from conception to age five, and beyond, through programs like "Best Start and Beyond" and "Fairer Start Local". Key elements include supporting healthy family relationships, ensuring safe and supportive environments, promoting physical and mental health, and fostering educational engagement to create a more equitable city for all children.  

It is a commitment to providing early, integrated, and inclusive support for all children and their families to ensure they have the best opportunities to thrive throughout their lives. 

Work has continued throughout the year, across the partnership, to improve practice and the identification and reduction of risks for teenagers, particularly those at risk due to serious youth violence and exploitation. 

A consistent approach to responding to serious youth violence and exploitation across the city has been embedded with a whole family approach to issues of exploitation, assessments and plans continue to address and respond to the needs and difficulties for all members of families as well as focusing on existing strengths.

The voice of children and young people is essential for this work and the results of the My Health My School survey indicate that 33.86% of respondents do not know where to access support in relations to gangs, decreasing from 34.36% the previous year. In relation to knifes and weapons, 32.05% of those young people who completed the survey did not know where to access support, which is a slight increase from 31.96% the previous year. This data will be considered as part of the LSCP Silver meeting.  

West Yorkshire Police data is showing that “First time entrants” to the criminal justice system for those under 18 has shown a gradual reduction over the last two years as shown in the Table Six. 

Table Six- First Time Entrants 

First time entrants	West Yorkshire
12 months to	Feb 2024	Feb 25	Changes
Total	25564	24040	-6.0%
Under 18	6946	6122	-11.9%
10-14	4203	3652	-13.1%
15-17	2118	1994	-8.9%
Number of new individuals identified as suspects (first time entrant)

It is thought that some of this is due to the increasing use of other diversionary outcomes to crime rather than just entry to the criminal justice system for young people.

Outcome 22 is one of those out of court disposals that delivers an educational input as a 'conclusion' of a criminal investigation. This diverts people away from criminality and keeps them out of the formal criminal justice system and there is an increased use of this within Leeds. 

 

Across the partnership, including for West Yorkshire Police, there has been developments in relation to how children who go missing are managed and supported, to reduce risks, prevent recurrence and ensure appropriate support. This has seen the development of protocols to allow the police to work with adults who have parental responsibility in a more informal capacity prior to a missing person being formally recorded. These protocols are tightly regulated to ensure the appropriate management of risk. 

In Leeds there is a commitment from West Yorkshire Police and education providers to the implementation of Pol-Ed, which is a national program that is offered free of charge to all schools if their Police Force purchases it, which West Yorkshire police have. 

Pol-Ed supports schools in delivering expertly planned lessons designed to develop a deep awareness of risks, citizenship, and the law and includes topics such as exploitation and serious youth violence. It includes a range of resources that have been designed to be aligned with the PSHE Association Programs of Study. The materials consist of:

• Lessons created by subject matter experts who specialise in Citizenship teaching and PSHE
• Assemblies created by subject matter experts
• CPD videos for practitioners to support the teaching of difficult topic areas (coming soon)
• Assessment tools in the guise of the Pol-Ed Passport stamps

Pol-Ed has several aims, but overall, it is about keeping children safe by improving their awareness of becoming a victim or suspect of crime and to help teach, develop and instil key attributes to support children in making informed choices and decisions when faced with challenging situations, as well as signposting to further help and support. 

In Leeds most education providers have signed up to Pol-Ed and the LSCP Executive have received ongoing updates. 

Leeds continues to work as a partner with Durham University (Prof Carlene Firmin) to further develop the contextual approach to exploitation and the Risk Outside the Home (ROTH) ICPC (Initial Child Protection Conference) pathway, which is a pathway for young people who are felt to be at significant risk of harm beyond their families. The pathway has been developed to consider contextual approaches to safeguarding, the parents as protective partner agencies and bringing in non-traditional partner agencies.

There has been agreement this year that this work will be extended and will include awareness raising and networking alongside reflections and a needs assessment. This work will enable Leeds to understand the current picture in city and ensure that there this is a skilled and connected workforce. 

