Education and Adoption Bill
Debate between Earl of Listowel and Baroness Benjamin(9 years ago)
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The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I hope it may be helpful to the Minister if I fill in a large omission that I made in my opening statement; I apologise to the Committee for not having alluded to this. One important issue is the cuts to local authorities over the last several years. One understands why those cuts have had to be made, but it is a particular dimension of child and adolescent mental health services that half the funding comes from health and half from local authorities—the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, might correct me if I am wrong. However, for some reason the cuts to local authorities have particularly impacted services under CAMHS, so there is very little CAMHS around. Therefore to target the CAMHS resource at the most needy children might be an improvement with regard to using a scarce commodity in the most effective way. However, in any case, because of the scarcity of resource and because of our particular responsibility for these children in the care of the state, we should take more steps to ensure that they get the appropriate specialist mental health service that they need.
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
I will quickly say why I support Amendments 32A and 34. I am very sorry for not having been here earlier, but I am on the Select Committee on Communications; we are looking at the BBC charter renewal and were just questioning John Whittingdale, the Secretary of State.
I am here because we must ensure support for all options for looked-after children that are considered, whether they remain in care, leave care independently or live with a special guardian. I support Amendments 32A and 34A because they will create provision in this Bill to improve the timeliness and quality of mental health assessment and support for all looked-after children. Looked-after children have significant needs, and improvements are needed to ensure that their emotional well-being is better promoted.
We have an increased focus on children and young people’s mental health, but we must not forget children in care, who are sometimes the most vulnerable children. One young person told the NSPCC recently that the trauma associated with the abuse that she experienced was not picked up on her early entry into care. She felt that she did not receive help until she reached crisis point. She said:
“We shouldn’t have to do crazy things before people notice we need support and do something”.
That is why I put my name to the amendment. I see that it is not on the list, but I did put my name to it because I feel very strongly that it should be given as much consideration as possible. It creates such provision in the Bill that will make sure that children’s mental health is assessed automatically and supported much earlier in the adoption system.
Another young adult, Liza—not her real name—told the NSPCC that before turning 16 she had around 15 placements and between 20 and 25 placement moves. This caused her so much stress and trauma because she had to travel around from place to place, which was extremely tiring, both physically and mentally. Reflecting on this experience, Liza made it clear to the NSPCC that she would have benefited from easier access to therapeutic services which would not have required her to travel long distances. Liza’s experience is not untypical of that of many children in care who struggle to find the right therapeutic support. Amendment 34A, which I support, would require the Secretary of State to oversee an increase in the quality and quantity of therapeutic support services and would create provision in the Bill to stop more children having the terrible experience that Liza outlined.
Almost two-thirds of looked-after children have experienced some sort of abuse or severe neglect, and 45% of children in care have a mental health disorder compared with just 10% of the general child population. We know that looked-after children are four to five times more likely to attempt suicide, less likely to attain good results at school and more likely to end up homeless. However, the mental health needs of children in care often go unassessed and unidentified and there is a substantial lack of mental health support for these children.
Current guidance from the Department of Health and the Department for Education on mental health assessments for looked-after children does not go far enough. The BBC—I have the BBC on my mind; I am sorry. The NSPCC believes that the important aspect of quality support in Amendment 34A relies on quality assessment as outlined in Amendment 32A, so the two go together. Looked-after children’s initial health assessments rarely include the involvement of mental health professionals, thereby reducing the chances of identifying their mental health needs. Furthermore, there should be direct contact with the child and their carer to fully explore the child’s emotional and mental health needs. We have to make sure that children know that they are being considered, no matter where they are from.
I welcome the Education and Adoption Bill but urge the Government to include specific measures around mental health in particular: all children entering care should receive an automatic mental health assessment in addition to the physical assessment that they currently receive; children in care should then immediately receive the subsequent necessary support to help them deal with issues of mental health identified in the assessment; and there should be regular monitoring of children’s mental health while in care to inform the support the child receives and ensure that it contributes to their improved well-being.
The NSPCC recently released figures which show that more than a fifth of all children referred to local specialist NHS mental health services, including children with problems stemming from abuse, are rejected for treatment. This cannot go on. Children who have been abused or neglected could face serious long-term mental health problems because of the lack of support. The NSPCC recently stated that this is a serious “time bomb” because it is getting worse, not better. So I hope that the Government will take on board the things that I have said and support this amendment. This is something that we need to address in the best way possible. I hope that the Government will consider the amendments in the constructive spirit in which they are intended as the Bill moves through Parliament.
