THERE are no plans to close the Island’s secure children’s unit without finding a suitable alternative, according to an Assistant Children’s and Education Minister – despite the facility being hit with a third improvement notice in less than a year.
Constable Richard Vibert, who has responsibility for children’s social care, added that work to address the issues identified by the Jersey Care Commission in its latest notice on Greenfields was ‘under way’. He described the provision of care at the unit as ‘challenging’.
The JCC found that Greenfields was continuing to provide ‘woefully inadequate’ education standards while staff were being ‘placed at risk’ due to being unable to deal with threats of violence. The third remaining urgent action related to the failure to provide care leavers with a ‘transition plan’ for leaving care, ‘thus compromising the care receiver’s potential to be rehabilitated to his home successfully’.
In a follow-up to its damning report in March on the provision of care at Greenfields, the Jersey Care Commission has said that four of the 12 recommendations for improvement remain outstanding – while an additional area of concern had been identified.
An urgent improvement notice has now been served on the unit to address the three action points – with the threat that failure to do so could lead to the commission referring the matter to the Attorney General for prosecution under the Island’s care laws.
Mr Vibert said: ‘Greenfields provides an incredibly specialist service to some of the most vulnerable young people on the Island.
‘Its staff provide wraparound, intensive care to reduce the risk of harm to the young people who live there.
‘This provision is – by its nature – challenging and requires significant support and resourcing to improve.
‘Greenfields was originally reviewed in March, with a follow-up review conducted in September.
‘Since March, a dedicated improvement team has been in place, and has completed eight areas of improvement, with four still being addressed, and a new improvement identified.
‘Work on these areas is still under way. This includes training in aggression management for staff so that they can keep themselves and young people safe, recruitment for a new dedicated member of teaching staff who will begin in early 2023, and broader work to improve the support for young people leaving care so that we can improve transition planning.
‘There are no plans to close Greenfields, without a suitable alternative being available.’
