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Teenage grandson and council residential housing

NAS67182

My 16 year old grandson gets violent when frustrated and recently received a 2 month youth offenders sentence for assaulting police officers who were called when he was having a violent outburst.  We have had to accept this and he is getting help with his mental health whilst in there. However, the problem is he can't come home when released and Social Services are saying that he must go into a residential home, but we know he won't cope with this because of the sensual overload with the number of people and noise. We feel this will be just setting him up to fail and at the moment he is very positive about getting his life back together when released.  Any suggestions would be great. Thank you.

  • in reply to NAS67182

    If I can be of any more assistance, do let me know. 

  • in reply to Anthony

    Thank you for your prompt and helpfulreply. I will pass this on to his mum.

  • When it cones to post release matters the legal jargon is that measures taken must be “necessary and proportionate” this generally being in relation to perceived risk. Obviously I’m not suggesting you divulge personal information on a public forum, but what you need to question is: 

    1) Is not allowing the grandson home necessary for the management of the perceived risk he poses?

    2) Is not allowing the grandson home proportionate to the received risk he poses?

    The other legal buzz word is “reasonable” - so is it lawfully reasonable to take said actions. Unfortunately this is all subjective but a little knowledge of these key words goes a long way and demonstrates to the powers that be that you know where you stand and you will often find they start playing ball a bit more when it’s clear they can’t take you for a mug.

    Obviously I only know what you’ve said but if his only offending behaviour was towards the police officers, and there is no recorded history of violence against family members, I’d argue that the restrictions are neither necessary or proportionate. The reason for this is that the circumstances in which the violence arose was due to them being police officers and their actions towards him. If however family have gone on record with his violence at home it becomes trickier because it can be argued that it is necessary and proportionate to ban him from the family home. Thus becomes more prevalent If there is a perceived risk to other children in the household. 

    If I’m correct, he’ll be under the supervision of the National Probation service for a year and possibly MAPPA which may be for longer. (MAPPA being police led are unlikely to be sympathetic however as he assaulted one of their own) Whilst they have a duty of care to the public, they also have a duty of care to your grandson and as such it can be fairly argued (if no imminent or high risk is perceived to family) that given his condition he would be better off at home. It can fairly be argued that a residential home would be too much of an overload for him, and would deprive him of a normal family life. There is also a limited argument under the Equality Act that a reasonable adjustment to their plans to accommodate his condition would be to allow him home, though a letter from a professional citing his need for family support would make a stronger argument. 

    whats more probation used to have something - I think it was called the seven pathways which were essentially key stabilising factors which would reduce reoffending - family life was one, so I’d also argue that they are setting up your grandson to fail as by depriving him of a key stabilising factor. What’s more in the eyes of the law he is a child and thus should be shown a certain amount of empathy with regard to his release plan.

    Do you know if it is just a short term resettlement plan of indefinite? As some offenders are made to live at an approved premises where they can be better monitored for the first 3 months post release. If that is the case there isn’t much that can be done, if it’s indefinite you have more of a case.

    Ultimately, all thus being said a lot will hinge on the specific reasons why they say he can’t return home. With greater details, I could probably be a bit more specific. If I can be of more help - send me a private message and I will try to be more specific or answer any questions you may have.