MACE Arrangements

Leeds has developed strong multi-agency arrangements to respond to child exploitation through its Multi-Agency Child Exploitation (MACE) arrangements. 

The MACE framework in Leeds has four interrelated steps: Partnership Intelligence Management (PIM); Bronze Group; Silver Group; and Gold Group.

The PIM is an information and intelligence sharing process between the Police and Children’s Social Work Service (CSWS). All information, intelligence and concerns about children missing and at risk of exploitation are shared electronically with CSWS and the Youth Justice Service (YJS) by the Police. The information is reviewed by allocated workers and Team Managers who then coordinate timely and proportionate responses to vulnerable children and young people, including ensuring that referrals to the children’s social work service are made where there is known or suspected significant harm. The PIM reports to the Bronze Group. 

There are two distinct MACE meetings that take place and make up the Bronze MACE, these are the child-focused MACE meeting and the Contextual MACE meeting, both are embedded practice and are well attended and referred to from partner agencies.

Child-focused MACE meetings take place every two weeks and focus on children where there is either a low/ emerging risk of exploitation, or where there is a high risk because the vulnerability and risk management plan (VRMP) for the child is not having the desired effect. The purpose of the MACE meeting is to: analyse risk; share information; consider connectivity and push and pull factors; and to enable further actions in relation to each child or young person to be decided. The meeting also identifies themes, trends and suspected/ known perpetrators. 

Through these meetings, recommendations are made to ensure that the needs of children at risk of exploitation are responded to. The meeting does not and replace statutory planning processes such as strategy meetings, child protection conferences or care planning reviews for children looked after. 

Contextual MACE meetings are held every four weeks, focusing on themes, trends, places, spaces, peer groups and suspected/ known perpetrators linked to exploitation concerns. They take a contextual approach to identifying, responding to and disrupting child exploitation. 

The Bronze MACE meetings report to the LSCP Silver Group, with the Gold Group being the LSCP Executive and reports from the Silver MACE are received by the Gold MACE on a quarterly basis as part of the Executive meetings to ensure that senior leaders to have a line of sight about the most vulnerable children and young people, in addition to a clear understanding of the scale of child exploitation in the city.

Serious youth violence 

Serious youth violence is a subset of the wider statutory duty to tackle Serious Violence. The definition of Serious Violence is broad but specific focus on knife crime and young people and violence. Serious youth violence can be devastating for those involved. It can result in death or life-changing injuries for children. It can also have a serious emotional impact, resulting in trauma. And it has a wider impact across communities, including on people’s sense of safety. 

Data from the Youth Justice Service (YJS) case management system outlined in Table Seven shows the number of sentences that young people have received for offences of serious youth violence (SYV) over the last three years (a 'gravity score' of 5-8; a gravity score of 1-4 is not SYV). With the data being collected related to the date that the intervention was given regardless of offence date. 

Robbery offences make up the main proportion of these in each year, with drug offences (these are supply rather than possession offences because of the gravity score) being the least common and violence against the person offences rising in 2024, following a decrease recorded in 2023. 

Table Seven: Number of sentences received 

SYV Sentences
	2022	2023	2024
Drugs	2	8	5
Robbery	45	48	31
Violence against the person	19	12	16

As reported in last year’s annual report, a Joint Targeted Area Inspection (JTAI) took place in Leeds in March 2024, evaluating the effectiveness of the multi-agency response to children aged 10 and over who are at risk of or affected by serious youth violence and/or criminal exploitation. Although the inspection took place in March 2024, the findings were not published until May 2024. There was recognition for the significant work that has taken place across the city in response to Serious Youth Violence and the partnership has progressed the resulting action plan throughout 2024-25 and continues to see serious youth violence as a safeguarding priority for the city. 

The response by partners to the findings of the inspection have also led to improved services and outcomes. The response by LCH has resulted in the enhanced Neuro- Diversity diagnostic assessment waiting times being reduced, meaning that young people can access diagnosis and support much earlier, and a dedicated phone line and emailing service for families looking for further information whilst waiting for assessment, is also now operational, ensuring that advice and support is not dependant on waiting for the diagnosis. 

