Prison: Support for Dependent Children

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Obviously, part of the pre-sentence report focuses on whether there are dependent children in the family, as the noble Lord knows very well. In all too many cases, when women end up in prison their children are already known to children’s services. That also presents an opportunity for earlier intervention and continuity of support and care. This also ties in with our strategy around kinship care and the support that a woman offender’s wider family can offer to her children.

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, some women in prison are there on remand, and a high percentage of them do not go on to receive custodial sentences. Can we ensure that, wherever possible, if these women on remand have children they are looked after by other family members and that, if the children are taken into care, they are returned immediately if their mother does not receive a prison sentence?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We are working very hard at every stage of the process, at the point of bail decisions versus remand and at every stage beyond, to make sure that the rights and interests of the child are held paramount. Obviously, the ability to reunite a child with her mother will need to be decided on the basis of a number of issues, most importantly her capacity to safeguard her child as well as practical issues such as accommodation.

Armed Forces: Capability

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, for introducing so ably this important debate today. I speak with some trepidation as, like the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, I do not have the level of experience in defence of many others who are taking part in this debate.

I begin by paying tribute to the many outstandingly brave men and women who serve in our Armed Forces. Through visits with the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme, I have had the privilege of seeing the extraordinary level of service they provide for our country.

It is important to acknowledge the commitment that this Government have made to spend 2% of GDP annually on defence—one of only five NATO countries to do so last year. The significant new investment in defence equipment is also to be welcomed, as is the pledge not to reduce the overall size of the regular Armed Forces. However, I also understand that there is some concern over what exactly should be included in defence spending and whether there are enough resources for the spending commitments that have been made, and I worry whether any shortfall will lead to further cuts.

We live in a dangerous and unstable world today with conflict in many countries, as we have already heard from other noble Lords. A consequence of this turmoil has been the refugee crisis; the UN estimates that there are approximately 65 million refugees across the world today, more than at any time since World War II, with thousands trying to come to Europe. It is hard to know exactly how wars will be fought in the years to come. As we have already heard, Russia again seems to be a threatening presence, and several hundred of our troops will join the NATO exercise in Estonia—our largest long-term deployment to a Russian neighbour since the end of the Cold War—to ensure our preparedness for a conventional war. Meanwhile, terrorism and cyberwarfare are two of the biggest threats we now face.

The year 2015 saw the formation of the 77th Brigade, as the MOD realised that,

“the actions of others in a modern battlefield can be affected in ways that are not necessarily violent”.

When one looks at how effectively Daesh has utilised social media, the importance of this specialist work cannot be overestimated. Our forces need to have all the tools to counter complex threats. Perhaps now more than ever, our Armed Forces must ensure a good understanding of other cultures. They are already deployed in more than 40 countries across the world in a range of roles, including building relationships and detecting early vibrations in order to help prevent conflict. Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have taught us lessons about the dangers of failing to understand how our interventions will impact on a country.

It is the people in the Armed Forces who are so important. Thus it is imperative that we recruit and retain the right people. That can be challenging. The previous cuts to the Armed Forces created insecurity, and in today’s competitive world, industry can pay much higher salaries for those with technology skills and the engineers that we so crucially need. Are we able to recruit the people we need? Should more be done to attract reservists and support their employers? Most importantly, we need to keep the best. We must ensure that we look after those who serve, and their families, well. We rightly have a duty of care towards them.

I and other noble Lords debated the Armed Forces covenant in your Lordships’ House earlier this week. Perhaps we should do more to recognise the strain that military life places on families. It is with the support of their families that our military are able to do their jobs, and we in turn need to do all we can to support them and make their lives easier. Tomorrow’s future warfare is hard to predict in such a fast-changing and interconnected world. We must ensure that defences are in place to protect the UK, through adequate resources, a flexible approach to warfare and personal support for those who serve and their families.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness King of Bow (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 90A, which would place a duty on local authorities and specialist NHS children and young people’s mental health services in England to provide long-term support for adopted children. I thank Adoption UK and the other adoption agencies for the work they have done on this issue. We believe that it is imperative that the Government change the law to give all adoptive families the right to appropriate adoption support when they need it. I have been calling for this for many years, as have all those colleagues who sat on the Lords Select Committee on Adoption Legislation, chaired by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, whom we heard from earlier.

