Young People in Care

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Bill Esterson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point. He is absolutely right.

We made recommendations about better preparation for young people who are leaving care, including through the development of life skills. We highlighted a number of areas where support was crucial, based on the evidence that was presented to us.

The concept of instant adulthood has been raised with me. It describes the sudden change in the lives of people who have been very much looked after and who have had everything done for them and everything provided for them. It describes how corporate parenting is not working in the way we would expect for this group of young people. The concept of corporate parenting had been used as a way of identifying how we should look after such young people.

A point that has been made to me is that young people must value the support that they receive. It is not good enough for the authorities to describe what type of support should be available and who should provide it. Young people often have relationships with those they do not necessarily want supporting them, whether a social worker or somebody else they come across while they are in care. It is really important to listen to young people in deciding who is best placed to provide support for them. It is a matter of trust—I have heard that word mentioned a number of times.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

The hon. Gentleman is talking about the “Maintaining positive relationships” part of the Select Committee’s report, which I thought was interesting. It mentions how we can do better with personal advisers, but it also refers to sibling groups. Does he share my concern that a report issued today by the Family Rights Group shows that half of all sibling groups are split up in foster care? Does he think that more could be done, as those children leave care, to re-establish relationships with other family members that have been denied them in the care system? That could prove important in anchoring them and giving them stability, so that they can move into adulthood with trusted relatives.

[Bill Esterson]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. As an adoptive parent of a sibling group, some of whom are still in care, I know from experience that that is incredibly important to my own children. He hits the nail on the head—sibling groups should be kept together wherever possible, and every effort should be made to keep siblings in touch while they are in care and into adulthood. As he says, we touch on that in the report. Such relationships can really help young people as they leave care and move into adulthood. What came out strongly in the evidence that we took, and in the evidence that I got from elsewhere, was the importance of a young person having someone to advise and support them, whether it is a sibling group, a friend, a trusted professional adviser or the parent of a friend.

I have had some good information provided to me by Barnardo’s, with examples of what goes on. It says that there are a number of examples of good practice around the country. The Chairman of the Education Committee mentioned what goes on in Wiltshire, and I am aware of good practice by Barnardo’s in Merseyside, for example, where it provides support not just for care leavers but for other young people in the same age group.

Barnardo’s also gave me examples of nightstop, crash pads, supported lodgings and supported housing projects. Crash pads are short-term emergency supported lodgings. They are temporary forms of family-based accommodation, with placements lasting up to eight weeks. They provide specialist support to young people who need somewhere to live on a short-term basis.

Supported lodgings provide family-based support to vulnerable young people aged 16 to 25 who cannot live with their own family and are not yet ready for independent living. Young people are provided with places to live in the homes of local people, from whom they receive varying levels of practical and emotional support, enabling them to develop the confidence and capability to live independently. Young people normally stay in supported lodgings for up to two years, but they can also be used to provide shorter-term emergency housing.

Supported housing projects offer high levels of support to young people for up to two years, although some have a small number of emergency beds available at short notice for a few days at a time. They tend to house a group of young people with more complex needs, and they usually have 24/7 on-site support from staff.

I give those examples to address the point made by the Chairman of the Committee about emergency accommodation—what is sometimes called bed and breakfast. Some of those examples are from Barnardo’s and other providers. I hope that the Minister and shadow Minister will look at what is out there already, because if we are to provide the range of alternatives that our report calls for, we should learn from good practice and share and apply it, so that—in the shortest possible time—better opportunities are available for this group of young people. I hope that the Minister will take my comments on board and perhaps respond when he winds up the debate.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

As has already been said, our report made recommendations on bed-and-breakfast accommodation, on staying closer and on the regulation of all external accommodation—to name but a few. The recommendation I wish to discuss today is on the lack of “Staying Put” arrangements for the 9% of our young people—some would argue that they are the most vulnerable 9%—in residential care homes.

First, let me remind the House of some of statistics about these vulnerable young people, our nation’s 70,000 looked-after children. Everybody will surely agree that this country’s record in helping that most vulnerable group when they leave care has been nothing short of appalling in the past. Of the 7,000 19-year-olds who were in care at 16, 36% were not in education, employment or training and only 6% of all care leavers are in higher education, compared with 43% of their peers. Less than 26% of children in care obtain five good grades at GCSE, compared with more than 70% of their peers, and 23% of the adult population in our jails have had experience of the care system. Around a quarter of those living on the streets have a care background and care leavers are four or five times more likely to commit suicide. About 47% of looked-after children aged between five and 17 show signs of psychosocial adversity and psychiatric disorders, which is higher than the most disadvantaged children living in private households. Physical and mental problems also increase at the time of leaving care.

