Michael Sieff Foundation (Speech: 19/11/07)

Kevin's speech at the Michael Sieff Foundation's 20th Anniversary

 

Thank you for inviting me here today. I am pleased not only to be speaking to you today, but to be able to join you to celebrate 20 years of the Michael Sieff Foundation’s charitable work.  It came about after the tragic death of Jasmine Beckford, who was killed by her stepfather whilst in care.  Since then, it has relentlessly campaigned and pressed for greater protection for our children. I wholeheartedly welcome that and thank you on behalf of children and young people.   I will start with a proposition on which I believe every person in this room today and every parent and grandparent up and down the country can agree: child safety is as important today as ever. Every child has the right to be safe – safe from abuse, safe from bullying as we begin anti-bullying week, safe in the home, safe from crime and safe from anti-social behaviour.  I hope that you will see our new department is intended to be a clear signal of the government’s commitment to improve the lives of children and young people.  Our basic goal is to help every child to achieve their full potential. Not just with a focus on schools and educational attainment, but also by ensuring that every child is safe, healthy, happy, and has an equal opportunity to prosper. It is, as our Secretary of State Ed Balls has put it, the ‘Every Child Matters department’. I am happy that that those commitments are reflected in the Government’s new Public Service Agreements which have recently been published– six out of thirty will be for my department to coordinate.  Of course, staying safe is also one of the five Every Child Matters outcomes – and it relates to all the other outcomes because it is a fundamental part of a child’s well-being. If a child is not bought up in a safe environment, they will not be happy, achieve or reach their full potential. That safe environment is what we are all working towards. We’re all in the same boat and moving in the same direction but we need to row to the same rhythm to get further.  We start from a strong base: - We have introduced more family-friendly policies to make caring for children easier, including improved maternity leave and pay, more paternity leave and the national childcare strategy; - There are fewer accidental injuries: the number of children injured in road accidents has halved since the mid-1990s, with fatality rates lower than in most other OECD countries; - And most children do not worry about abuse and feel safe from abuse where they live. But we still have a big job ahead of us: - Nearly 28,000 children were subject to Child Protection Plans in the most recent year on record  - Almost half of these children were victims of physical, sexual or emotional abuse; - Between a third and a half of young people say they have been bullied – with the figure higher still for disabled, gay, or black young people; and - The most vulnerable are greatly more at risk than others. Shockingly, children from the poorest of backgrounds are: - 13 times more likely to die from an accidental or unintentional injury;  - 37 times more likely to die from smoke, fire or flames;  - And the children in the 10% most deprived wards are 3 times more likely to be hit by a car than those in the 10% least deprived wards. We can all agree that these are unacceptable outcomes that we must try to do something about. That is why I described the task ahead of us as an essential job. And I specifically said us because we all have a responsibility to keep children safe – whether we’re politicians, parents, practitioners, part of a community or a child or young person ourselves. I am particularly pleased that – for the first time – we have a Public Service Agreement to improve children and young people’s safety. This will be a focus on making – and on measuring – real progress across Government on keeping children safe. Against that, we have been working to strengthen the arrangements for: -          preventing abuse;-          identifying concerns about children;-          for dealing with those that harm children and;-          helping those who have been abused.  The Children’s Act put a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children onto a range of bodies, including local authorities, the Connexions service, health bodies, the police, the probation service, youth offending teams, prisons and secure training centres. The guidance framework has been strengthened and Local Safeguarding Children Boards have been established in every local authority. We have reinforced the system that prevents unsuitable people from working with children and most recently created the Independent Safeguarding Authority, chaired by Sir Roger Singleton.  We have set up new processes for reviewing child deaths. And we published a cross-government Action Plan on sexual violence and abuse. Of course, what matters most is that every person in every community understands what their responsibilities are and plays their full part.. Keeping children safe is about wrapping our children up in cotton wool though. We must strike the right balance between keeping our children safe and giving them the opportunities to play freely for example, to have fun and to enjoy their childhood that are all fundamental to Every Child Matters.  They give them the confidence, independence and resilience that they need to do well in school and in life. They help them to stay fit and healthy – and certainly we need a lot more outdoor play and exercise to help us stop the alarming prospect of half our children becoming obese by 2050 from happening, as the recent Foresight report made clear.  