Youth justice Archives

CACI and ChildView – committed to youth justice

Posted on: 16 January 2024

The youth justice domain never stands still. As we create more data and more incisive ways to record and interpret practice and outcomes, we increasingly discover new patterns. These patterns are put to use in achieving our ultimate aim: improved outcomes for the most vulnerable children in our society. Where we can identify unmet needs earlier, we can enable prevention rather than reaction. Where we can know what is not working as well as evaluate what works, we can enact flexible options sooner, when and where they are needed. In depth data mapping of demand and responses is a vital support to frontline youth justice services. Such information has the power to show long-term socio-economic impact. This requires continuous improvements in the application of relevant research and tools and is why CACI remains fully committed to the domain.

CACI’s ChildView software has been the system of choice for youth justice teams across England and Wales for over 25 years. ChildView supports the entire country of Wales and more than 65% of England’s youth justice teams. We understand for several years it has been a challenging time in the domain; budgets have reduced, skilled staff have been hard to retain, populations are expanding and the cost of living crisis is only serving to exacerbate social issues and stress which leads to avoidable vulnerability exposing children to harm.

There’s much talk of efficiency, but efficacy is arguably more important. We are committed to continuous development of ChildView to demonstrate effective and efficient use of resources. However, as the largest and only specialist supplier we can uniquely focus on the YOS partnership to provide tools to generate whole system insights and enable collaborative innovation at a local and regional level. ChildView’s ongoing future roadmap focusses on reduced effort to create deeper insights about making a local difference at its core. We have been around for a long time and we intend to build on our unique know how for a lot longer yet.

That’s why we will work more closely with our customers at a regional level as well as the Youth Justice Board (YJB). We will ensure that ChildView provides compliance with YJB standards by actively helping with implementation in the majority of YOSs and to make ongoing changes to achieve the aims of the YJB. Unique ChildView full case data exchange between CACI systems makes it easier, quicker and more secure to share whole child journey data on young people. This means that rich practice records are shared in a consistent fashion to promote ongoing engagement to reduce risk and build resilience. It helps to ensure continuity and ongoing engagement as young people move between different services and localities, too.

Behind compliance and reporting, however, we understand partnerships and practitioners are working with real life stories, not just data points. Every young person has their own story and their own context. Understanding this is vital to engaging and making a difference to their outcomes.

Being able to record often complex and nuanced information on a child at several levels is essential. With multi-agency touchpoints, bringing all of this together into single, relevant dynamic views of the child helps make many more accurate decisions quickly to efficiently navigate multi agency scenarios. This can help to reduce noise and effort through uncertainty and unknowns as well as reduce duplication and questions to appreciate the battles with systemic trauma and trust in the services intending to engage positively with children and young people.

“Childview has been crucial in all of this in providing the opportunity to capture and analyse significant amounts of data on the different cohorts of children covered under the different strands of Milton Keynes’s Early Support Project,” says Diz Minnitt, head of youth justice and service support at Milton Keynes. “Further, Childview uniquely allows life event characteristics such as undiagnosed speech, language and communication needs, trauma and ACEs to be captured and used to add value to the analysis. This enables us to create rich sub-sets of our prevention data and thoroughly learn about what impact we are having and what is working. We can look at the numbers and the work we are doing that makes a difference.”

Creating such tangible insights drives us forwards. We are fully committed to supporting the future of youth justice and developing multi-agency partnerships in the vital work that you do and its outcomes for our society. We offer a unique team comprised of ex-service professionals who carry your and their passion for this uniquely challenging specialist work.

The benefits St. Helens Youth Justice Service realises from CACI’s fully managed hosting solution

Posted on: 24 October 2023

St Helens Youth Justice Service has been using ChildView from CACI for over 15 years. In May 2020 it decided to utilise CACI’s fully managed hosting solution to support its work. In this case study, we speak to Helen Williams, St Helens Youth Justice Service’s Information Officer about why the council decided to use the service and the benefits that it has brought about.

“One of the main reasons we decided to use the fully managed hosting service was to take the burden off the council’s internal IT department,” explains Helen. “Previously, any upgrades and issues went through that department. Being the council’s team, they are always very busy. We had to log issues with the internal helpdesk and take it from there. Given the scope of the council’s operations and the fact that we’re a small part of it, it often depended on who you got to speak to within the IT team as to whether they would fully understand the software and the problem. Now, when we go through CACI’s helpdesk, we know that we’ll be speaking to someone who fully understands the software and can help us immediately with the problem.