Education practitioners are now co-located within the Front Door arrangements to support rapid and effective information sharing and multiagency responses. The emergency duty team from CSWS can now access the IT system for the Youth Justice Service (YJS) and this will be rolled out further to social workers at the Front Door in the coming months. 

Since May 2024 Leeds Probation have started to facilitate an increased number of MAPPA meetings, meaning that meetings are convened over two days rather than one with partners supporting this expansion. Leeds Probation and the Leeds YJS have also co-operated to improve understanding of MAPPA, quality of referrals and establish escalation processes. 

Alongside this, audits were undertaken utilising the JTAI process, to support the understanding of the current position and to evidence the impact of the work that has taken place. These audits indicate that: 

• There is good understanding of serious youth violence among practitioners
• Practitioner engagement with and advocacy for young people being strong
• There is a wide range of support on offer, with consideration given to prioritisation/ timing of support, trying not to overwhelm young people or present support they weren't ready for
• Significant efforts are made to maintain children in their communities and with/ in contact with their families, wherever possible
• There is good use of established and effective multi-agency mechanisms to discuss individual young people as well as emerging themes, individual and contextual MACE, ROTH pathway, GANG meetings
• Developments are seen in the creative use of sanctions like curfews and tags
• There is good cross boundary working 

Further audits in relation to serious youth violence will take place in the coming year to inform the development of a robust training strategy.   

The LSCP Education Safeguarding group have had a focus on prevention and response to Serious Youth Violence this year, with a Task and Delivery group being established drawing on the appropriate knowledge and expertise from the group This work involved the Education Safeguarding Group:

• Reviewing current educational practice, policy and procedure in relation to how the sector responds when a child or young person brings a weapon to their provision, to examine and understand if the sectors response presents a greater degree of risk when considering education and school as a protective factor
• Working collaboratively with the Behaviour Intervention Support Team (BIST) to establish a set of Guiding Principles outlining a standardised approach for education settings regarding young people bringing weapons into school and a clear referral pathway by which to escalate concerns
• Establishing a standardised proforma for settings to use, to achieve a standardised approach to managing and documenting risk through the creation of a Weapons Risk Assessment Management Plan (WRAMP)
• Supporting the development of training materials to be delivered by Leeds for Learning

To further support this work the Education Safeguarding Group made representation at the Serious Violence Board to better understand how the information collated by schools could inform the policing system to better support preventative work. This meeting informed further refinements to the Guiding Principles documentation through the establishment of clear criteria to support schools to record instances where young people bring weapons into school in a way which is purposeful from a policing perspective. 

For education establishments, the LA safeguarding team now co-deliver training with colleagues from the SAFE project and Project Shield to ensure the best use of expertise in the system, with knowledge and skills shared with the vast education sector in the city. 

SAFE Taskforces have been established in Leeds to support young people at risk of serious youth violence. The taskforces have brought together schools and partners to support young people with concerning behaviour, enabling them to attend school regularly so they can fulfil their potential and prevent costly poor life outcomes by inspiring them to exceed their expectations.

The SAFE taskforce aims to identify pupils in years 7 to 9 who had started to disengage from education, and/or who were in close proximity to serious violence due to contextual factors, such as peer or familial relationships. The primary intervention is education inclusion mentoring, supported by a bespoke commissioned induction & training package; a universal & targeted pro-social identity training offer; and targeted after-school activities. The interventions aim to provide a holistic package of support around the child/young person, the family and school.

The aim of the SAFE programme is to:

• Improve socio-emotional regulation and wellbeing
• Improve school attendance
• Improve behaviour within schools and the local area
• Reduce vulnerability to, and involvement in, serious violence

The interventions have shown mixed outcomes across the cohort of 614 pupils receiving mentoring support, 206 pupils receiving pro-social skills training and 250 pupils accessing after school activities delivered under the programme (NB. 83 pupils received all three interventions). 34% of the cohort saw improved school attendance, and students reported with 1:1 Mentoring they felt listened to and their confidence had increased, they felt it was a safe space and they could talk to someone who they could trust.

