Children on the Edge of Care (Speech: 14/11/07)

Kevin's speech to the British Association of Adopting and Fostering

 

Thank you David for that warm welcome.  It’s a great pleasure to be here today at this conference. The creation of the new Department for Children, Schools and Families has sharpened our focus on everything that supports good educational outcomes for children – namely, a stable family life, children’s wellbeing, and creating the opportunities for every child to achieve their full potential.  When I came into the House of Commons in 2001, the very first Bill I sat on was the Adoption and Children’s Bill, which was a tremendous experience for a new Member of Parliament to sit on. Nothing is more important than the safety and wellbeing of children and young people, particularly the most vulnerable, and those who have had a difficult start in life. BAAF is a significant partner in helping us in government to achieve the best outcomes for those children. I want to thank you for the work that you do, and for organising today’s event and all the work you do on this agenda. In the white paper Care Matters, we outlined 4 areas which we must focus on if we want to transform services for children in care and those on the edge of care.  They are: empowering the child by ensuring that their voice is heard and listened to, and that they get a meaningful say in the decisions that affect them, creating stability for children, raising our aspirations and ambitions for children in care, so that we care as much about their achievements and expect them to be as successful as we would for any children of our own, and a high standard of parenting.  Raising our efforts in all of those areas is absolutely crucial if vulnerable children are to achieve the highest possible standard of care and support.  But it is the last theme – parenting – that I would like to talk to you a bit more about today.  I have discussed with people about the forthcoming legislation for children in care, I have talked about the importance of good corporate parenting from the state – in other words, the state accepting that it has, not just a legal responsibility but a moral responsibility to treat children in care, as well as any good parent would do for their own children – in other words children in care be cared for and cared about. The legislation – which is being introduced into parliament today – is intended to take significant steps to support local authorities in undertaking that responsibility.  But we also recognise that more children could be helped to remain with their birth or extended families by introducing new approaches and ways of working which evidence shows can produce better alternative outcomes for children and young people. For example, some children would be better supported by other relatives, or friends – people who are already familiar to them if they cannot remain with their birth families.   Others might benefit more from a temporary care placement, such as respite care or supported foster care with maintained contact with their birth parents throughout while those parents deal with the complex problems of their own, and then importance of creating a smooth transition back to the birth family when things are back on track. I know that you will be hearing more about programmes like this later today. The conclusion of the Future of the Care Population Working Party was that setting crude numerical targets for the care population in either direction was counterproductive.  It also said that an effective children’s services system should identify and support those children who could flourish at home, and those who could not.  Where problems are complex and unique to individual circumstances, so should the solutions be. We need to make sure that we have the right options in place to cater to the needs of every child and family in a personalised way.  And the centre of it means the child’s needs must be at the centre of that process.  The creation of the new families unit in my department is dedicated to providing the best possible support to parents. That is the ‘F’ word in politics. The more help we can give to parents early on, the less likely it is that problems will become so serious that children need to be moved into care.  So I want to talk to you today about children on the edge of the care process – about the ways in which the forthcoming legislation, and the broader vision outlined in Care Matters, will help to support them in the way that is right for them.  I just want to outline a few things we are going to do. For children on the edge of care, our reforms will do two things:  They will provide better support to birth parents, to address their needs so that children can avoid entering the care system where possible, and where it is in their best interests. In particular we are developing new interventions and ways of working with very vulnerable families.And they will provide for wider options such as short break care or shared care and family and friends care which enable children and young people to retain strong links with their families, school and communities. Because this is very much something children tell us they want.  The bill will help to ensure that every option is considered before a child goes into care, particularly where support is available from people already familiar to a child, such as family and friends.  There are currently 200,000 grandparents and relatives raising their grandchildren, for example – I see them in my own surgery, often in very difficult circumstances. We want to provide better support and recognition for children living outside the care system.  Many family and friends carers tell us that too often they feel they are not considered when decisions about a child in the family are being made. Or that, if they are caring for a child, they are unclear about the supports and services to which they might be entitled.  That’s why the White Paper announced that we would be setting out a framework to make sure family and friends carers get an clearer and fairer treatment. Family Group Conferencing makes sure that wider family and friends are involved in discussions and decisions about a child’s welfare at a much earlier stage in the process.  We’ve also funded a Toolkit and a Reader to improve practice in Family Group Conferencing and help this to be used more widely across local authorities. As you know this gets everybody round the table to work out what support each person can offer. It provides the child with a more complete and personalised picture of support that fits with their individual needs, and makes sure the system does not simply turn to placing a child in care as the easier option. And, once family and friends care is identified as the best option for a particular child, the bill will remove some of the practical barriers to family and friends gaining parental responsibility for a child. One of the ways we can do that is to make it easier for relatives to apply for residence orders and special guardianship orders.  We’ve amend existing legislation to allow relatives to apply for a residence order or special guardianship orders without the leave of the court if the child has been living with them for a continuous period of a year or more – as is the case for local authority foster carers – rather than the 3 year stipulation that currently exists.  Where that is not possible – where parents have very complex needs that have to be addressed before they can provide the stability that their child needs, for example – we will look to reinforce contact arrangements between looked after children and their birth parents, so that children can make a smoother and quicker transition to their parents if that is in their best interests.  Yesterday I attended the Family Court with District Judge Nick Crichton who is addressing you later today. The Family Drug and Alcohol court – which we mentioned in the white paper and will shortly be piloting – and which I will be helping to launch – is an excellent example of targeted support for parents with more complex needs. Substance misuse in a parent can have devastating effects for their children. Where children are taken into care, it is only right that proceedings also focus on adult treatment, so that they can get back on track and in a position to offer their children the best possible love and support. The project uses the official mechanism of the court to provide intensive assessment, interventions in the form of one to one and group work, and care plan coordination. Progress – both on the parent’s treatment, and the child’s care placement – will be reported back through the court, encouraging and motivating the parent whilst ensuring that the child’s needs are being met.  It is also important that we tap the existing support around a child, to provide further support to parents. As I mentioned earlier, family and friends are familiar to the child, trusted by the parent, and an invaluable source of support. Good parenting – whether it comes from the state, fostering and adoption, or family and friends – is absolutely crucial to creating the stability that every child needs to succeed. But we will also target some of our support directly at children in care themselves.  The white paper identified that funding would be made available for the development of Multisystemic Therapy (MST) as an effective specialist intervention for older children and young people on the edge of care. Intensive work is undertaken with the whole family by a single therapist to reduce offending behaviour, increase the young person’s engagement in education and training and improve family relationships.  It puts a lot of focus on the parent to address any issues such as drug and alcohol misuse or domestic violence and improving their parenting capacity through increased supervision of the young person.  I am very pleased to be able to announce today that I haven’t come here entirely empty handed, and in partnership with the Department of Health and supported by the Cabinet office we are providing £17.5 million for 10 pilot sites of multisytemic Therapy. I can also announce that the successful pilot sites are Kingston and Merton, Leeds, Barnsley, Hackney, Trafford, Plymouth, Reading, Sheffield, Peterborough and Greenwich. With the right support – and excellent parenting from everybody in contact with children – we can make sure that every child is healthy, happy, and has the chance to fulfil their true potential. We do have a moral responsibility to endeavour to do that, and I thank you again for the part you play. Thank you.