Children and Families Bill
Debate between Earl of Listowel and Baroness Benjamin(11 years, 1 month ago)
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The Earl of Listowel
I re-emphasise the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that there needs to be training for people working with these vulnerable young people. I am very taken with the notion that there should be volunteer advocates working with them but as a volunteer myself, who has had experience of both very poor support and supervision and very good support and supervision, I suggest that the regulations should be very clear about what sort of supervision, training and support these advocates should receive. That is only fair to volunteers and it will make them much more effective as advocates and supporters of these young people. There is a great dearth of resource in children’s services at the moment and the danger is, if regulations are not clear about what the minimum requirements are, there may be a drive to produce the lowest-cost and lowest-quality advocates for these young people. I had only that comment to make. I very much support the amendment.
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, I, too, support this amendment. Anything we can do to make young people feel worthy is important. Many of these young people are suffering, through no fault of their own, and I wholly support any attempt to make them understand that there are people who care about their well-being, that there is a place to go and that there is some sort of support for them. I hope the Minister will consider these amendments very carefully.
Children and Families Bill
Debate between Earl of Listowel and Baroness Benjamin(11 years, 1 month ago)
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The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I omitted to comment on the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott. I support her welcome amendments. Of course, children in residential care are among the most vulnerable. Unfortunately, the way it works is that there tends to be a placement in foster care and, if that does not work out, then it is in residential care several broken placements down the line. So the ones with the most complex needs are often in residential care and they need the most support.
I welcome what the noble Baroness has said. There is an issue about price and other issues around it. One solution offered by Jonathan Stanley, a former chief executive of the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care, is to pair up young people in residential care with foster carers so that—one can do a staying-put—one can ensure that there is a seamless move from a residential setting to a foster setting for at least some of these young people to the age of 21.
Norfolk is a very good exemplar of break-home practice. There they have supported housing right by the children’s home so that there is little movement for the children and they can feel in touch with the staff in their old setting. The noble Baroness has made some extremely important points and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply to her concerns.
Baroness Benjamin
My Lords, I support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Young. I would like to draw the Committee’s attention to the case of a young man I know who was brought up in care for many years. For the first 49 years of his life he kept wondering who he was and where he came from. This affected his relationship with his children—when he eventually had children—and with his wife, who had to deal with his depression. He had a loss of confidence, did not believe in himself and did not feel worthy. After much searching he eventually found out who he was and it completely changed his outlook on life. It changed his mental well-being. He got a better understanding of who he was and started to accept his situation in life. That is why I believe that it is an abuse if we deny any young person information which can help them come to terms with their identity, culture and background if they wish to do so.
Children and Families Bill
Debate between Earl of Listowel and Baroness Benjamin(11 years, 1 month ago)
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The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I have listened with great interest to this debate. I remember the last days of the previous Government, when there was a great deal of concern from the Minister responsible at the lack of uptake by local authorities of voluntary adoption agencies. She repeated on several occasions, “The evidence is there; the outcomes are better; but it seems that local authorities have the perception that going down that route is more expensive”. Again, there was some debate about the research, but I think it pointed to the fact that in fact it was no more expensive than using local authority adopters. This is just a detail, but I would be interested to know what progress has been made—maybe the noble Baroness mentioned this and I may have missed it in what she was saying—in making better use of voluntary adoption agencies. There has been a huge amount of change in this area.
In the back of my mind, I also have an idea that it might be helpful for a one-page summary of all that has been done by the Government about adoption since they came into office. Maybe I just need to look back at the Second Reading debate; it is probably all there already in the Minister’s opening speech.
Baroness Benjamin
My Lords, much of Clause 3 is perfectly reasonable. It would allow the Secretary of State to take action against local authorities that were failing in their duties to recruit adopters by removing those powers from them—quite rightly, too, as long as that is done in a fair way and takes account of steps that local authorities might be taking to improve. There is, after all, an adoption crisis in the country, which the Minister has pointed out, and some local authorities are not stepping up to the plate.
However, children’s charities such as Barnardo’s—I declare an interest as one of its vice-presidents—as well as the Local Government Association have concerns about the fact that the Bill as it stands would allow the Secretary of State to remove responsibility for adopter recruiting from all local authorities. This proposal has caused alarm, which could lead to chaos in the adoption system. There is no guarantee that external providers would be able or willing to take on these services immediately, and any delays across the system will severely damage the chances of some of the country’s most vulnerable children of being adopted. Of course local authorities should be held to account; it is right that the Government can intervene if they are not doing their job properly. However, Clause 3 as it stands effectively allows the collective punishment of local authorities, and this punishment, as Barnardo’s and others have pointed out, would not even solve the problem but would make it worse. I urge the Government to consider Clause 3 very carefully and remove it from these provisions.
