Mental Health: Young People

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the well-considered words of the noble Lord, Lord Patten, who of course quite rightly emphasises that there is a moral and an economic case here. The moral case is that unhappy children grow up into very unhappy, miserable adults, and the economic case is that unhappy children grow up into very unhealthy, unhappy and often troubling adults. Of course, the prison system is full of such adults, and that costs the state many tens of thousands of pounds each year per person. I am also very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, for again bringing us back to the issue of mental health, in particular the mental health of children and adolescents. She is indefatigable and I am so grateful to her for her work. I welcome the Minister to his portfolio. I know that it is some time since he took it, but I welcome him, and I look forward to having these discussions with him in future—I hope I can say that.

This is a very timely debate, an observation which I make particularly from my position as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Looked After Children and Care Leavers. Two important reports have come out this month on looked-after children’s mental health. The first report, A New Vision, came out on 10 June. Enver Solomon, the director of the National Children’s Bureau and co-director of the Alliance for Children in Care and Care Leavers, said:

“The care system is not just about removing children from harmful situations and putting a roof over their heads. Many children in care have been seriously abused or neglected, and rely on local authorities as corporate parents to help them get back on their feet. Ultimately, the care system should help children overcome their past experience and forge the lasting and positive relationships that we know are vital to their future wellbeing”.

The NSPCC also briefed me this afternoon on a report coming out this Monday on achieving the emotional well-being of young people in care. This is the result of work it has done consulting people involved in the NSPCC childline and looking at case studies and at the costs of failing to meet the mental health needs of 13 to 16 year-olds. Therefore, this is a timely debate.

I have three requests to put to the Minister. First, I hope that he might consider arranging a meeting with the leads at the Department of Health and the Department for Education on looked-after children, including himself, if he has the time, together with me and the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, given her role as chair of CAFCASS, so that we can discuss what practical steps might be taken to improve the mental health of looked-after children.

Secondly, will he look at conducting another survey of the mental health of looked-after children similar to that carried out in 2004? It was a thorough and deep survey published mainly by the Office for National Statistics, and it was very helpful in judging the scale of the mental health needs of looked-after children.

Thirdly, can the Minister say—perhaps he would like to write to me—how our specialist looked-after children’s mental health service provision is performing? There has been a lot of concern that these specialist groups may be suffering under the austerity measures. They are quite expensive to run but they are invaluable. The support that they provide, in particular to children’s homes, can make a big difference. I would be grateful if the noble Lord could write to me on how these groups are doing.

I am very grateful to the authors of this extremely helpful report. As has been said, this Government and, previously, the coalition Government have shown great leadership in looking at mental health and, more specifically and more recently, at child and adolescent mental health. Today, I attended a conference on early intervention and I thought about the importance of the leadership of the right honourable Iain Duncan Smith and Graham Allen MP, as well as others such as Andrea Leadsom MP. Their consistent championing of early intervention over a number of years has raised the matter much higher up the political agenda and has brought in more funding for it. I hope that we will see the same thing in this area through the championing of mental health by various Members of Parliament.

I turn to the report and shall focus on Chapter 6 on care for the most vulnerable. I begin by challenging one particular notion. I am concerned that we sometimes overvalue an evidence-based approach. It is important, but it is also important to value professional judgment—not in some way to fetter our humanity because we are busy waiting for the next piece of evidence-based research to be produced. Perhaps I may pray in aid the experience of Louise Casey. Many years ago when she was the tsar for homelessness, she complained, “I shall be really annoyed if I am presented with one more bit of evidence-based research from civil servants”. Looking at her working in practice, she has vision, experience and understanding, as well as a drive to take things forward. Balancing that sort of approach with an evidence-based approach is most important.

Those on the continent are not very interested in evidence-based approaches or in gathering data. In terms of looked-after children, they have very developed social pedagogues and highly trained and highly qualified reflective practitioners. Fundamental to their training is the ability to make and keep relationships with vulnerable children. Therefore, they learn skills such as cookery, art and music to engage these young people. Theoretically, as we all understand, the key to good mental health and recovery from trauma is the ability to keep and maintain an enduring relationship—to learn to endure in intimacy. Research on the continent into the educational outcomes for looked-after children is very positive, and it appears that the children perform better. Therefore, there is more than one way to approach these things.

I see that my time is about to run out but I want to pray in aid briefly the consultation and liaison mental health model, which is referred to in the report. It is important to provide staff in children’s homes and foster carers with good clinical support. They are the ones who see the children day to day and build relationships with them, so they should be supported on a regular basis by excellent mental health professionals, as the report suggests.

When consulted, children in care say, “I want one person to follow me all the way through care. I don’t want multiple placements. I don’t want multiple social workers. I don’t want multiple schools. I want continuity of relationships”. If this recommendation is adopted, we will see many more healthy young people leaving care. I look forward to the Minister’s response.