Our 2013 report stated:

“We are concerned that the provision of post-adoption support is often variable and sometimes inadequate. We believe such support is essential to ensuring the stability of adoptive placements, and to increasing the number of adopters coming forward. We therefore recommend a statutory duty on local authorities and other service commissioning bodies to cooperate to ensure the provision of post-adoption support”.

That, essentially, is what the amendment would do in the areas outlined.

This is a very important issue. Most adopted children have experienced abuse or neglect in their early lives, and they require ongoing support. I usually welcome programmes such as the adoption support fund, which the Minister mentioned earlier, but as we know, it is currently dependent on short-term funding arrangements. Given the extreme difficulties adoptive families can face, they need to be given a right to access programmes such as the adoption support fund.

Further supporting evidence from the research report Beyond the Adoption Order: Challenges, Interventions and Adoption Disruption of April 2014 highlights startling findings. We should bear in mind that this was a government-backed report. It found, for example, that the majority of adoptive parents were,

“dissatisfied with the overall response from support agencies”.

It also stated:

“About a quarter of parents described major challenges with children who had multiple and overlapping difficulties”.

Some of the children’s behaviour, such as aggression,

“self-harm, night terrors, soiling, manipulation and control”,

was literally ruining their lives. The report continued:

“Many were struggling to get the right support in place. Parents reported that they were physically and mentally exhausted”.

In some cases, a lack of support led to a breakdown in adoption. The report also stated:

“Respite care was often used as a last ditch attempt to keep the family together”,

and was almost never used “proactively”. I cite one other finding from the research report which is possibly its most shocking—namely, that adoptive parents were forced to use the police “as a support agency”.

I strongly urge the Government to accept the spirit behind Amendment 90A, which places a duty on local authorities and specialist services. We all know that children adopted from care are the most vulnerable in Britain. The neglect and abuse they experience, even in the womb or after birth, does not disappear just because they are adopted. We clearly must do better for these children.

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 90 tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Pinnock. In many cases it must be truly terrifying for a child who feels that their future is out of control. It surely is absolutely imperative that they be listened to and given the feeling that their wishes will be respected. Disregarding them will only add to their trauma and the feeling of insecurity they are going through. Surely, any solutions are likely to be less successful if they do not have buy-in from the child.

[Lord Warner (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 89 and 90. I say to the Minister that in any legislation you cannot sprinkle too many references to taking account of children’s wishes and feelings. I encourage the Minister to be even more liberal than the measure proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. I very much support the amendment spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. I say that having been on the Select Committee on Adoption Legislation, which was so ably chaired by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. We heard a number of pieces of evidence in which concern was expressed about whether the balance between adoption and fostering was getting out of kilter. I have certainly been in the company of social workers—I will not say where or when, but reasonably recently—who have talked about the adoption “hawks” taking over the Department for Education. The prospects of older children who are fostered being adopted are extremely limited. Therefore, we should give stronger encouragement to long-term fostering arrangements and indicate in the Bill an equivalence between adoption and long-term fostering that is currently lacking. Sometimes we get carried away with what can be achieved with adoption, which I support. However, it is not right for everybody and where children have established a good fostering relationship with foster parents, we need to encourage that and not make foster parents feel like second-class citizens.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord O'Shaughnessy (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 17 and 21. In doing so, I draw attention to my various educational interests as set out in the register. I thank the officials who were generous with their time between Second Reading and now in helping to answer a number of points for me.

