Section 4. Outcomes for children anyone. We’re not arguing or anything, we’re just chatting, having a joke and checking up on each other. 16-year-old child separated on normal location Children have sufficient activities to occupy and stimulate them in their cells 4.65 Separated children were locked up for too long on restrictive regimes, and had little to stimulate them sufficiently in their cells. We found some children who had access to a radio and TV. In some establishments, staff gave children word searches or stress balls, in-cell workouts or a book to read, and some children were given activity packs by youth workers or education outreach. However, this was the minority of children. Provision of activities to occupy children was inconsistent, and even if a child received an activity pack from education it was sometimes unrelated to their individual educational pathway. Parc did not offer outreach education and most children we spoke to there said they received nothing to occupy them while they were locked up. Many children in other institutions separated pending adjudication under rule 58 did not have access to outreach education. One 17-yearold separated on normal location said: ‘there should be more to occupy your mind.’ Access to activities 34 4.66 Children who experienced separation were not able to access equivalent activities to their non-separated peers, including time in the open air. In the 57 cases that we reviewed, 24 did not contain information about exercise; this included all 14 cases from Feltham. Of the remaining 33, only seven received daily exercise throughout their period of separation. 4.67 Outside exercise yards on dedicated segregation units were colourless and confined, providing no stimulation for children. As with the case of Child J below, we sometimes found that children were forced to decide between time in the fresh air and education, because there was insufficient provision or organisation to provide both on the same day. 4.68 In some establishments, there had been attempts to offer alternative planned activity sessions for separated children. However, this was also inhibited by the restrictions of the regime. In one case, a child was over 45 minutes late for an art therapy session and was then unable to leave until an hour afterwards, which compromised the therapeutic impact of the intervention. 4.69 The educational outreach provision for separated children was inadequate. It was infrequent, inconsistent and competed with other regime activities for priority. Data from education providers showed that they attempted to deliver around three to five hours of education per child in outreach per week. However, this did not include all children subject to separation and covered the time when the child was unable to attend for reasons outside the control of the education provider. The difficulties in delivering outreach education meant that access was inequitable; while some children (often those who were not separated) did get more access to education, this meant that many got far less. 4.70 To illustrate this disparity, we examined education provision in detail for four children subject to separation on normal location for a total of 86 days. Over the separation period, a total of four hours 55 minutes of education was delivered, or just less than four minutes per child per day. One child spent 34 days separated and received only two hours 20 minutes of education. 4.71 In many establishments, managers were unable to coordinate the different activities for separated children effectively. Separated children and the staff looking after them did not have a timetable of who would get what activities and, crucially, when. This meant that valuable resources were often wasted as teachers, youth workers and health care Separation of children in young offender institutions