“Another factor was storage and server space. We hold a lot of data and this was taking up a lot of space in the council’s server room. The council was trying to reduce the number of servers it was hosting internally, so the offer from CACI to host our data was an appealing one. This also meant that we were able to utilise CACI’s security arrangements, whilst at the same time reducing the amount of space we were taking up in the council.”

Security was another factor for St Helens Youth Justice Service. CACI meets rigorous international security standards and is routinely tested to identify potential weaknesses. This enables customers to leverage CACI’s security spend in protecting their own data.

“We recently suffered a cyber-attack at the council which shut down most of our systems and we, as a council, lost access to a number of databases,” says Helen. “Because ChildView is hosted separately, however, we were still able to access the system and our data. This meant that we could continue to focus on our work, improving outcomes for the young people in our services.

“It also highlighted that we always have easy access to our data. I can grant access to the data to other people as required very easily and securely. The data works across other systems that we work with, too, making it easy to call upon and rely on.”

Efficiency is often a buzzword in local services. How can it be achieved? St Helens Youth Justice Service no longer has to wait for internal mechanisms to be run before upgrading ChildView or resolving any issues in the system. “Everything is much quicker now,” says Helen. “Any updates that we need are scheduled and done, there’s no hassle.

“Previously there was a lot of back and forth on available dates and when would be best to conduct the updates. Then there were times when our internal IT team were unsure of exactly what they needed to do. It’s now just much quicker.”

“It’s the same as the CACI helpdesk. I can grant them remote access to my desktop and they can fix issues instantly. There’s no more logging the issues with our internal IT department and hoping that someone can fix it quickly. It just gets done now.”

Finally, there’s the issue of cost benefit and cost efficiency. “The people operating above us, who sign off on expenditure such as this, can see the value in the service and are supportive of us using it, so there has been no issue on that front,” concludes Helen. “We have to justify the value, of course, but in terms of security, data access and space saved, it satisfies this. Our council understands the cost benefit of this and we’ve got support for it internally.”

For more information on how CACI’s fully managed hosting service supports youth justice services, please click here.

Trauma informed practice – how a West Midlands coalition is changing things

Posted on: 20 September 2023

The idea of trauma informed practice has been around for a while now (SAMHSA 2014). It remains, however, a burgeoning area of practice. The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) is attempting to take this forward into commissioning policy. Through a coalition of public service agencies, it aims to promote a framework for trauma informed practice in the region. Knowledge, practice-based evidence, data sharing, combined training and service inputs will set new pathways towards achieving better outcomes for all children in the region.

“Trauma informed practice is a journey, not a destination,” says Lucy Cavell Senior Trauma Informed Practitioner at Barnardo’s, the children’s charity which is coordinating the work of the WMCA trauma informed coalition which sets a policy direction. “There are different approaches in the seven constituent local authorities. For example, Birmingham City Council has a slightly different flavour to other organisations, having taken a holistic approach to training around trauma informed practice within children’s services and schools.

“We’re creating a community of practice on behalf of the coalition. There’s a sharing of knowledge and of best practice being implemented. The coalition is a reflective space with strategic support for locally based networks. It accepts the regional differences in localities such as Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton, but it’s still early days, we’re still learning, gathering knowledge and promoting connections and promoting building the evidence base.”

Trauma informed practice in the West Midlands

The WMCA trauma informed coalition was established in 2022 in response to Punishing Abuse, to develop trauma informed practice in the localities. It includes the West Midlands police force, public health, primary care, local authority children’s services, schools, faith groups and charities including homelessness, temporary accommodation, drug, alcohol, domestic violence and mental health. The trauma informed coalition is borrowing from the learning about violence reduction and service developments in Scotland and other regions, such as in Wales, aiming to adapt this to the history and demographics of the WMCA.

