YJB’s Child First Self-Assessment Toolkit
The Child First Self-Assessment toolkit is a self-led resource commissioned by the Youth Justice Board, which invites organisations to consider how far into the Child First journey they may be.
It supports organisations to reflect on their current practices, how far they are aligned with the evidence base of what works for children, and how they might adopt and implement a whole-service approach to being Child First.
Child First is a summary of the evidence base of contemporary research into what we know works with children to produce positive outcomes, reduce offending and create safer communities.
The tool is designed to be easy to use, practical and is freely available. There is no requirement to report back to the YJB and organisations can use the parts of the toolkit they find most useful.
We encourage partners from across youth justice and other sectors including health, police, courts, education and the voluntary sector, to use this tool. We encourage youth justice services to promote the tool to their partners. While youth justice services are also welcome to use the tool themselves, they should also be referring to case management guidance and standards for children as tools to support Child First practice.
There is helpful guidance to support organisations complete the toolkit. Access the guidance and the supporting infographic.
To provide any feedback, or if you’d like to share your experience using the toolkit, please email our Evidence and Insights team.
If you’d like to share local examples of Child First practice on the Youth Justice Resource Hub, please use the submission form.
We also held a webinar to launch the Child First toolkit on Child First Day, which includes an introduction to the tool from the YJB and the objectives behind it, an overview of the tool from Cordis Bright who developed the toolkit, and reflections from West Yorkshire Violence Reduction Partnership who piloted the tool.
If you would like to watch back Cordis Bright’s 10 minute presentation and their overview of the Child First Self-Assessment Toolkit you can find this below.