Task: This assessment consists of two sections. Part 1: Risk Assessment & Part 2: Reflection
Part 1: Risk assessment: Word count: 1250 words (+/-10%).
1. Using the ASSETPlus risk assessment tool, complete a risk assessment for a vulnerable young person on one of the scenarios provided below.
2. You can draw on literature to support your identification of risk factors, but you do not need to
Part 2: Reflection: Word count: 750 words (+/-10%).
1. Reflect on your confidence in the risk assessment and the problems created by missing information, inability to engage with the young person
2. Reflect on the limitations of risk assessments
3. You Must reference this section; MUST be properly referenced using Harvard Referencing and MUST include a bibliography at the end of your assignment. Adequacy of referencing will form part of the marking criteria.
Scenario 1: Rory
Rory didn’t look like the others kids at his school, and he was overweight. School was tough.“Fat kids are the easiest to pick on, so everybody thought they could just pick on me. But they didn’t realise who I was.” On the estate where he lived, Rory was affiliated to ‘a group of people, a group of my peers’. “You sort of feel bigger about yourself when you’re in a gang because you know, if something happens to you, then you know you can go back and tell the people that you’re hanging around with… they’ll come and help you. I thought of it like that. Then when I thought of it like that, every time… somebody came to fight me, I’d be like, ‘come on then… cool, let’s fight’.”
Rory remembers being ‘permanently in detention’ at school, and almost constant fighting, which lead to his exclusion, ‘I think it was six times in all’. He spent most of year 11 ‘walking the streets’.
“I was on the streets twenty-four-seven… smoking weed, selling weed, selling crack… out there late nights, robbing people… doing everything that I shouldn’t have been doing.”
Rory made ‘a few grand’ from the crimes he committed with his peers, but although, “Money was the motive for most of the people… for me it was more the adrenaline and fighting… I know this sounds really bad, but I love fighting.”
By his mid-teens, Rory was sentenced to four months in a young offender’s institution for robbery. At some point he was diagnosed as having ADHD and bipolar disorder, for which he was briefly medicated. Rory reports little professional intervention in custody.
“In prison they just sort of, ‘see how the day goes’. If you’re in a bad way… they’ll keep an eye on you… they’ll like, open your [door] flap every hour, just to see how you’re doing. And say you’ve got an hour free, and you’re allowed to walk around, then they’ll keep you sort of separate from everyone. They sort of isolate you for the day if they think you’re in a bad place.”
During the last month of his sentence, Rory’s YOT worker visited him weekly to prepare him for release. Rory’s family were re-housed due to his gang-affiliation, and moved the day after he was released from custody. Once out, the same YOT worker got Rory on an anger management course which ‘worked for a few months’.
“Before I went on that course, I’d switch like that, you just look at me and I’d be like, ‘Fuck you looking at bro? What?’ It took a little while, but after the course, if it was to happen again, I’d be like, ‘boy, they must be jealous of my clothes, coz I know there ain’t nothing to look at’.”
Although he’s been out of prison for nearly two years, and has now received counselling via CAMHS, he still struggles with his anger:
“Our friend died… I was on a bus the day after. Some guy was sitting there reading the paper, and our bredren was in it. He was sitting there reading his paper, saying, ‘Oh, what a dickhead little kid’. I jumped up… I was fighting on the bus. I don’t care when I’m in bad mood. My friend’s died, I’m in bad state.”
Rory recognises that his struggle is a continuing one.
“Basically I’ve got all the diseases that make you want to fight all wrapped up inside of me, and I’ve been tested, so I know… you go across me, and I’m gonna push you back. They say something back to me then, I’ve got to bite my tongue quite hard, because I’m thinking [roars], it’s just inside of me. When I have good days, I have good days and when I have bad days, I have bad days… I mean, you bottle things up for years, that’s a lot of stuff.”
Rory continues to attend the project. He no longer associates with his former criminal gang, but he still struggles with anger.
“You can wake up in a good mood. You wake up in a bad mood, you’re depressed all day. You fight when you’re down. You’re depressed, and you’re in a bad way, so any little thing can make you wanna… go for people, you know what I’m saying?”
Scenario 2: Kaden
Kaden is an intelligent and pragmatic young man. When he was committing crime successfully, he was also feared, respected and had money to spare. By the age of nine, he was already in a gang. A few years later, someone at school upset him, so ‘I bought a gun for several hundred pounds and tried to kill him’. A long prison sentence followed. His solicitor told his mother not to cry; that Kaden would get a good education. He was released with A-levels, ‘a very strong mind’ and links with young men all over the country. Now in his mid-twenties, Kaden has spent nearly a decade in various prisons.
