Section 4. Outcomes for children most extreme in their demands for attention, while other separated children had to wait for their limited time out of cell. There was a risk that staff could easily overlook the wider needs of quieter children once they had been offered their exercise, shower and time on the telephone. More staff entries in files and logs concerned the more disruptive children or poor behaviour. 4.92 Children said that staff on some specialist units treated them better than staff on general residential units, which was consistent with what we saw during our site visits. The number of children on the specialist units was typically much lower than on the main residential units and operational staff there had far more time to give to each child. Children on the WADE segregation unit at Werrington acknowledged this in their interviews, telling us ‘Staff are nicer to you when you’re on the block’, and that WADE unit staff were ‘more chilled and understanding’. 4.93 Almost two-thirds (65%) of children who had been separated on designated separation or segregation units said there was a member of staff they could turn to for help with a problem. Children interviewed mentioned their caseworkers and Barnardo’s advocates as people they would turn to. Their thoughts about reporting poor staff behaviour varied; only 53% of children said they would report it if they were bullied or victimised by staff. They told us that they knew how they could do this – through speaking to a manager or Barnardo’s advocate or putting in a written complaint – but some did not see the point in raising poor staff behaviour. One child explained that as they had to live with staff it was important to ‘keep it calm with staff in the jail’. 4.94 Staff on specialist units like WADE at Werrington and the ESU at Feltham had more time to devote to the children in their care than officers on main residential units. We saw some good examples of staff listening to and helping children, and children clearly appreciated staff who were able to make time for them. One child said, ‘just listening is enough to make me feel like they care’. However, there was often a big gap between what children would have liked to happen, what staff wanted to happen and what was possible. The multiple officer unlock arrangements for some children did not help interactions as they were pre-planned and privacy was impossible. We also observed that it could be difficult for staff from agencies such as health care, education and youth workers who wanted to spend time with children to get them unlocked. This hindered both the provision of required support and the development of appropriate relationships between children and these professionals. 4.95 Despite this, we saw good examples of individual care. One remanded child who was struggling to get to grips with life in custody was given a book by a member of staff who had talked with him about his hobbies and interests and thought the subject would engage and distract him. A child at Feltham A described the efforts of a Kinetics worker who: … actually sat with me and chatted and tried to help… made an effort… got me out of my room. There were also instances of staff showing age-appropriate tolerance in response to poor behaviour. For example, a child who had graffitied his cell was given the chance to remove it rather than be put under a formal process to punish him. A member of staff noticed that a child was not eating much food and put monitoring and support in place. 4.96 In their interviews, children said they were only sometimes asked about their mental wellbeing and how they were feeling while separated. Not all the daily welfare checks that should have been carried out by different agencies took place, and many were held through locked doors, which clearly prevented private or meaningful conversation and informed assessments of well-being. (See also paragraphs 4.53 and 4.61–4.62.) During site visits we saw some health care professionals being told they had to speak to children through their locked doors, particularly for children separated on their residential unit. During interviews it was noticeable how well children remembered those staff who had opened their doors or had a Separation of children in young offender institutions 39