‘Closed doors and dead ends’ in support for violence-fixated young people
The Children’s Commissioner has warned of “closed doors and dead ends” for many education providers when they refer young people to the Government’s anti-terror programme.
Referrals to Prevent involving children have risen in the past decade, from 2,918 in 2016-17 to 4,715 in 2024-25. Prevent is described by the Government as an early intervention programme which aims to stop people from becoming involved in, or supporting, terrorism. Axel Rudakubana, who when aged 17 killed three girls at a dance class and tried to murder eight others as well as two adults in the Southport attack in July 2024, had been referred to Prevent three times but his case was closed over a lack of clear ideology. The chairman of the inquiry into that attack has previously said officers were “hampered” by a lack of clarity on whether they should take someone on who demonstrated signs of being fixated on violence but without adherence to a particular ideology. In a new report, published on Tuesday, Children’s Commissioner for England Dame Rachel de Souza said the current process “risks missing opportunities” and called for a “stronger safeguarding response particularly for children who are fixated with violence but have no identified extremist ideology”. Her office’s analysis suggested seven in 10 (71%) referrals to Prevent involved children who did not have a clear ideology, with many linked to exposure to harmful content online such as videos of violence, discussion of weapons and sharing of extreme pornography. Of the total Prevent referrals for children between April 2024 and March 2025, 79% were closed without progressing through the programme. In this time period, almost 60% of Prevent referrals came from education, while police accounted for 20% and local authorities 11%. But the commissioner’s office found that at least 65% of referrals from education providers were referred back to education on closing, the vast majority of which (93%) had not progressed any further through the Prevent programme. Her report said: “This highlights that there is a group of children which professionals are greatly concerned about, and seeking support for, but are finding closed doors and dead ends.” Among her report’s recommendations, Dame Rachel has called for the Home Office and Department for Education to issue joint statutory guidance on children who pose a risk to others. She said this should require all children deemed to be violence-fixated, or who there are concerns around being drawn into terrorism, or other criminality to be referred to local authority safeguarding teams alongside Prevent. The assessment teams should “act as a ‘triage’ for all these children, including drawing on expertise from counter-terror police at the initial assessment stage when concerns about terrorism are identified, and then children should be allocated to the appropriate intervention from there”. She also called for a national database of evidence-based interventions for children at risk of causing harm, including for those fixated on violence, but who do not have an ideology. Dame Rachel said: “A referral should be the start of understanding a child’s individual circumstances, not the end of the process. When a child does not progress through Prevent, we must be confident other services are there to understand and meet their needs. “Simply returning children to services that made the referral, without a clear understanding of what is driving their behaviour or who will be responsible for meeting their needs, risks missing opportunities to provide the right support children desperately need. “We need a stronger safeguarding response particularly for children who are fixated with violence but have no identified extremist ideology. “Professionals working with children need the expertise and support to identify children’s needs and behaviours, intervene early and provide appropriate interventions.” The second phase of the Southport Inquiry, which opened in July, is examining how to deal with individuals who pose a risk of extreme violence, but where ideology is not the primary driver, as well as the role of the internet and social media in influencing and enabling them. Dame Rachel has also recommended that online platforms should be required to complete a risk assessment for the risk of radicalisation or violence fixation, and that Government should “restrict technology companies from accessing children, until they are able to prove that they have measures in place to protect them from harm”. A Government spokesperson said: “We are committed to ensuring all children are safe from radicalisation and Prevent plays a crucial role in this, moving more than 6,000 people away from violent ideologies since 2015. “Every Prevent referral is assessed thoroughly by experts. “If it’s determined a person is not at risk of being drawn into terrorism, it is right they are supported by other, more appropriate services. “We thank the Children’s Commissioner for her report. “We are reviewing it alongside our work in response to the Southport Inquiry – including developing further options to manage those fascinated with extreme violence.”
Published: by Radio NewsHub