I congratulate Mr. Timpson on his speech. I especially applaud him for his kind words about his predecessor, who was a perfectly splendid Member of Parliament and a role model for us all. I recognise his description of his constituency, having spent many an hour there recently and meeting many interesting people.
Perhaps
most important, it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Gentleman's
comments about the Bill. He has recognised its importance for
vulnerable people, whom we all represent, and the need for us to move
forward. Like him, I welcome the Bill. It makes a clear commitment to
encouraging aspirations among young people in care and reducing the gap
in outcomes that all speakers this evening have highlighted. That can
be done only if children and young people feel cared for.
The results of a peer project, which a recent edition of Community Care magazine
outlined, showed that the most important thing for young people was
feeling cared for. It was heartening that three quarters of those who
took part in the project felt cared for by their local authorities.
However, it was often because
"of a particular individual going beyond the call of duty in the support they gave".
That
could be a foster carer—many references have been made to their
important role—a residential care worker, personal assistant, leaving
care worker, social worker or a teacher. Words that are key to our
debate summed up the research:
"The
resilience many exhibited, despite often damaging pre-care experiences,
suggests that additional practical support and ongoing emotional and
psychological support could make a difference in helping them to
achieve their ambitions."
Over the years, I have
met many remarkably resilient young people. We should think about them
and consider the way in which we can give them the additional practical
and emotional support that they need, want and applaud when they get
it. That is why the Bill is so important.
The
pledge that local authorities set out to children in care must be more
than words. I will mention some aspects of the Bill that I welcome
before moving on to two key issues that I want to explore in more
detail. Some issues have already been mentioned.
I welcome the new duty on local authorities to provide short breaks. I worked closely with my right hon. Friend Mr. Clarke
on a series of parliamentary hearings that highlighted the pressures on
families with children with disabilities. A key matter that they called
for was short breaks—respite care. I also supported a private Member's
Bill, which Mr. Streeter
promoted. Everybody who was involved with the private Member's Bill and
the parliamentary hearings will applaud this Bill's provisions for
short breaks.
I also welcome the creation of
the role of the designated teacher; the introduction of the bursary of
£2,000 for care leavers going into higher education; the "staying put"
pilot; extending entitlement to the support of a personal adviser up to
the age of 25 for care leavers in education or wishing to return to
education; piloting the role of the virtual head; and the additional
funding for personalised learning for children in care, who are at risk
of not reaching the standards that they should attain.
Other
hon. Members have mentioned poor educational outcomes for children in
care, but no one has pointed out that children are often in care
because they were already outside the education system. Dysfunctional
families or personal problems meant that they were all too often
truants. By the time they enter the care system, they have already lost
much schooling and, just as important, the habit of going to school.
They are reluctant to go back because they know that they will be
behind their fellow pupils and they are embarrassed about that. Given
that we are considering educational outcomes for children in care, we
must recognise the background and examine the special measures that we
can introduce to keep them in school and bolster their confidence as
well as improving the education available to them.
I
want to talk about two areas in more detail: first, the voice of the
child; and secondly, social work practices, which have not been
mentioned in any great detail thus far. On the voice of the child, I
welcome the strengthening of the role of the independent reviewing
officer and the opportunity for more looked-after children to have
independent visitors. However, I again urge the Minister
to consider the role of independent advocacy—I know that I seem to say
that every time I meet him, but it is an important issue. As has been
mentioned, early-day motion 1126, on advocacy for looked-after
children, which I tabled, has the support of 144 hon. Members.
The purpose of independent advocacy is fundamentally different from that of the IRO or independent visitors. I do not want the Minister
to misunderstand my championing of independent advocacy. I recognise
what he and colleagues say about all professionals involved with the
child having a role in advocating on their behalf. Social workers are
trained as advocates on behalf of the people with whom they work, and
teachers, foster carers and all the other people involved will speak up
for that child. However, speaking up for the child is not the same as
sitting down with them, asking them what they want and then putting
their wishes into words. Sometimes those words will not be ones that
professionals want to hear. That is why the young person needs an
advocate.
Let us try to put ourselves in the
place of a 12, 13, 14 or 15-year-old going into a meeting with all
those professionals, who are experts in their field. Would we really
open our mouths and say things that we knew would annoy them or with
which they would disagree? Some young people might do that, but a lot
will not. That is why they need a voice to speak up for them—not
someone to say what is best for them, but to say what they want. The
young person might not get it, or it might be impractical;
nevertheless, their voice should be heard.
As
president of Blackpool Advocacy, I have seen for myself the vital work
that independent advocates do. The question of who pays for independent
advocacy was raised in an earlier intervention.
That is an important issue. An advocacy service tries to get money from
wherever it can to deliver the work that it does. The important point
is that the service's contract—whether it be with the health authority,
a local authority or whomsoever is paying for the services—makes it
clear that it is independent. The young person who goes to an
independent advocacy service will therefore be guaranteed independence
and someone speaking up for them and nobody else—indeed, the advocate
might argue with the person providing the funding.
As was mentioned earlier, in his report, "People Like Us",
Sir William Utting emphasised the importance of advocacy services,
which help to protect children in the care system. More than any other
group, disabled children need independent advocacy, especially if they
are placed away from home. Many children with a disability have
communication problems. It is often frustrating for them to try to
explain what their feelings are. The social care staff or other
professionals who deal with them are all under pressure, and will often
make assumptions about what that young person wants, instead of trying
to develop the communication skills to understand what that young
person is trying to say. Having an independent advocate working on
behalf of young people with disabilities, and especially those with
communication problems, is vital.
