A youth justice service has been rated good for “helping children thrive”.

The East Sussex Youth Justice Service (YJS) supports children and young people aged between 10 and 17 to prevent offending or re-offending across the county.

In a recent inspection by HM Inspectorate of Probation, conducted between June 10 and 14 and published on September 17, the service was rated outstanding in five categories, good in four, requires improvement in three and inadequate in one.

Leaders and partners of the service were commended for “working positively to build a clear vision and carve out a road map to help children live their best lives and thrive”, while the management board is “led well”.

HM Chief Inspector of Probation, Martin Jones, also highlighted the “effective relationships” in the service which lead to “positive outcomes” for children and young people.

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The report also found that “the quality of services to help children to not commit further offences was impressive”, with data from the past 18 months showing a reduction in the rate of re-offending by children using the service.

Mr Jones said: “YJS staff are highly motivated and focused on helping each child to thrive.

“They are led well by an experienced, passionate and forward-thinking strategic lead for specialist adolescent services.

“Senior leaders, managers, stakeholders and operational staff across the partnership seek feedback from children and their parents and carers, and actively use it to improve service delivery.”

However, areas marked for improvement include resettlement policy and provision, planning and assessment for out-of-court disposals. Planning for children’s safety and their potential to cause harm to others was also found to be variable.

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Mr Jones said: “The quality of work specifically linked to planning for children’s safety and wellbeing and the potential to cause harm to others is variable. This needs to improve.

“Our inspection found that, across court and out-of-court work, not all staff consistently understood and followed the systems and processes to keep children safe and prevent them from causing harm to others.

“Furthermore, better contingency planning and more effective management oversight are needed.”

Becky Shaw, East Sussex County Council’s chief executive and chairwoman of the chief officers group management board, said: “Our Youth Justice Service works with children and young people at an extremely difficult time in their lives and I am pleased that the passion and efforts of partners and staff have been recognised in this report.

“The work carried out by the partnership has a huge impact on the lives of families across the county, which can be seen in the reduced re-offending rates and by the wonderful comments made by young people and their parents and carers.”

“As well as seeing what we do well, inspections give us a good opportunity to take a step back and see what we can do better.

“There are areas where inspectors felt improvement was needed and we are committed to doing everything we can to quickly bring about changes that will deliver a safer and more effective service to children and young people across East Sussex.”