Kaden was last released from prison over two years ago. His family didn’t want to know him and having gone in a teenager, and come out a man, he had grown.
“None of my clothes fitted me. It was quite embarrassing… I had no-one who could help me with that.”
A well-fitting shirt is not the only privation to affect Kaden’s quality of life. Mice infest his damp home, his rent’s overdue, and on £80 every two weeks, he can’t afford to buy a television.
“Little does anybody know, the project worker’s had to give me another form so I can go and get toilet roll from a food bank. People wouldn’t think that a little thing like toilet roll would be big news, but I’m living in poverty.”
Kaden finds it hard to live on hand-outs, especially as ‘a person that’s had money all the time’, but finds the alternative even harder to stomach.
“When you step away from [gang life], you… realise how animalistic it is. We’re a lot like vultures… we’re a lot of scavengers. Anything there… they’ll take, they’ll steal, they’ll rob, they’ll lie, they’ll cheat. It’s just not really for me anymore.”
Kaden’s current crime-free lifestyle contrasts sharply with that of his gang days. He moved himself out of his home area and avoids going back. He sometimes visits, but doesn’t ‘sit down with people’.
“People look at me like I’m crazy… I just tell ‘em, I say, ‘I’m not into that no more. I’m trying to get a job’. And they all laugh… I’ve had to swallow a lot of pride.”
What Kaden would like is to earn some money and have a house.
“I just wanna be like a normal fella… I just want a decent job, some decent pay. I wanna go to Spain, I wanna go on holiday. I wanna go where… everyone else goes… just to be able to earn £40,000 a year… live comfortably… you could save, you could be safe.”
Kaden was referred to the project by probation staff. Initially, he attended the project almost every day, but a year later, and under no legal obligation to attend, he ‘pops in once a week or so’. Initially, project staff secured him some counselling, and helped him sort out housing. They continue to help him to navigate his accommodation issues, organise work experience to enhance his CV, and attend meetings with him. His case worker coaches him in ‘life skills like anger management’. Most frequently, the project provides a safe space for him to express his frustrations. Kaden still finds that ‘some things are quite daunting to do by yourself’. He feels that, despite having a reputation that precedes him, he and his peers are:
“The little people in the dark shadows, and we’d love to have a job like you, but we haven’t got the confidence. Once a gang member gets confidence he can say, ‘you know, I am in a gang, but it’s not what I want’… I am confident enough to say in front of my peers, ‘I don’t want this life… If I could go and get a job, I would’… that’s when [I] can say I’ve settled, resettled, you know, when I’m going to work every day and I’m actually earning some legitimate money… Then you can feel good about yourself as well.”
Despite his quick mind and adaptability, Kaden is finding it hard to secure employment.
“There’s not many jobs for someone with my ‘skill set’… I wouldn’t say people can’t see past me being a criminal, but I’d say it’s not really their cup of tea… When you’ve got to disclose your convictions to people, it’s not really too great… It’s not great, but there are people who do employ people with convictions. There are some things out there that can help young people.”
Kaden’s strength of mind is such that, despite degradations of comfort and status, he’s determined to remain crime-free.
“Everyone laughs at me, but I find it funny, ‘you can laugh, it’s alright’. Once I actually get to where I wanna get to, the legit way… I’m not scared of hard work.”
The project which supports Kaden is one of the “good things” in his life. The other he cites is an unpaid mentor.
“She always tells me, ‘it’s because I believe in you’. That’s why I don’t do crime as well… I don’t want to let her down.”
Kaden is desperate to achieve something worthwhile. People think I’m rehabilitated somehow, but I’m not… I’m definitely not… slowly but surely things are coming along… if I went back to prison now it’d be a failure. What have I done for two years? I haven’t even had a holiday… it’s nothing to be proud of. Some people would deem not being back in as something of an achievement, but if you’re not out here achieving anything what’s the difference?”
Kaden in concerned about the lack of funding for resettlement support; the project is coming to an end next year. He could readily find a quick and easy way to ‘make ends meet’, but fights the temptation.
“I do sometimes sit there and think to myself, ‘what’s a two hundred pound TV? If I just go and get something and do this…’ but then that’s the start again, so, you know, you’ve gotta, kind of, continue to try and be as strong as possible… tussle with yourself… I’m always pulling against that kind of issue.”
