Claims children as young as 11 are carrying knives because they "feel unsafe"

There are claims children as young as eleven are carrying knives because they feel unsafe where they live.

The claims have been made in a new joint report, written by a number of organisations, including Ofsted and the Probation Service.

Serious youth violence is "more far-reaching" than many adults realise and it has a "wide impact" across communities, inspectorates have suggested.

Children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) are disproportionately at risk of serious youth violence, according to the joint study by Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), HMI Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services and HMI Probation.

The report sets out findings from six joint targeted area inspections which looked at how local partnerships and services respond when children and young people are affected by serious youth violence.

The inspections - which tracked the experiences of hundreds of children between September 2023 and May 2024 in Leeds, Coventry, Somerset, Manchester, Merton and Lancashire - found serious youth violence is "widespread" and whole communities are affected by it.

The report said: "Parents are very concerned for the safety of their children. We frequently heard of children carrying knives in order, as they described it, to protect themselves.

"The fear of knife crime among children is evident. Inspectors were alarmed at how many children and professionals told them that it is common for children to carry a knife. This included children as young as 11."

It found serious youth violence disproportionately affects young people with Send - particularly those who might be considered neurodivergent - and it has called on the Government and local agencies to prioritise the needs of these children most at risk of harm.

"Delays across England in assessing children's needs in relation to Send are putting these children at greater risk of harm," the report warned.

It has called on partnerships to make it an objective to reduce the over-representation of black and other ethnic minority children affected by serious youth violence in their area.

While the inspectorates found examples of partnerships doing effective work to reduce harm, the report noted "this is not happening in all areas".

It said: "A failure to consistently identify serious youth violence as a safeguarding issue is leaving too many children at serious risk of harm."

Some professionals did not realise the "harmful consequences" of the way they responded to children, such as blaming them for the harm they experienced.

Inspectors also found black children were more likely to be "adultified" in this way than their peers.

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