“We saw the potential in being involved in such a coalition and the benefit that it can bring to so many vulnerable children,” says Lucy. “Punishing Abuse is a powerful piece of work that demands action. One of the primary barriers to this is siloed short-term responses. Services interact with children in the way that they see as being most appropriate and that makes sense to them. Children move in and out to other areas of the regional system with unseen and unmet needs and are dealt with in an entirely different way.” The importance of a more optimal and joined-up approach which is able to consider much more of the individual context of each child’s journey is something we’ve written about previously.

“One aspect has been the simple creation of training material to promote trauma informed practice,” says Lucy. “We’ve seen real leadership buy-in from the police, with training delivered to over 2,300 officers and staff so far. This covers the basics, from psychology and behaviours to appropriate skills in formulating partnership responses. This has seen a much more compassionate response from the police towards children, young people and families and their communities. Simply by understanding their behaviours differently it has increased the window of tolerance in police settings.”

What the future will bring

There is no blueprint for trauma informed practice and it remains a development area of work with vulnerable young people and their families. As Lucy outlines, there is no one-size-fits-all approach that will work.

“We hope that establishing a trauma informed framework via the coalition will at least set us on the path to end the punishment of abuse,” concludes Lucy. “The goal is to commission interventions that facilitate systemic resilience. Of particular interest and relevance to establishing a consistent unified approach across Educational settings is the Trauma Informed and Attachment Aware Schools regional certification model, informed by the work of ARC, Virtual Schools, Educational Psychology Services and Barnardo’s in the region.

“At the heart of the coalition is the intention to engage with adversity and trauma in regional localities to meet needs in an optimal way. Further, to promote evidence from effective collaborative partnership practice by capturing, monitoring and sharing relevant data and the context of individual, family and community adversity and trauma ethically. The objective is to make smarter service commissioning investments for the longer-term future of the region. There will be a need to step back to see what works and what doesn’t. It is, after all, early days.”

In the second part of this blog series, we will take a closer look at what success looks like for the WMCA trauma informed coalition.

Johnny’s Story – the importance of early intervention and trauma informed practice

Posted on: 11 September 2023

Not so long ago CACI produced a video titled Walk in Their Shoes: Johnny’s Story. You can watch it here. It follows the typical journey of a young person brought up in adverse circumstances, tracking a story everyone involved in youth justice and many in education will be familiar with. The relentless churn of life, the destructive tendencies this realises then the horrific prospect of where this can, at its worst, lead. The topics of early intervention and trauma informed practice crop up often, but how much ground has really been covered?

Yesterday’s issues still exist today. School exclusions still happen as a result of schools being ill-equipped to manage the manifestation of trauma in such children as Johnny. They move from school to school, home to home, experiencing instability at every turn. This leads to disjointed record keeping and tracking of their journey. Different schools approach things in different ways. The transition to different local authorities results in intervention from different youth justice teams. This means more people coming and going and the going over of old ground.

How can trauma informed practice change Johnny’s Story?

It’s one thing realising an issue, quite another solving it. To fully understand the journey that any young person has been on, joined-up record keeping and a consistent thread of information is vital. As the young person moves from school to school and/or area to area, it is important that their information is appropriately shared with their next school or local authority. If it’s not, context is lost. Trauma informed practice is impossible without knowledge of events in a young person’s life.

Joined up record keeping is crucial in even the most vanilla of journeys. Where youth justice teams are involved, the context of the journey is even more so. If a young person arrives with limited information, then it necessitates the going over of old ground with them. Repetition of questions limits responses and creates mistrust in the services that are there to help them improve their outcomes. This limits the opportunities for trauma informed practice.

YOTs are seeing just over 8,000 new children (aged 10-17) entering their services every year. Consistent and reliable record keeping helps them to process these vulnerable young people. Services can then focus on achieving the best possible outcomes for them.

The most dramatic aspect of Johnny’s Story, of course, is the fact that he commits a murder. Thankfully, this isn’t a common occurrence, but young people possessing weapons still is. There were just under 3,500 knife or offensive weapons offences in the 2021/22 reporting period. This shows the prevalence of young people in vulnerable positions carrying weapons that can result in loss of life. As Johnny’s Story serves to highlight, such weapons are carried for protection rather than intent, but it only takes a moment for that to change.

Are things heading in the right direction?

The good news is that the number of such offences – the carrying of offensive weapons – has fallen from a high of 4,500 in 2017/18. Similarly, the number of new children entering the services of YOTs has fallen 10% year on year and is down 78% on the 2011/12 period which saw a record high. There has been a steady downward trajectory ever since.

