Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to his Department's planned update to the statutory guidance on Promoting the Health and Wellbeing of Looked After Children, if he will include a (a) specific focus on mental health services for that group as part of that update and (b) strategy for delivering those services in a culturally sensitive manner.

The government gave a commitment to update the statutory guidance, ‘Promoting the health and wellbeing of looked-after children’ and extend it to care leavers up to age 25, in the ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’ strategy for the reform of children’s social care. The update forms part of the wider mission in the strategy, to reduce the disparities in long-term mental and physical health outcomes and improve wellbeing for care-experienced people.

The Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care are taking forward this update together, and work is underway to understand how the current guidance is working in practice and where changes are necessary. This includes consideration of whether there is a need to include further guidance regarding mental health support for looked-after children and care leavers, as well as consideration of whether there is a need to include further guidance relating to cohorts with particular characteristics.

The department will work with a wide range of stakeholders with a diversity of professional and personal experience to ensure that the guidance is sensitive to the health and wellbeing needs of all looked-after children and care leavers, including those with protected characteristics as part of government’s duty under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010.