Education and Adoption Bill

Baroness Howarth of Breckland Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly on three points on this group. The first is about the assessment of children, the second is about the monitoring of children and the third is about the local authority spending lottery.

Assessment has been discussed before, so I shall be very brief. It seems to me, supported by the NSPCC, that the mental health assessment should not rely solely on the strengths and difficulties questionnaire, the SDQ screening tool. Children need direct contact—interviews—they need to be accompanied by a carer to assess mental and emotional health needs, and the assessment needs to be carried out by a qualified mental health professional. On monitoring, clearly, if a child is assessed as having a difficulty, they should be monitored the whole time they are in care to inform carers and professionals about what support the child is receiving and how it can and should contribute to their well-being.

Thirdly, I believe that there is a spending lottery between local authorities in terms of both overall spending and what to spend the money on. Will the mental health strategy cover that? For example, some local authorities that I know are very poor at spending anything on CAMHS for children in care. Perhaps the Minister would comment on that. Will the Government and the mental health strategy consider the outcomes of not providing mental health support for children? The risk of poor outcomes is a risk for life. We know that for children with mental health problems who do not have support in care, the outcomes are poor in relation to criminal or anti-social behaviour, drug and alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy and very poor academic performance. What is the Minister’s response on how the mental health strategy will address some of those concerns?

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise that I was unable to speak in Committee on this issue; I had to attend another committee at the same time. I just want to ask for clarity on a very narrow point—which is actually a wide point.

The amendment adds mental health services for children in the adoption process. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, made a very clear statement about the large number of other children in care who face the same needs—children in kinship care, long-term fostering, or hostels for children with special difficulties. Is the thinking clearly about basing the provision of services on the actual needs of the children as they are seen, rather than the bit of the system they are in? My concern is that we see adoption as a better placement than many others when often it is not; kinship care can be a much better solution for a child. As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, permanency is what actually matters. I hope that mental health services can be clearly focused on children to ensure permanency, whatever that permanency looks like.

It makes very good economic sense to ensure that money is clearly targeted to children in care—and, sometimes, children in their own families who are showing special needs. Economically, if you can get to those children early, you will improve their life chances. If they are targeted, that can be measured. Those are the things that the Government want to do at the moment: target services to see what works and makes good economic sense, because people will be able to make better sense of their own lives. Will the Minister ensure that there are adequate mental health services—we know that there is a great difficulty at the moment—and that they are targeted at need rather than at category?

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 4. As I have said at all stages of this Bill, with the support of the NSPCC, every single child entering care should receive an automatic mental health assessment in addition to the physical assessment they currently receive. Children in care should then immediately receive the subsequent necessary support to help them to deal with the issues of mental health identified in the assessment. There should be regular monitoring of children’s mental health while in care to inform what support that child receives and ensure that it contributes to their improved well-being. These provisions are essential to strengthen the Bill because they will help towards making significant savings for the NHS, the prison services and society in general.

The NSPCC, myself and many others welcome the Government’s announcement of an additional £600 million for mental health and see it as a great opportunity to make sure that more of the most vulnerable children get access to the mental health support that they need to overcome the trauma they have experienced. As I have said time and again, childhood lasts a lifetime, so let us give all children the best start in life, including children in care and children in the adoption system. They need to be cared for and looked after in every way possible. We owe it to them, so I hope that the Minister will include these provisions in this important Bill.