I support the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, on her Amendments 10 and 16, which deal with mental health and social and emotional well-being. Those seem essential in the essence of what we are trying to do here. I support wholeheartedly the corporate parenting principles. Earlier today my noble friend the Minister described them during Oral Questions as bringing together what it means to be a corporate parent for the first time. Clearly, we want to make changes and improvements to them but it surely must be the right ambition to build on the Children Act 1989. I am conscious that the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, and I are the only two people speaking in the Committee who were affected as children by that Act. For me, it had the happy consequence that I went from a primary school that had corporal punishment to a secondary school that did not. I am deeply indebted to my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay for that.

The purpose of my first amendment takes up what the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, was saying about the driving forces behind this group: prevention and having ambition for children. Amendment 17 is really about ambition and would insert “educational” before “outcomes” into the fifth of the corporate parenting principles. I gave the reasons for doing so at Second Reading because it seems odd to me that while health is rightly mentioned in the first of the principles, education is not mentioned explicitly in any of them. Yet the life chances agenda which is commendably at the heart of the Government’s legislative programme shows that there is no better way to improve a child’s long-term life chances than to give them a great education.

We know that for many looked-after children, the education they receive is sadly not yet good enough. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, has already referenced the gap in performance at key stage 2. At the end of primary school just 52% of such children reach level 4 in their English and maths SATs, which is the expected standard, as compared with 80% of other children, and indeed boys do even worse than that. Previously looked-after children do not do much better, so we really have a problem here. That is not to say that lots of bodies are not engaged in trying to solve it, but the reason for the amendment is to ensure that there is absolutely no doubt whatever that all the agencies and institutions involved in the lives and improving the life chances of these children should be focused on dramatically raising those unacceptably low standards. That is why I believe that “educational” should be included.

To complement the insertion of the word in the principle, I continue to urge the DfE to commission the two relevant What Works centres, the Education Endowment Foundation and the Early Intervention Foundation, as well as Ofsted to commission reviews of interventions that are particularly effective in raising the educational standards of these vulnerable pupils. If we are to achieve our ambitious goals for them, it is only right that we equip teachers and schools with the tools to do so.

The aim of Amendment 21 is to bring to the fore my own and indeed the department’s belief in the power of developing “character, grit and resilience”, to use the department’s words, in order to help young people to live happy, successful and independent lives. This clearly complements Amendments 10 and 16. One of the great benefits of character education—and I speak as someone who has set up two schools which have this philosophy at their heart—is that its effect is greatest on those who start from the lowest point. The Nobel Prize-winning academic James Heckman found that character strengths, which are sometimes called non-cognitive skills, are malleable. The leopard can change its spots, and this is especially true of younger children. Developing in these children from an early age character strengths such as self-control, gratitude, compassion and so on has a positive impact on life chances that continue to have effects as they grow up.

The benefits of having these strengths are clear. For example, a 2011 study from New Zealand found that children with strong character skills are less likely to be involved in crime, while equally children with weaker self-control have poorer outcomes. However, we know that this can be changed with judicious intervention. A working paper from Harvard University has shown that children affected by violence can be taught courage and self-control to help turn off toxic stress. What a powerful intervention that could be for some of the children under discussion today—not only children who are in care but also refugees, trafficked children and others. Many other studies show similar benefits. In his book How Children Succeed, Paul Tough talks about the KIPP charter schools in the US which have been incredibly effective at getting young people into college by developing their character strengths so that they can escape poverty. I visited one of those schools in the South Bronx area in New York, which had a graduation rate from high school into college of 8%. But that school had a rate of more than 80%, which is a really extraordinary improvement in life chances.

I think that all in this Room agree that the Government are serious about improving the life chances of vulnerable people and about putting character development at the heart of their educational approach. Amendment 21 seeks to connect the dots between these two ambitions, which in my view would undoubtedly have a positive effect on the future success and happiness of looked-after and previously looked-after children.

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

I shall speak to Amendments 23 and 25, and I support the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey.