Whilst these are encouraging figures which clearly demonstrate that the hard work of YOTs, local authority leaders and police is working, there are other areas of concern.

The latest data published 18 May 2023 by the government shows that, “Local authorities identified an estimated 94,900 children missing education, that is not registered at school or otherwise receiving suitable education, at some point during the 2021/22 academic year.” Estimates, however, vary as to the exact number depending upon differing definitions of missing school, as you’ll see in the National Youth Agency document in the next section.

This is another area where joined-up thinking and a consistent and reliable thread of data are vital. Local authorities have an obligation to check up on children who are not being educated at school and are being electively home educated. Schools must inform the authority if a child is excluded, so there is an onus on the authority to follow up on such cases.

It is clear that many are falling through the cracks. The Covid pandemic undoubtedly played a role, with many children not turning up again when children returned to schools in September 2020. This leaves such young people open to the threat of exploitation.

How young people like those in Johnny’s Story can become exploited

The most prominent of this exploitation is County Lines drug dealing activities. Gang activity is central to Johnny’s Story and is something that offers many vulnerable young people an identity and a perceived escape from their position. Exact numbers are impossible to come by, but notable estimates exist as to how many young people are involved in County Lines activities.

The National Youth Agency summarises the estimates on page four of this document. They cite data from the Home Office that c.27,000 young people are involved in County Lines, with The Children’s Society estimating that 4,000 of those are in London alone. Of course, estimates again vary here. The Children’s Commissioner noted in a Channel 4 documentary Britain’s Child Drug Runners (sadly no longer available on the channel’s streaming service) that 50,000 children are involved. Either way, it’s an unacceptably high number and represents a significant challenge.

Early intervention is vital in improving Johnny’s Story

The advantage of a joined-up record extends beyond the individual. Identifying patterns from a culmination of journeys can play a crucial role in early intervention. By the time vulnerable young people are involved in activities such as County Lines, it’s all but too late. Identifying their vulnerability in advance of reaching that stage is where stories such as Johnny’s can really be turned around.

Technology is fundamental to this. Where manual records are kept, information becomes siloed into teams and, worse, individuals. Maintaining transparent, up to date records helps keep YOT workers and their teams informed of each journey of each young person in their services. Then, if they move on, either the worker or the young person, the record can be shared with the next YOT worker involved in the case, furnishing them with knowledge and understanding of that case straight away.

Systems such as CACI’s ChildView facilitate the full case data transfer of files when a young person moves on from a service. This means that their next locality has vital context regarding the case immediately. YOTs working in tandem with one another creates a rich tapestry of information at an individual and holistic level. This will help to inform one another of best practices and create data mapping that can be used to inform better practice interventions in the future.

Conclusion

Johnny’s Story is grimly familiar to so many of you. Maybe not all of it, but so many vulnerable young people have experienced at least part of it. From constantly moving home, having different adults in their lives all the time, failing to settle at school and getting shunted from one to the other, lashing out in the form of petty crime and damaging public property, to seeking identity and purpose in gang-related activities; it is a very easy trap for them to fall into.

The good news is that things are improving. There is greater awareness of the issues facing these young people and the burgeoning area of trauma informed practice, for example, promises a better informed future roadmap of service responses. Each authority needs to be interoperable with every other, however, to truly open the door to fully informed practices and services.

Technology will facilitate this. In order to avoid the constant repetition of Johnny’s Story, it’s vital that authorities and YOTs embrace the possibilities.

For more information on ChildView, please click here.

How Tameside Council uses ChildView’s full case data exchange functionality

Posted on: 14 August 2023

Tameside Council has been using ChildView from CACI since 2014 to support its vital work in supporting vulnerable young people across its services. One specific area of functionality within ChildView that Tameside Council finds particularly useful, is the full case data exchange.

The full case data exchange functionality enables Tameside Council to share and receive all the data held on a young person’s case. “It was taking so long to manually input the data associated with a full case,” explains Louise Hope, data and analysis lead. “Our business support function has been getting busier, with more work in referrals meetings and taking notes, resulting in less time for admin tasks such as this. We put together a business case for using the full case data exchange functionality and implemented it.

