Tim Loughton report on children in care

22nd Feb 2007 | in Social Care

I have added the report by Tim loughton about children in care and I did take note that another Conservative MP may of had his wires crossed because there are discrepencies on figures regarding mental health in children in care. Child abusers in our law system get pathetic sentences and protection and the children they abuse GET LIFE. There is no justice in that. Vote to get the statute limitations act now http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/statutebarred. Please continue and read the report/

My thoughts

I have no problem with the Conservative Party and they do havea fewgood ideasworth supporting however they were the system that abused me as a childwhich makes it hard for me to trust them as many survivors probably feel the same. Trust needs to be earnt especially when a child has been severely let down. To acknowledge past mistakes and learn from them is a way forward but unfortunatly those who made past mistakes do not want to acknowledge those mistakes (with the exception of the Church of England). For all the serious mistakes that were made in my childhood I haven’t had so much as an appology from Wandsworth, any of the abusers nor the government. They have in fact done everything they can, not to acknowledge whats happened.

For any potential political party to get my vote, they would need to give me a reason to vote for them and so far I can’t find one good enough because not one of them will aknowledge historic child abuse. I dont care what the government do because all i know is none of it helps survivors and doesnt do enough for children in care so whats the point in voting? none of them are doing enough to ensure that serious criminals get sentences to fit the crime either. Prison for child abusers should not be about having a life of luxery within a confined area. I will state again, how the hell did serious criminals manage to get £55.000 each for going a short time over the agreed sentence and yet survivors of severe child abuse with proof can’t even get into a court of civil law? Serious criminals should not be allowed any rights to sue for anything because doing the crime means they should be penalised for the crime and not use our legal system and tax payers money to foot the bill of their legal action. They took away peoples rights when they commited crimes so why should they have any rights?

Child abusers in our law system get pathetic sentences and protection and the children they abuse GET LIFE. There is no justice in that.

The Report

How can changes to the social services system improve the lives of looked after children’? There is universal agreement that across a wide range of measures, the outcomes for children in the care system are scandalous. More than half of these children will fail to achieve a single qualification at school and they are 10 times more likely than their peers to be permanently excluded. Over a quarter of adults in prisons were brought up in the care system, whilst up to a half of child prisoners have been looked after. They are five times more likely to have a diagnosable mental illness whilst girls in care are almost three times more likely to become teenage mothers. Most depressing is the generational vicious cycle, where the children of those who were themselves children in care’ are often condemned to the same shortcomings. In short, the State makes for a lousy parent. In October 2006, the Government produced their white paper Care Matters Transforming the Lives of Children and Young People in Care.’ Many of the ideas it contains are not new and certainly not rocket science’.

Under their Every Child Matters’ agenda, in recent years the Government has dedicated a lot of time, resources and legislation to overhauling childrens’ services and local authority structures responsible for children. Yet will the creation of bodies such as the Childrens’ Commissioners, Childrens’ Services Departments and Local Safeguarding Children Boards improve the lot of children in care, particularly given the continued shortage of skilled child social workers?

A fundamental question is are social workers doing the right job?’ Surely they should have a more preventative role, working early with vulnerable families to keep the families together and keep children out of care in the first place. In spite of this, most of their time is spent reacting to crisis family breakdowns rather than helping to prevent them in the first place. They have even been accused of excessive intervention motivated by perverse incentives to take more young children into care to boost the Government’s adoption figures. Too often child social workers are seen as part of the problem rather than the solution.

Clearly, the role, image and status of child social workers in other countries are very different. In Scandinavia, highly trained pedagogues’ work with children in care to achieve dramatically better results and consequently are valued by society on a par with doctors and teachers. They very much take on the role of the pushy parent’ acting as champion for their charges when dealing with teachers, health care providers and with the local authority, whilst equally importantly providing rewards for success at home which children with their birth parents take for granted.

So why have we not achieved the same here? Raising the profile of social workers would surely help address the recruitment and retention problems that result in widespread vacancies and turnover in staff in an area of work where continuity and sensitivity of care is essential. In order to combat this, the Conservative Party has set up a high level Commission on the role and status of social workers which will be reporting to our policy groups in the summer of 2007. More information is available on this website.

There are many practical issues which need to be addressed:

How can the promotion of more, high quality foster placements providing greater stability for children who have been through damaging family breakdowns or abuse be achieved? · Surely we should adopt a maximum move strategy, limiting the number of placements a child has particularly when this means constant changes of school, thus undermining the chances of getting a decent education?

Should social workers be encouraged to place children in care as close to their home as possible, allowing them to take advantage of some degree of continuity of friends and extended family members unless it would compromise their safety?

And as the White Paper identifies, when the average age for young adults leaving home is now 23 and rising, why are we casting many of the most vulnerable children adrift from the care system at the age of 16 at a time when they need most support and stability dealing with exams, a first job or scarce housing?

There are many other practical measures that can be taken. But ultimately it requires a skilled, motivated and properly motivated social workforce, and a Government prepared to make children in
care a serious priority having accepted mediocrity and failure for these vulnerable young citizens for too long.

Search no2abuse

Browse by category

RSS feeds

Tim Loughton report on children in care

The Report

Comments

Add a comment