Education Bill
Debate between Earl of Listowel and Baroness Benjamin(13 years, 1 month ago)
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The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I will be very brief, in part because I have an amendment on a similar theme to this in the next grouping in the Welfare Reform Bill. I, too, thank my noble friend for tabling these amendments and for generating this tremendously important debate at the beginning of Report. It was deeply gratifying yesterday to hear the Minister of State, Sarah Teather, highlighting the fact that the most important thing in terms of outcomes for educating children is the home environment, which is more important than the jobs that parents do or any other factor. My noble friend has hit the nail on the head, and we must get this right.
It concerns me that we should encourage and enable parents to learn to read, write and count when they have not been able to do that at school. It is very important that we enable parents to get access to adult education so that they can make up for any deficits. It troubles me that creches at the adult education institutes are being cut. I understand the difficult circumstances, but if there is any money available to the Minister and his department in the form of targeted funding to improve outcomes for children, in recognition of the importance of the home environment that money should go to the creches in those adult education institutes.
The noble Lord, Lord Eden, raised some very important points. I am sure that it is a concern to see those children facing away from their parents in the idiotically designed modern prams. I understand his concern about compelling parents to attend parenting classes, but it is interesting to bear in mind what the noble Lord, Lord Warner, said when he was chairman of the Youth Justice Board at the time of the controversial introduction of parenting orders for parents who were not managing their children properly—the children were getting into the criminal justice system. His comment was that parenting classes were the cheapest intervention with these families and young men, that they were the most effective intervention and that, when parents went to the classes, they said, “Why didn’t we know about these before?”. They were really grateful for the help. This needs to be treated extremely carefully and perhaps used only rarely. I am not sure whether the classes continue, but perhaps there is a place for them.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, raised very important questions, as did the noble Lord, Lord Storey, about valuing the early years experience.
I will have to move on quickly. I thank the Minister in particular for his help in Committee on my concern about the turnover of staff in nurseries. I will not be present for the next grouping of amendments, so I want to thank him now. I realise that the best place for me to put my worries is in the new consultation on the inspection of nurseries. I now know the civil servant to speak to. I am very grateful to him for his help on this. I cannot speak on the next grouping, but I am very concerned about the high turnover of staff in nurseries and the fact that nursery staff are often the poorest paid and least well educated yet we are placing the most vulnerable children in their care. These children above all things need stability in their lives. They need stable people who stay around. In some settings, such as nurseries attached to schools, staff turnover is 5 per cent, but in Sure Start centres and in other centres, turnover can be 13 or 15 per cent. Better support for staff and proper training and development will help to reduce the turnover of staff. I am sorry to jump ahead, but I strongly support the amendment on Sure Start centres and on insisting that staff get the training and support they need.
I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Benjamin
My Lords, further to what the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said, I would like to add play therapy to his list. Qualified play specialists who can work with the child and the parent—especially those having difficulties in relationships and attachment—really work. I have seen the results of that type of therapy, which is quite remarkable. I would like the Minister to take that into consideration when he is looking at this amendment.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
My Lords, I shall make a few brief comments on these amendments. I start by commending the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, who never misses an opportunity to raise the issue of parenting. I am terribly grateful that he does so because, with so many weighty matters often before this House, it is sometimes difficult to get those issues heard.
The noble Lord and other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, were right when they said that we cannot overstate the importance of having good parents and the disadvantage to children when parents for one reason or another do not understand what good parenting is. For me, that involves having good involved fathers as well as mothers, as the noble Lord’s amendments make clear. Too often in our discourse about this, the default position is mothers, and we forget about fathers. As Minister for Children for four years, that was something I was very concerned about.
The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Eden, about communication from birth is profoundly important. Communication is the basis of good parenting because the enrichment children get from that kind of elaborative language, play, song and stories literally helps the brain to grow and helps the conceptual abilities of children to develop as well as helping with bonding.
I do not share some noble Lords’ opinion that somehow there has been a failure of moral fibre among the population and that today’s parents perhaps no longer care as much as our parents did. There have been changes, but some of those changes are due to changing social circumstances. The lack of proximity of grandmothers, grandfathers and the extended family to new parents means that sometimes people become parents without the support of their family who have been through that before, so they do not benefit from the wealth of that experience. I do not think this is to do with unplanned pregnancy or feckless parents. It has been demonstrated that many people new to parenting nowadays need support to understand what good parenting is. In my experience, and as the research shows, parents want that support and want to be good parents. That is why, as noble Lords have said, the provision of the opportunity to learn what that means is so crucial. Putting on the statute book that this will be available, without dictating the terms of that in detail, is an important thing to do.
The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, rightly looked at the Childcare Act and said that it does not make provision for parenting education and support, and he is right. However, other legislation already on the statute book and in statutory regulations make provision for that, and it was enshrined in the legislation and regulations that define the Sure Start children's centre, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, pointed out. When the regulations for what children’s centres should provide were being drawn up, they included a core offer that all children’s centres had to provide, as well as some optional things that centres could provide depending on local need. The provision of parenting support and parenting education classes is in the core offer. All children’s centres, particularly those in disadvantaged areas, have to provide parenting support, and have been doing so. There has been enormous progress in the amount of provision available and, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, has said, many schools, particularly primary schools, now provide that as part of their core offer.