“Essentially we wanted to save time. It has also helped us to improve the accuracy of our data; the data otherwise is only as good as the person inputting it. If they make mistakes and miss things, then our data is poorer as a result.”

The full case data exchange functionality in ChildView enables youth justice services to send and receive all the data recorded on a young person with other youth offending teams (YOTs) using ChildView. If young people move services, then their record can move with them. “We use it to send and receive cases with other YOTs,” says Louise. “We would like to use it for everything but have found that there is some confusion around the process with other YOTs, whereby they only send us the asset rather than the full case. Once other YOTs understand the process, it will improve it further.”

One of the main benefits of the functionality is to save time and improve efficiency. At a time when services are getting busier, this is a helpful facet of the full case data exchange. “Absolutely we’ve saved time through using the functionality,” says Louise. “Although it’s tough to say exactly how much time because each case is a different size. I would say, however, that we save at least a couple of hours on a standard case. Also, if the data is being input manually, we would never ask someone to add all contacts, for example; they would be attached as a pdf. So, we get a richer base of information whilst saving an average of two hours.”

A richer base of information helps YOTs to pick up information more easily and understand the context and nuance of a young person’s journey. Where information gets lost or incorrectly recorded, vital information disappears with it. “It’s certainly beneficial to have all of the information and all of the contacts,” concludes Louise. “Having a rich seam of data makes it much easier to find information, too. Then, you can see where that information has come from, with an evidence base and contacts of who recorded what. If we have any questions, it makes it very easy to follow up with that person. There’s also increased confidence in the data that we have as a result of the improved accuracy of the data being added to our system. With accuracy and a trail of contacts, it makes each young person’s journey more transparent to us.”

For more information on how ChildView supports the vital work of youth justice teams across the UK, please visit: www.caci.co.uk/childview

Youth justice in Wales – giving teams a single view of every child

Posted on: 14 June 2023

Families and their children move around frequently for myriad reasons. How can councils and youth justice teams maintain information relevant on these young people when they have fallen into their services? Each touchpoint with a young person in the youth justice system reveals a bit more about their story – losing that data and that insight costs time and effort. It duplicates work and can further disenfranchise young people and their families. Having a shared record, which is appropriately accessible across local authorities and youth justice teams, can help to join the dots in their stories to from a single, consistent data thread.

Data sharing across disparate systems can be difficult. Technology moves at such a fast pace and budgets don’t always keep pace with the changes. This results in multiple systems being used across different authorities to try and achieve the same goal – improve outcomes for young people in the youth justice system.

Transferring data between youth justice teams

The seamless transfer of data works to the benefit of local authorities, youth justice teams and, most pertinently, young people. When a young person moves location, it is vital that their youth justice data follows them. This helps the team in their new location to understand their story and circumstances, reducing duplication of work from one location to another.

It also facilitates swift and informed decision making. Where a single accessible record has been maintained by relevant professionals associated with the young person’s journey, it makes understanding and interpreting that story far easier for professionals new to it.

There are patterns that can be identified in the data. For example, we can easily demonstrate the profile of young person likely to fall into youth justice services. Looked after children are a good example. The Laming Review, keeping children in care out of trouble, notes that: “As a result of their experiences before entering care, and during care, children in care are at greater risk of entering the youth justice system than their peers. Looked-after children are more likely to be exposed to the risk factors established in research as associated with the onset of youth offending than the general population of children.”

Taking the data held by youth justice teams on looked after children will help them to build out a broader understanding of approaches that work. Approaches that work towards improving their outcomes and also approaches that work in understanding why they’ve ended up in the youth justice system.

The value of data in youth justice

Making this information accessible to other professionals can help with early intervention. The data held by a youth justice service can also be relied upon by other youth justice services to help form understanding from a holistic view of approaches to the issues faced.

Sharing of vital information can be an incredibly time intensive, manual process requiring duplication of data. This leaves the process open to human error and the natural time constraints placed upon already stretched services.

In Wales, this problem has been removed. Each of the 22 youth justice services in Wales now uses ChildView from CACI. This means that young people moving within Wales can have their full case record transferred to their new locality automatically. All data is gathered from ChildView via the data exchange button. Enter the reason for transfer and the system collects all the data and transfers it on. This greatly helps in ensuring that relevant professionals have all the information that they need on a young person in order to advance their journey from a firm base of understanding.