A full evaluation report for the SAFE programme is still in development, some data is demonstrating that interventions have had a positive impact in relation to attendance and suspensions for a good proportion of the pupils who participated in the programme.

Project Shield

Project Shield was launched as the partnership response to Youth Violence on 1st February 2024. It takes a trauma informed, public health approach to tackling the problem, understanding that prevention and early intervention is the way forward to save the lives of children in Leeds. 

The project has seen new partnership working arrangements such as the Youth Violence Area meetings where third sector and statutory organisations meet to share information and formulate a plan to positively engage children at risk. The daily meeting where agencies meet to discuss live time incidents, intelligence and children in custody to ensure information is shared at the earliest possibilities and all relevant practitioners are aware when there’s an emerging risk in relation to a child. 

There are area meetings that occur every 6 weeks per locality, that involve a range of statutory and third sector partners, to review the risk and diversionary / intervention options available for young people at risk. 

There have been various community projects since the launch, including the 90-minute project which incorporates 45 minutes of sport such as football or boxing with 45 minutes of targeted educational inputs from police and youth service, IMA project (mixed martial arts) partnership with schools along with one-to-one support in the community by dedicated police officers and the Youth Service. 

Project Shield is the umbrella partnership response to tackling Youth Violence. It is about delivering a co-ordinated response to children and young people in Leeds. It aims to be trauma informed and works towards the Child First Approach which is a framework promoted by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority. 

Currently the Project Shield dedicated team consists of:

• 1 x Sergeant
• 1 x PC from NPT who is the Education lead
• 1 x PC funded through the VRP (FDC focus deterrent car project) as an intervention officer
• 1 x Youth Worker from Youth Services to deliver inputs and support to identified children at risk

(PC’s only cover East locality of Leeds)

The team has strong links with Precision – Serious Youth Violence – the investigative team that pursue SYV individuals and the shared intelligence is vital part of knowing where interventions are required, where safeguarding needs to be implemented, as well as pursuing criminal justice-based outcomes when the individuals are not engaging.  

Leeds Navigator Service

Since its creation in February 2021, the Navigator Service at Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust (LTHT) has been a vital part of the multi-agency response to serious youth violence and vulnerable young people in Leeds, with over 1,600 referrals received to date. The service works with young people aged 11-25, the service in Leeds is provided by dedicated youth workers (Navigators) based within the emergency departments at St James’s and the LGI, including Leeds Children’s Hospital. The Navigators build relationships with the young person and develop tailored plans to address the individual circumstances which have led to their admittance.

The service has played a significant role in supporting children and young people at risk of harm, offering timely intervention and a coordinated approach to safeguarding, reducing the likelihood of future harm, and improving long-term outcomes for young people in Leeds.

This year has also seen the Navigator Service being closely involved in the planning and development of the 'Girls in Gangs' intervention programme, which is set to roll out early in 205-26. This initiative aims to address the specific needs and challenges faced by girls who are involved in or at risk of gang activity and exploitation. The Navigator team’s expertise in working with vulnerable young people has been instrumental in shaping the programme content, ensuring it is both relevant and impactful for the target audience.

The Navigators have been key participants in the ‘Guiding a New Generation’ meetings, which bring together practitioners from various sectors to address youth violence in Leeds. By collaborating in this multi-disciplinary setting, the Navigators help identify and support the young people who are most at risk of being drawn into violence or exploitation, contributing to a more integrated approach to safeguarding and early intervention. 

In response to the growing concerns about knife crime in the region, the Navigators have been actively involved in delivering school knife crime awareness sessions across Leeds alongside health practitioners and police colleagues. These sessions aim to educate young people about the risks of carrying knives and offer guidance on how to stay safe. Through these engagements, the navigators work to raise awareness, provide prevention strategies, and empower young people to make safer choices.