The noble Earl has raised the issue of siblings. For children separated from their parents, siblings may form their next-closest relationships and therefore, wherever possible, we must also seek to avoid the separation of siblings. This can have devastating effects on those who have already undergone the suffering of being removed from their homes and filtered through the social care system. Many describe knowing they have a sibling that they are separated from as having a piece of themselves missing.

Your Family, Your Voice, which briefed me, states that currently 50% of sibling groups in care are split up. I find that an astonishing statistic. We sometimes read stories in the papers about siblings who were adopted and find their brother or sister later in life. Do we really think it is acceptable to be creating situations like that in this day and age? I accept that from time to time there may be a case for splitting up siblings, where one is very disruptive or has a detrimental effect on other siblings. However, the normal situation should be that priority is given to keeping siblings together—and, if it is considered desirable to split them up, the local authority needs to explain the reason why it is doing so.

It is important that we listen to what children want, and facilitate it. With regard to Amendment 25, where it is clearly unsuitable for a child to remain with their parents, relatives or close friends may be able to step in to prevent them having to be taken into care. For a child, being taken away from their home, whatever their circumstances, must be highly traumatic. However, where they are going to live with a friend or relative who is already known to them, this will lessen the strain and upset, and in many cases will mean that the child is raised within their family.

There are an estimated 200,000 children being raised by kinship carers, 95% of whom are not classified as looked after. The briefing that I received from the Kinship Care Alliance, which I understand is serviced by the charity Family Rights Group, stated that,

“children in kinship care are doing significantly better than children in unrelated care, despite having suffered similar early adverse experiences—in particular they feel more secure and have fewer emotional and behavioural problems and are doing better academically”.

So this approach also has the economic benefit of savings for the state if the child is not taken into care, although I understand that at present kinship carers are not being given any financial help. This aspect needs to be looked at. Having an extra child or children in the house may create financial hardship in terms of both needing bigger accommodation and having more mouths to feed. I understand that a large percentage of kinship carers have to give up work to take on the extra children. It would therefore be helpful to give them some support. I understand that local authorities often seek close relatives and friends to look after the child, but I would like to see in the Bill that this has to be done and considered, because it seems to be a much preferable outcome for the child.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I am afraid that my Amendment 24 in this group would add further corporate parenting principles to Clause 1. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson of Abinger, I want to add the principle that siblings should be kept together as far as possible. If they cannot be fostered or even adopted together, at least they should be located as close as possible to each other and arrangements made for them to have contact if they want it. That last point, made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, is absolutely right: we have to take account of what the child wants in relation to his or her siblings.

Many children who suffer the trauma of the break-up of their family and being taken into care rely very much for their emotional well-being on the support of their siblings. I know that most local authorities do their very best to ensure that they can be together as much as possible, but it is not easy to find foster parents who will take more than one child, or a group of two or three. If we are laying down corporate parenting principles, it is vital that sibling issues are in there. Emotional well-being is important for educational attainment and success in life, and we let children down if we ignore it. Although it is mentioned in Clause 1(1)(a) of the Bill, we need to be more specific about how that well-being should be achieved on a matter as important as siblings.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, it is an honour to follow that excellent contribution from the right reverend Prelate. I too welcome the Bill, as it seeks to improve services.

We all recognise that looked-after children have had a very difficult start in life and therefore need the best possible support and care. I recognise that there are many noble Lords who have much more experience in this area than I do, but as a parent I have enormous concern for those children who, through no fault of their own, have needed to be taken into care; I understand there are around 70,000 in the UK at present.

I pay enormous tribute to the foster carers who take in these children, who are often traumatised and therefore difficult, and try to give them help and stability. In spite of their best efforts, however, we have to acknowledge that outcomes for looked-after children are concerning. We have already heard a few of these, but educationally only 14% of such children achieve five or more GCSE grades at A* to C, compared with 53% of non-looked-after children, and only 6% go on to attend university, compared with 38% of the population as a whole. According to the Who Cares Trust, looked-after children are more likely to have problems with crime, drugs and mental health than their peers, while 23% of the adult prison population have been in care, and 40% of prisoners under 21.

