Children and Young Persons Policing Charter 2025
Summary
The 2025 Children and Young Person (“CYP”) Policing Charter (the “Charter”) sets out a practical framework for delivering child centred policing with partner organisations. Its objective is to ensure that policing involving Children and Young Persons is fair, lawful and effective.
The National Police Chief’s Council (“NPCC”) has published its latest pledges for a child centred policing strategy through this Charter, which outlines nine pledges organised under three strategic pillars: YourTrust, YourVoice and YourFuture (see previous YJLC Update on this strategy here).
Details
YourTrust
The “YourTrust” pillar contains the following three pledges aimed at building trust and confidence through child centred policing:
- Embed child-centred policing into the force.
- Improve training for individuals who engage with CYP victims and witnesses.
- Deliver a child centred custody experience.
Within the pledge to deliver a child centred cusody experience is the suggested proposal to introduce a mandatory legal advice scheme for all children, including voluntary interviews. This mirrors a recommendation included in a recent report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Children in Police Custody which recommended amending PACE and accompanying Code C to require that all children in police custody receive legal advice automatically, rather than the current opt-in requirement.
Another suggested action is to develop and use a best practice CYP custody checklist. The Charter suggests this may include providing accessible rights documents, appropriate adult contact, assigning a named officer during their detention, etc. The implementation of such checklist could help ensure a consistent approach to the treatment of Children and Young Persons in custody, ensuring key safeguards such as appropriate adult contact are always applied.
The Charter also suggests establishing multi-agency child custody scrutiny panels to review the performance of all agencies and all aspects of a child’s detention. These panels could help assess custody processes and identify and advise on areas of disproportionate outcomes.
Finally, a further suggestion is to work with health partners to establish clear pathways for accessing support for mental health and neurodiversity for children in custody.
YourVoice
The “YourVoice” pillar emphasises the importance of ensuring Children and Young Persons are heard and that their views help shape policing practice and includes the following three pledges:
- Listen to the voice of Children and Young Persons.
- Deliver meaningful CYP engagement.
- Work with partners to offer bespoke safety guidance for CYP with additional needs.
One suggestion under the pledge to listen to CYP voices, is to establish a representative Children and Young Person Independent Advisory Group and ensure it contributes into strategy and practice. Lancashire Constabulary, for instance, is launching an “Youth Independent Advisory Group” with the aim to provide honest and constructive feedback about policing policies and matters to senior officers within the police which may help in ensuring young voices genuinely influence decision-making.
YourFuture
The final pillar, “YourFuture”, focuses on ensuring children and young persons have opportunities to fulfil their potential in life by preventing victimisation and supporting careers. The three pledges under this pillar are:
- Provide meaningful opportunities for CYP to participate in making their communities safer.
- Promote the use of diversionary activity.
- Refer Children and Young Persons to bespoke and effective support provision.
Meaningful opportunities could include volunteer opportunities for under 18s and programmes such as Police Cadets which help build community engagement. Another suggestion is for the forces to work with Youth Justice Services and partner organisations to connect children to evidence-based support, such as mentoring schemes, restorative justice and cognitive behavioural therapy.
Commentary
The Charter demonstrates the NPCC is taking practical steps to embed child centred policing, however, it is important to note that the suggested actions are not mandatory obligations but rather voluntary suggestions. There will be an opportunity for every force to complete a self-assessment, although there is currently no detail on how data will be collected, evaluated or reported and it seems participation in self-assessment may be optional.
The ideas outlined in the Charter are positive and progressive, but without accountability there is a risk that they may remain aspirational rather than operational.