The Bill is
very good, but it could be made even better, if the 13,000-plus
disabled children and young people placed away from home in England
could have a statutory right at least to be offered the opportunity of
advocacy services. Not everybody will want or need them, but they
should be entitled to the opportunity to ask for them. I therefore hope
that the Minister will consider strengthening the guidance on that matter.
I
know that there is already a lot of guidance on making advocacy
services available, but I also know, from research that the Children's
Society has conducted, that not many advocacy services have the skills
to deliver to children with disability. Therefore, although I am
arguing the case for independent advocacy and saying that the
Government should do more to strengthen guidance on the matter, I am
also arguing that advocacy service providers need to build up their
services, so that they, too, can properly respond if, as I hope, we
expand young people's entitlement to advocacy services. My final point
on the matter is that the Children's Commissioner for England said in response to the "Care Matters" Green Paper:
"Advocacy
offers crucial protection where children face particularly complex
circumstances, are in contact with...different services, or have
communication difficulties."
Again, I urge the Government to consider the issue carefully.
Hearing
the voice of the child is especially important for children with
disability who are placed away from home on 52-week-a-year residential
placements. We in Blackpool are fortunate, in that a Lancashire child
can usually be placed fairly near home, because Lancashire is such a
large county. However, I know of many other young people who are placed
far away from home, because there are no local services. My fear is
that some of those children who are placed away from home will not
receive visitors, will perhaps lose touch with their families, will not
have someone who can speak up for them and might feel that their voices
are not being heard.
Those young people not only need advocacy services, but should at least be considered for looked-after status, as the Every Disabled Child Matters
campaign and other campaigners have argued strongly. Many of them will
already have looked-after status, but there are some 338 disabled
children on long-term placements away from home who are not
looked-after children. Some of those children might not need
looked-after status. I am not urging the Minister
to ensure that every child affected should have looked-after status,
because that might not be appropriate. However, local authorities,
which currently have a duty when placing a child away from home to
consider looked-after status should do so within strengthened guidance
from the Government.
I fear that there is a
good deal of confusion about what looked-after status means. It does
not necessarily mean a child being in care. A child can be looked-after
under section 20 of the Children Act
1989, which means that the parent still has parental responsibility but
is working in partnership with the local authority. That would be the
ideal outcome for many young people. We have heard in many
contributions this evening about the importance of maintaining a child
in the family or, if they have to be taken out of the family for
whatever reason, of maintaining the link with the family. If a disabled
child is looked-after under section 20 of the 1989 Act, those links can
be maintained. The child can still have that family link, but receive
all the benefits that looked-after status brings.
Annette Brooke
listed some of those benefits, which include the entitlement to a
social worker, three-monthly visits from the social worker, a care plan
and contact plan, health assessments and a health plan. However, there
is another key aspect, in that if the child has looked-after status for
14 weeks prior to their 18th birthday, the council has further duties
of care at least until that child is 21. For a child with disability,
that can be even more important than for other children in care in the
looked-after system.
For all those reasons, I hope that the Minister will consider strengthening the guidance. There was some debate in the other place
about every child being looked after, but I am not saying that; I am
putting the needs of the child first, and doing this for every child
would not necessarily be in the best interests of some children—it
should be considered at the very least, however. I note that a report
from the four UK children's commissioners to the United Nations committee on the rights of the child, stated:
"We
are concerned that disabled children in 52-week residential placements
do not have the same statutory rights and protection afforded to
children in the care system. These children should be granted looked
after status to ensure they are provided with legal safeguards
including more rigorous care planning provision and review."
I agree with those four commissioners.
I
shall move on to make some brief comments on the proposals to establish
social work practices. Social work practices could offer new
opportunities to support young people and provide new opportunities for
social workers to practise more creatively in supporting them. I am
sure that local authorities would like to see clearer guidance from the
Government on their role with regard to social work practices and on
how their development might impact on the services that local
authorities directly provide.
As the chair of
the all-party group on social care, I know that we have recently
completed an inquiry into the challenges facing the social care work
force. Our key findings concerned status, recruitment and involvement.
If these social care practices can improve the status, recruitment and
involvement of social workers, they will be welcome. I know that the British Association of Social Workers
has welcomed these proposals—well, it has certainly welcomed the
setting up of pilots. Let us make sure that the pilots are practical,
that they are spread around different parts of the country and that
lessons are learned from them. If the pilots are successful, let us
roll them out.
I note that some voluntary
sector organisations say that they may rethink whether to bid to be
involved in the pilots, mainly because of the possibility of proposals
to pay them according to performance outcomes. I am sure that the Minister
will liaise with those voluntary sector organisations on the
development of an outcomes framework, which could be linked to payments
in such a way as to reassure such organisations about their involvement
in social work practices. It could be a win-win situation.
I
finish by saying that I welcome the Bill, which includes wide-ranging
measures that will improve the life chances of the very vulnerable
young people for whom we, local authorities and parents have a
responsibility. We should all work together to ensure that those
responsibilities are fulfilled so that we and those young people can
move on.
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