Being able to instantly have all the information on a young person moving to a new locality helps to improve their outcomes. They won’t face duplication of effort in another professional entering their lives asking the same questions as before. Instead, a seamless transfer of their record is facilitated.

A joined-up youth justice approach in Wales

The single system response in Wales makes this data transfer frictionless. It also enables youth offending teams to work in an interoperable fashion, whilst also retaining their independence of approach to this complex work.

Applied learnings are vital in breaking down this complexity. It’s something that we see more clearly with aspects such as children missing education, which is an increasingly prevalent issue. It’s also one that no one has a firm grasp of. Estimates of the number of children missing education in the UK vary from 50,000 to 250,000. This depends on what you read and what your parameters for missing education are. One thing which is clear, however, is that it’s an unacceptably high number whichever lens you view it through. How can this issue be tackled by the authorities tasked with resolving it?

Disjointed and incomplete records only serve to exacerbate the issue. Young people fall through the cracks far too easily and disappear into the ether. Understanding a child’s school patterns is a vital piece of information. Linking education and circumstances to the work of youth justice workers is vital. Establishing this single view, from multiple systems and sources, paints a complete picture.

How ChildView helps

That’s why we’ve made ChildView an interoperable system. One that’s capable of working with and alongside other software to create an overarching picture. Being able to seamlessly transfer data is only part of the picture. Being able to seamlessly receive data is also of utmost importance. A young person’s journey doesn’t end when they move location.

Creating this single view drives insight and understanding that is not just applicable at an individual level, but also across every young person in the youth justice system. Having this single view in Wales will help its 22 local authorities to build a comprehensive understanding of youth offending. What works in tackling the issue, what helps in improving outcomes for each young person? Ultimately it will help in reducing the number of young people in the youth justice system, either as first time or reoffenders. A complete picture improves their safety and wellbeing. It plays a vital role in supporting some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

For more information on how ChildView supports the complex and challenging work of youth justice team, please visit: https://www.caci.co.uk/software/childview/

Why choosing a hosting service can benefit your youth justice services

Posted on: 9 May 2022

Data hosting isn’t the most interesting, or even the most relevant, topic of conversation for youth justice workers. Yet it plays a vital role in underpinning the processes that youth justice teams implement in working towards their ultimate goal: improving outcomes for young people. So, we wanted to take a couple of minutes to look at why data hosting is so important for youth justice workers and teams.

Security

First and foremost, securing your data is paramount. As we’ve seen recently with Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council and Hackney Council, the cost of losing data can be huge. Both councils fell victim to ransomware attacks, costing both significant sums of money and majorly disrupting their services. While bills ran into the millions, the disruption also affected vital service delivery, including those to vulnerable young people.

Having your data securely backed up at regular intervals helps to minimise the effects of a hack, or even something like a natural disaster. The process is designed to cover the worst-case scenario.

Cost efficiency

By utilising an external hosting service, you are also leveraging their security spend. Keeping data safe inhouse is a hugely expensive process. Microsoft, for example, spends well over £1bn every year on security. Tapping into that spend helps to reduce your costs.

Such organisations are always updating and testing their infrastructure, too. The reputational damage to a company such as Microsoft or Amazon Web Services would be vast if a successful attack was carried out against them. It’s in their best interests to keep everyone’s data secure.

In utilising a fully managed hosting solution, youth justice teams can switch the expense of hosting from a capital expenditure to an operational expenditure. This frees up funds that can be diverted to frontline resources; improving outcomes for the young people in your service.

Flexibility

It also keeps you fully in control of your data and how it is used. Permissions can be tightly controlled and the flow of information likewise. This is important in ensuring that your data is only accessed by the right people, at the right time.

This helps to keep your services running during times of strain. When something like a global pandemic occurs, and everyone is suddenly forced away from the office, keeping your service joined up is vital. A single point of access helps with this, maintaining the provision of requisite data to your team to enable your services to continue running.

You also have control over how regularly your data is backed up, according to the needs of your youth justice team. This offers increased flexibility over the cost, too.

Peace of mind

So, let’s imagine the worst-case scenario has come to pass. You’ve been hacked. What happens next?