And these activities improve their all-round wellbeing and happiness, making them feel a cherished part of the local community, rather than a nuisance. That’s why we don’t need a generation of battery farmed children – we need free range organic children and a better understanding of what are the real risks. Nearly two-thirds of parents are worried about letting their children play outside. Three-quarters think that children face greater risk from playing outside unsupervised than five years ago. As a result, more than one-third of children never play outside. There’s a difficult balance to be struck between being safe and allowing children to explore the world.  Look at the way the world has changed.  Today’s young people are growing up in an incredibly multimedia rich world. Just as we need to make sure we are making the most of these fantastic opportunities to educate and communicate with them, we also need to keep up to pace in protecting them from inappropriate or potentially harmful material.  Last month, we launched an independent review to look at the risks to children from exposure to potentially harmful or inappropriate material on the internet and in video games, led by the child psychologist, Dr Tanya Byron.  Parents I think are pretty clear that they welcome the benefits of technologies but they also want their children to be safe.  Many have said that they would welcome a sensible, informed perspective whether the online content and video games their children use are appropriate. They have therefore been invited to send in their views to the review. And as children and young people are at the heart of this review, Dr Byron has specifically asked children and young people to tell us what they think too.  She will be reporting back to us with her findings early next year.  There is no doubt though that such risks have to be and can be controlled. Statistically, children are actually physically safer than at any time in human history.  We’re alive to this need to strike a better balance between parental concern for their child’s safety and the child’s need for independence.  Indeed it’s at the heart of our recent Staying Safe consultation, which many of you will be aware of, which we’ll report on shortly. It is clear that the vast majority of parents and carers want to keep their children safe from harm.  Indeed many of them are acutely aware of many of the risks that there children face. One child told us they were safe “…cos my mam has done a first aid course and knows how to look after us.” But as one parent also said: “There is only so much you can do and say! [It] depends on peers and influences.” So children and young people also need to know how to keep themselves safe. Children have told us that: “If [we’re] aware of dangers then [we] can deal with them.”  “As long as you know what to do in a situation or to avoid something happening you should be quite safe.” Demand for services to keep children safe is high.  Between the beginning of March and the end of May this year, ChildLine counselled a total of 42,632 children. That’s an average of 463 calls each and every day. And that’s why we’re investing an extra £30million in ChildLine over the next four years to try and build on its success so far by allowing them to modernise the way their services are delivered and enable them to reach out to even more children and young people who turn to them for help. Empowering children and families, to make sure that their voices are heard, has been something I’ve repeatedly returned to. In September, the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State launched a national debate – Time to Talk – about how we can improve children’s services looking to the long term over the next ten years. We want to tap directly into the experience and expertise of children, young people, parents and the professionals who work with them to find out what they see as the big issues that need to be addressed. Those views will feed directly into the development of the Children’s Plan, which will define how we continue to improve children’s services and ensure that every child has the chance to fulfil their potential The Children’s Plan will be published next month but its publication is meant to be the beginning of our dialogue. And because safety underpins all our aims for children, we have also sought the views of young people, parents and professionals on the specific issues of safeguarding in our Staying Safe consultation.  We received over 1000 written responses from young people, as well as hearing from them at events across the country.   They told us that: -          They were generally positive about their safety, recognising the need to look out for each other; -          However, they wanted more places to go and socialise that were safe; and -          They wanted more interesting things that they could go and do in those places. Similarly, we heard from firefighters, doctors, policemen and women, nurses, social workers, teachers, councillors, youth workers and volunteers. They told us that: -          Universal services can prevent accidents and stop more serious problems developing; -          Working together is fundamental to the aims in every service in keeping children safe; and they also told us -          There are still barriers to doing so that need to be overcome We will be publishing a full response early next year.  In closing, I’d like to return to the proposition with which I started: child safety is no less important today than ever before. 

We have come a long way in the last 20 years, and I thank the Michael Sieff foundation for the part you have played. I look forward to continuing to work with you all in the future.

 

Thank you.