As we know—the Chairman of the Committee mentioned it in his speech—and to the Government’s huge credit, they have allowed young people who are fostered to remain with their carers until they are 21, if they wish, if their carers agree and if it is considered to be in their best interests. That is in an attempt to address the many serious challenges care leavers face. All young people in foster care are offered enhanced support up to the age of 21. For young people in foster care, that is one of the biggest and most fundamental changes to their support when they leave care, and it has been widely applauded as a significant change in the right direction for that group of young people.

The big scandal, however, is that the extension to foster placements excludes the 9% of young people in care who are in children’s homes. Those young people have a wide range of needs and challenges. What most have in common is that they are vulnerable. That vulnerability is exacerbated by the stigma attached to residential care among politicians, the public and, sadly, some in the social work profession. Ministers appear to see living in a family as the best option for children in care and the only setting in which children will thrive. That is not reflected by some social workers, who see children’s homes as the last resort, as a place for children who have failed family placements and as somewhere the more challenging young people can be placed. Many of the public see children’s homes as places where naughty children are sent. Historically that view was compounded by some local authorities who used children’s homes to accommodate their more challenging young people.

The Education Committee’s recommendation was that young people living in residential children’s homes should have the right to remain there beyond the age of 18, just as young people in foster care now have the right of staying put until the age of 21. We recommend that the Department for Education extends “Staying Put” to residential children’s homes.

Despite the evidence taken in our inquiry, the Government do not agree. They said that too many children’s homes are not of sufficient quality and that the immediate priority is to improve significantly the quality of residential care. To be fair to the Government, they are doing that. They said that the evidence for placing such a duty on supporting the “Staying Put” arrangements for young people in foster care is robust. We do not have the evidence for children’s homes, as they were not covered by the plans.

The Government said that there are a number of practical and legal issues we would need to consider and test out. There would be vulnerable adults living in homes with much younger vulnerable children—despite the fact that that happens in many households throughout Britain. In addition, a children’s home accommodating three care leaders and one child would technically no longer be a children’s home. The Government also mentioned money, and that has to be taken into consideration, particularly in these economic times.

None the less, the Department recognised that those challenges should not be viewed as insurmountable barriers. It said it was working in collaboration with charities to consider some of the issues associated with “Staying Put” and residential children’s homes. Natasha Finlayson, from the Who Cares? Trust, confirmed that that work was in progress. The Minister confirmed all that nearly a year ago, when I secured an Adjournment debate on this very issue.

In fact, a scoping report was requested from the Minister from a collaboration between the National Children’s Bureau, the Who Cares? Trust, Action for Children, Barnardo’s, Together Trust, the Centre for Child and Family Research, and Loughborough university. Their work was published only yesterday, after a year of working on the scoping exercise. A stakeholder workshop identified four different options for residential care “Staying Put” arrangements, which formed the basis of a consultation with young people. Overall, the scoping exercise showed that care leavers from residential homes would prefer to have options, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend is making a good case for what is a very difficult solution for kids in residential care homes, but does he not recognise that the “Staying Put” exercise is largely staying put with carers, which is more easily achieved through foster care, for example? In residential homes, workers tend to move on. Indeed, the average stay in residential homes is rather short, so there is not that attachment. Would it therefore not be better to try to establish options, which he is now describing, that form links with foster carers and others to give a proper bonding and link with advice and support, which one does not get from an attachment to a building that is a residential care home? That is rather different to a foster care relationship, which the young person will have been in for many years in many cases.

[Craig Whittaker]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He raises some valuable points, particularly on the turnover of staff in residential homes. The point is that a lot of young people in residential homes have a stigma attached to them. Not only that, quite often a foster placement has broken down. One could argue quite easily that they are the more vulnerable of our children in care. That being the case, to turf them out by themselves at the age of 18, often with very little support, is not the way forward. That will not be the case for all young people in residential homes—of course not. Some will be robust enough to take that step. For those who choose to stay, we feel strongly that that option should be open.