The problem for me, which I would be grateful if the Minister could address, is that because children’s centres are closing and many are having to reduce the services they provide because of lack of funds, the progress that has been made in making parenting education and support available is now in jeopardy. The Minister may well refer to the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that the Government have very recently announced some new money to promote parenting support, but I question the need for that at the same time as we are seeing some of that provision disappear because children’s centres are closing and being reduced. There is some conflict about where the Government stand in relation to ensuring the provision is available. It has been available for some time now in children’s centres but, as I say, that is now in jeopardy.
I very much support the amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, said that he would not press them for a vote, but I think it is important for the Minister to make clear the Government’s position on this, particularly in relation to children’s centres. We will come to that issue in more detail in Amendment 5, but it is relevant here because this is predominantly where parenting support and education is currently available.
Education Bill
Debate between Earl of Listowel and Baroness Benjamin(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Benjamin
In the Minister’s efforts to address this issue, could he please include parents? Parents are the key to the problem of these children not attending school. They are essential to making this successful. In my experience as a governor and a chair of governors of an academy where we had Gypsy and Roma children, the parents were the stumbling block. If you can get to them, part of this problem will be solved.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that encouraging reply. It is good to hear about the work that his department is undertaking. I think that I heard the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, talk about the demise of specialist Gypsy, Roma and Traveller education services. Maybe the Minister briefly said something about that at the end of his response but, I am sorry, I did not quite catch it. If he could clarify what is going on with those services, I would be grateful.
I apologise if I misled the Committee in any way by describing myself as “teaching” this boy. I was running workshops in a school environment. I am not a teacher; I should make that quite clear.
Education Bill
Debate between Earl of Listowel and Baroness Benjamin(13 years, 4 months ago)
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The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, just before he does, I thank the Minister for his reply, particularly for what he said about an advisory group in relation to the new arrangements. I hope your Lordships will agree that the meeting last week with Charlie Taylor was a success. Certainly, the group I was with was impressed by the Government’s choice of adviser. I have met Bernadette Cunningham, who the Government have chosen to advise them on early years care. Her work with the Coram Family is well respected. Therefore, the Government’s track record in choosing advisers is a very good one so far.
Baroness Benjamin
My Lords, the TDA has undertaken excellent work in raising equality in schools. Recruitment from BME groups is important to ensure that white and BME pupils benefit from a more balanced representation of society. The experience of teachers from diverse groups is important. Therefore, I hope that the Minister can confirm that this policy will continue under the new body.
Education Bill
Debate between Earl of Listowel and Baroness Benjamin(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Benjamin
My Lords, childhood lasts a lifetime. Whatever children go through at an early age will stay with them for ever. Children’s well-being should be at the heart of everything we do in society. It should begin at home, but that is not always the case. However, it definitely needs to happen at school. Today, many children face difficulties in their lives. For some, life is like a marathon; it is relentless and the challenges that they face are unbearable. Some even die because of those challenges. The children who are victims and who are vulnerable need schools to support them. Schools have a duty to help them through the traumas that they might be going through by having strategies in place to cement the solid foundation needed to address children and young people’s well-being.
Many schools have such strategies in place and take this responsibility seriously. I visit schools up and down the country to give inspirational talks to children and young people. I often identify children and young people who need support, and discover what they might be going through mentally, physically and emotionally. It is so rewarding to know that you can make a difference to a young person’s life by giving them support and making sure that their well-being is addressed. It is the responsibility of us all to make sure that this happens time and again. We should have joined-up policies to make sure that it does. I fully support the amendments in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, and the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker. If we can do this, we will do a just service to our children and our young people across the country.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Laming for tabling these amendments. I have just one quick question for the Minister, following on from the question of the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, who talked about the impact on children with special educational needs. What does he think the impact might be on children in the care of local authorities? In principle, I can see that outcomes might be improved if there is at least a strategy that involves schools working with local authorities and thinking about how children’s homes and foster carers could be better meshed into the system.
Schools already have various duties with regard to looked-after children, but this might be another means of promoting outcomes for them. I should be grateful to the Minister if he circulated some copies of the plans for children and young people. I suppose it would be fairly easy for me to find those plans in the Library, but I should be interested to see how they work. I recognise the Minister’s drive to reduce bureaucracy, and I wonder whether the legislation is perhaps going a bit too far in trying to right that wrong.
Finally, I share the noble Baroness’s concern about the academies process. There are many positive sides to it, but there is the danger of schools becoming atomised, and the process would seem to add to that risk. I look to the Minister for reassurance in his reply.