The new school called Oasis Restore is being built in the shell of the Medway Secure Education Unit in Kent, a care center which closed two years ago. The Rev Steve Chalke, the founder of the Oasis Trust, which will run the school, says it “should be the blueprint for any youth care estate”. “Oasis Restore is a revolution in youth justice because it is based on our understanding of how the young brain develops,” he said. “So the question we’re asking them isn’t, what’s wrong with you? It’s what happened to you and we deal with the pain and struggle they had in their lives. “You cannot accept those who have been psychologically injured by trauma, by violence, by neglect, by abuse and somehow hope that by punishing them and locking them up for a long time, they will emerge, renewed people. not working.” The Medway Secure Education Unit was at the center of the scandal amid allegations of abuse and mistreatment. The idea of ​​safe schools was proposed as part of the 2016 review of youth justice services. The plan was to provide enhanced education and rehabilitation for the children in what was described as a ‘therapeutic environment’ – a very different approach to the secure unit at the site before. An inspection before the closure revealed a significant increase in the use of violence, including techniques that cause pain. And once again the center was rated inadequate. Image: Dominic Raab seen around the school being built on the site of the former Medway Secure Education Unit Read more: MPs call on ministers to open UK’s first ‘safe school’ in 2022 Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary Dominic Raab visited the site this week to see for himself what is being planned. He said: “The key thing is that it is a school within prison walls and not just an educational unit or group within a prison environment. “This is important because many of these young people, they will have committed some very bad crimes, they will be punished, but they also need an opportunity to rediscover and relearn some of the things they never had the opportunity to do in the first place because absence, because they were in care, because they were kicked out’. He added that providing educational or vocational skills would be “critical to reducing reoffending rates and keeping our communities and streets safe”. The secure school is expected to open sometime in late 2023 to early 2024 – at least three years behind schedule. It will house 49 young people – mostly aged between 16 and 19, but some may be in their mid-teens. And with an estimated cost of around £36 million, it’s more than seven times over budget. But Cara Beckett, the director or learning and enrichment at the center, has high hopes for its success. “It will be their home. We are not here to punish them again,” he said. “The punishment is the fact that they are removed from their friends, their communities, their family. “What we’re here to provide is love, care, a family environment and access to a really, really strong education.” He added that staff will work once the children arrive to “give them the tools to succeed when they return to their communities.” They will live in almost apartment-like areas with their own en-suite rooms, tour areas and shared kitchen and laundry facilities. But there are those who say that young people should not be closed off at all. Helen Woods, who is chair of the Criminal Justice Group at the British Association of Social Workers, does not think it is a good use of funds. “Because there is only one in the country, which was not the original model for secure schools, it means young people placed there are more likely to be placed away from home and many of them will have very short sentences of three to six months “, he said. “So that begs the question of how effective any educational therapeutic input can be for these young people and I guess, more broadly, our concern at BASW is that young people will be better served in their communities, better served in community programs. than he secured in custody.”