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WQ.72/2025
WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES
BY DEPUTY I. GARDINER OF ST. HELIER NORTH
QUESTION SUBMITTED ON MONDAY 17th FEBRUARY 2025 ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON MONDAY 24th FEBRUARY 2025
Question
"Further to the response to Written Question 187/2024, will the Minister advise what progress, if any, has been made in determining the long-term future of Greenfields secure children's unit, whether these plans include the redevelopment of the site, and if there are no such plans, why not?"
Answer
There are plans for further development of Greenfields secure children's unit. The island must have secure provision for those young people who are remanded, and those who receive a custodial sentence, as well as young people made subject to secure accommodation orders on welfare grounds.
Although there has been development of the secure unit, there is more work needed to ensure that we have a unit which offers a sustainable secure provision for young people. The long-term plans for Greenfields have been considered as part of the work to review the residential estate for children in care in Jersey as part of the refreshed improvement plan. This has included modelling and analysis of the sufficiency need over the next five years.
The plan is to develop Greenfields secure unit further, so that it is part of a specialist campus, where there is a children's home, step down unit and an emergency bed and a remand bed, to better meet the needs of young people. Work is also planned to establish whether it is possible to develop alternative options to the use of secure accommodation orders through the use of inherent jurisdiction.
This site development will include the development of a multi-disciplinary team, including child and adolescent mental health staff (CAMHS) who will be able to provide support to the residential staff group to wrap around young people's plans.
The proposals for the developments were considered by the Council of Ministers on 28 January 2025, and work is now underway to develop the business case which will be needed to support the development of the site, including funding requirements.
Note (27th February 2025):
The Council of Ministers meeting date in the last paragraph of the answer was corrected from 11 February 2025 to 28 January 2025.