Section 4. Outcomes for children reintegration plan. At Parc reintegration planning started at the 72-hour review, where managers routinely put into place a plan that, if successful, would end the separation before the seven-day review. In all but three cases in the previous 12 months, this approach had been successful within seven days. This included cases where children had committed serious acts of violence against other children and staff. The key characteristic of the plans at Parc was the provision of education and other activity at specific times to ensure that both staff and children knew what to expect. 4.82 Reintegration into the normal regime differed greatly between the establishments. In Parc we saw children who had been involved in a serious violent incident being reintegrated back into education after three or four days, and a return to normal regime within a week. Those found guilty of an offence at an adjudication were similarly returned to a normal location and regime within the same timescale, but without access to the items that had been removed by the adjudicator. 4.83 In the remaining YOIs, reintegration planning was absent, late or not specific. In most establishments, separation was overly driven by process and lacked flexibility. Apart from at Parc very few children were removed from separation in between reviews. This lack of flexibility in the process and inconsistent reintegration planning for the majority of separated children was a fundamental failure and resulted in prolonged periods of separation, further exposing children to the risks of declining mental health and well-being. 4.84 At Werrington there was some good work on the WADE segregation unit with some children who faced particular challenges. One child who regularly seriously self-harmed and had been self-isolating was associating as part of a small group, regularly attended education and was engaged with the chaplaincy, visiting the chapel regularly. However, he still often spent more than 22 hours a day locked in his cell. The perceived predictability of the regime on the WADE unit caused additional issues as children who were separated on normal location, and so had an impoverished regime, sometimes carried out acts of violence or arson to get placed on the unit with its improved regime. 4.85 It was clear that establishments wanted to reduce the amount of separation. However, we found that a lack of an acceptable regime or interventions for separated children, combined with an absence of reintegration planning, meant that separation continued for longer than was necessary in many cases. 4.86 Establishments collected data on the reasons for separation and there was some effective collation and review of these reasons. This was especially so at Wetherby where a good quality, well-attended meeting generated sound actions to reduce the amount of separation. Although we saw such meetings in other prisons, they were not as well developed as at Wetherby. 4.87 Separating disruptive or vulnerable children increases managers’ ability to run the mainstream regime and gives staff and other children some respite from the issues that had led to separation. However, it was not clear how the separation we saw could address or improve a child’s behaviour. On the contrary, we found that, in its current form, where children are locked up for up to 23 hours 45 minutes a day without meaningful interaction, intervention or reintegration planning, separation was likely to make the underlying behaviour issues worse. Separation of children in young offender institutions 37