Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Benjamin and Lord Warner

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I support Amendments 10, 16, 34 and 87 and the separate issue that is Amendment 33. I am not going to rehearse all the arguments about why looked-after children and children taken into care are a very special case in relation to access to mental health services, but they are. The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, made the point about the inadequate assessment of the state of their mental health and the trauma they have suffered. It is pretty intolerable. Some of us who are veterans of the discussions on the Health and Social Care Act 2012 spent a very long time trying to persuade the Government to deal with parity of esteem between physical and mental health in that piece of legislation. Finally, the Government gave way and it is in there. It is part of the way the mandate has been changed for NHS England.

That is fine in terms of that piece of legislation but there needs to be some follow-through in this legislation as well. That is why Amendments 34 and 87 are so important because not only do they deliver parity of esteem in terms of physical and mental health, they lead to some practical ways of making that happen. We all know that access to CAMHS is extremely variable around the country. There is no equivalent access in different parts of the country. That is why we should start to really push the boat out on this issue in this legislation. I hope the Government will recognise the seriousness of the issue of proper mental health support in the Bill for these children who have very special needs. They have gone through particular sets of trauma in getting to the point where the state has had to intervene and bring them into the care system.

I wish Amendment 33 from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, had been on the statute book when I was a director of social services. I would like to have been put in the position of having to address that issue. I became the Children’s Commissioner in Birmingham in 2014-15. There is a deeply depressing familiarity for me when talking to children in private meetings about their experiences in care. They would readily tell you how many social workers they had had, not just in their time in care but in the last 12 months. There is massive turnover for a group of people who have already lost a lot of confidence in the adult world. These are young people who have often had very bad experiences at the hands of adults. They have often had a transition of adults through their lives with no consistency.

The noble and learned Lord has raised an important issue and I wish we had had more time as I would have added my name to his amendment. The Government should take this amendment very seriously. It will of course be difficult always to get that right in the present circumstances, but at least it should be clear in law that that is what the corporate parents should be trying to do as soon as the child comes into the care of the local authority.

[Baroness Benjamin]

My Lords, I visited my GP last week and she expressed her concerns about the number of care leavers coming to her surgery with mental health issues—anxiety, depression, self-harming, suicidal emotions and erratic behaviour. She said: “Floella, if only we could do something about this when the child is entering care. If only we could identify that they are suffering from mental problems it would save the NHS resources and save them suffering and long-term unhappiness.” That is what many Peers have said this evening, while charities such as the NSPCC have said it for a long time. I, like others, strongly believe that we need to adequately identify the issue and that children should receive assessment for their mental and emotional well-being by professionals with specialist training in the mental health of looked-after children. This is necessary because the children are suffering long-term. We spoke earlier about corporate parenting. I believe that the principles should include the responsibility to ensure that children are offered the support they need to recover from psychological harm caused prior to their entry to the care system. That should be paramount when we have to look after those children.

There must be provisions made to guarantee that the children in care will never be denied access to, or disadvantaged when trying to access, mental health services. They are finding that this is a problem. They must never be told that they cannot get professional help because they are not in a stable placement, or disadvantaged because they have moved out of an authority placement. We know that a high percentage of children in care end up in prison or are homeless, and that many suffer from mental problems while in prison. During my prison visits, I often speak to young people who say. “If only things had been different for me when I was a child”—a phrase repeated over and over again. Children who have been abused or neglected could face serious long-term mental problems throughout adulthood because of the lack of support, so it is essential that we are able to deal with difficulties early and offer the right support to children.

Children need that support but the NSPCC has found that there are not enough therapeutic services for those who have been abused or neglected. This has to stop. There is cause for concern because more and more children are reporting sexual abuse, which is occurring every hour of the day, and because we have almost 70,000 children living in care in England. This has to stop and we have to help these children. We must not let them down. That is why I am supporting and have put my name to Amendment 87.