I ask the question that my noble friend Lord Farmer and others have alluded to: is there more that we could do to help and support families that would avoid some of these children having to be taken into care? Does every parent know where they can go to get help with parenting? Some children—especially those with ADHD or other conditions—can be very challenging. To have access to a confidential, non-judgmental source of help could save a lot of anguish and expense further down the line. I have deep respect for social workers and the difficult job they do. However, because they are in some cases able to advise that children should be removed from their homes, does this not lead to a reluctance for parents to engage with them?

While a good health visitor is such a valuable asset in the early years, what is the coverage of children’s centres across the country now, and what is there for a parent with a difficult child over five years old? Can more be done to help parents where the family runs into difficulties, to give them the support, parent training and mentoring necessary so that fewer children need to be taken away into care?

For those children who are taken into care, what matters most is the quality of the care that they receive and what solution is right for each case, based on their own individual needs and circumstances. I therefore welcome the fact that the Bill encourages children and young people to express their views and that these views will need to be taken into account.

Where there are relatives who can step in and give the child a home, I hope that adoption will continue to be given priority. While the Government have done good work on improving the adoption sector, there is concern that adoption is seen as the “gold standard” above other options. Although it may be the best outcome for some of the children who end up in care, it is only one of a range of options which should be considered in the best interests of the child and what they want.

I understand that as many as one in five adoptions breaks down, so it is encouraging that the Bill places a focus on post-care support. However, for how long is this support in place? Anecdotally, I have heard of many adoptive families which run into difficulties when the children reach the teenage years. While adoptions of younger children are more likely to be successful, the longer children have been in care, the more difficult it is to find them a permanent home. Given that over a third of looked-after children are now aged between 10 and 15 years old, it is important that stability and consistency must be considered for these teenagers, and for them adoption may not be the answer.

Wherever possible, as has already been mentioned, the separation of siblings should be avoided, because for those who have already undergone the suffering of being separated from parents, to be separated from their siblings can be devastating. Sometimes leaving siblings together in state care may be preferable to splitting them up, as being together with a sibling can enhance a child’s sense of safety and well-being and provide natural, mutual support. Many describe knowing that they have a sibling they are separated from as feeling like a piece of themselves is missing, so if such separation is unavoidable, every effort should be made so that siblings can stay in touch.

Is the Minister certain that we have the right models of care for looked-after children? I remember some years ago visiting a home in Denmark for looked-after children. It was a house in a leafy suburb of Copenhagen and was run by rotas of highly trained youth workers. I gathered that the model in Denmark was not to adopt but to keep the children in contact with their birth families—with lots of support from those looking after them. Have we considered and evaluated other models like this?

Mental health has already been mentioned by several noble Lords. The NSPCC states that children in care are four times more likely to experience mental health difficulties than their peers. Indeed, children who have been through the system are five times more likely to take their own life. A study by the Centre for Child and Family Research at Loughborough University has even suggested that around half of all looked-after children in the UK have a diagnosable disorder, so surely it is crucial that mental health and well-being should be prioritised within the care system.

I congratulate the Government on their reform in 2013, introducing a legal right to funding for foster children to stay with their families until the age of 21, should they wish. However, we are still neglecting those in children’s residential homes, who have to leave when they turn 18. Giving local authorities greater flexibility and requiring greater transparency of their local offers for care leavers will, I hope, serve to improve services. It is excellent that provision for personal advisers is being extended to care leavers not in education. Often, as has already been mentioned, NEETs badly need a mentor to help them get their life on course. In 2014, a staggering 41% of 19 year-old care leavers were not in education, employment or training, compared with only 15% of all 19 year-olds. Even more disturbingly, this was the highest proportion for over a decade.

I welcome the fact that the Bill seeks to improve services for looked-after children, but I wonder whether we could do more to offer help and support to ensure that no child gets left behind.