If your hosting is done inhouse, then you’ve got a serious issue. All the data hosted on premise is lost. Identifying what has gone missing and how you will recover it is all but impossible.

By utilising a fully managed hosting service, the only loss to your organisation will be the time since your data was last backed up. As this will be done regularly, losses will be kept to a minimum. You can simply switch to your backed up data and maintain your service delivery. If your data is backed up irregularly, or not at all, the consequences can be far graver.

Compliance

A new era of data regulation was ushered in by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018. One of its central tenets is security. Losing personal data can lead to fines. Big fines. Being able to evidence that you’ve done all that you can to protect sensitive data goes a long way to appeasing the regulator in worst case scenarios.

It is, however, another factor to consider. Choosing a hosting partner with up to date, relevant security certificates, for example ISO 27001, is crucial in this respect.

Training

Ransomware attacks, such as the one experienced by Hackney Council, are often the result of phishing attacks. Put simply, these are malicious emails designed to look legitimate so that people within your organisation click on them. Once details have been entered, attackers can easily access your system. This means that your frontline security is only as strong as its weakest link.

Opting to utilise a fully managed hosting solution can mitigate the impact of this weakness. It can never resolve it, however, only complimenting robust governance and systems. Ongoing staff training and awareness is vital in minimising the initial risk of a cyber attack. Should the worst happen, your system response will either exacerbate or minimise its impact.

Going green

On-premise hosting requires individual equipment, maintenance and power supply. Switching to a co-hosting or cloud solution reduces your energy consumption. There is a commitment by all companies and agencies to reduce carbon emissions and energy consumption – switching your hosting solution can contribute to meeting these commitments. At a time when energy costs have risen significantly, taking the green option isn’t only good for the environment.

Updates

From time to time your software will need updating. When you choose a hosted service, your provider will usually carry out this work as part of its services. This means that you don’t need to worry about planning IT time in ahead of an upgrade process, your provider will let you know when it’s happening and everything will be taken care of for you. This significantly reduces the stress and burden upon your resources in completing such work.

Conclusion

Utilising a hosting service carries a multitude of benefits for your local authority and its youth justice services. From reducing cost and helping to meet environmental targets, to meeting regulatory requirements and freeing up resources to focus on other projects, hosting can fundamentally support your youth justice services.

It may not be the topic at the forefront of everyone’s minds, but it is worth considering the worst-case scenario – what if your authority is attacked, or data goes missing? With nefarious hackers constantly seeking to exploit weaknesses, considering the fundamental impact of a successful attack is important. Losing data on vulnerable young people will have a huge bearing on the service that you need to provide to them. Improving outcomes for them is, ultimately, the desired outcome.

Whilst hosting may not be a silver bullet to these threats, it can mitigate their impact if they are successful. At the same time, it can reduce costs and your carbon footprint.

For more information on CACI’s hosting services for youth justice teams, please click here.

Solihull Council chooses ChildView from CACI to supports its youth justice work

Posted on: 17 January 2022

Solihull Council has chosen CACI’s ChildView youth justice software to underpin its youth justice work in the area. As part of the move to enhance engagement with young people and improve their outcomes, Solihull Council has sought to strategically evolve its services. Partnering with CACI will help Solihull Council in engaging with young people, recording their journeys and data mapping their outcomes for the benefit of all young people in their services.

ChildView will support Solihull’s youth justice practitioners by providing a holistic view of the council’s services. This will help Solihull’s youth justice team to efficiently and effectively deliver its vital frontline services, gaining deeper insight and understanding of the journeys it seeks to improve.

“Following a detailed consideration of the requirements for our Youth Offending Service, our engagement with young people and extensive market research, Solihull Council is pleased to announce CACI as our new Youth Justice partner,” says Zubair Afzal, consultant programme manager ant Solihull Council. “We look forward to delivering an improved Youth Justice offer in collaboration with CACI.”

“We’re delighted that Solihull Council has chosen our ChildView youth justice software to underpin its vital service delivery,” says Phil Lucy, director of CACI’s Children & Young Person’s division. “It’s an exciting opportunity for us to expand upon our service delivery in the West Midlands and support Solihull Council in evolving and enhancing its service delivery to vulnerable young people.”