Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Mackay of Clashfern and Baroness Howe of Idlicote

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, my amendment in this group is Amendment 28. But before I turn to it I should say that, having listened to all the points that have been made, whether on speech and language difficulties, referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, the kinship carer issue mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, or the splitting up of siblings—all these issues are so important. The fact that they have not been addressed effectively does not speak well of what we have achieved so far. We must ensure that we achieve more appropriate success in future.

My Amendment 28 stresses the need for a recovery principle to guarantee therapeutic support for looked-after children. Amendment 1, to which I spoke, also proposed that relevant bodies must also ensure the provision of appropriate support to advance looked-after children’s,

“recovery, happiness and emotional stability”.

As many as six in 10 children in care are there because they have experienced abuse or neglect, yet our support offer often falls woefully short. Between 60% and 90% of children who have experienced sexual abuse will not get access to therapeutic support. NSPCC research has also found that as many as one in five children are turned away from CAMHS after referral to a service. While the average waiting time between referral and assessment is two months, unbelievably many children are waiting up to six months.

Around 100 children contact the NSPCC’s ChildLine service each week about mental health concerns and abuse. This has profound implications for children. Looked-after children are four to five times more likely to attempt suicide than their peers outside the care system. Research from the United States also indicates that nine out of 10 children who are abused go on to develop a mental health condition by the time they are 18.

Young people who worked with the NSPCC to provide evidence for the Education Select Committee’s inquiry into the mental health of looked-after children said that the traumatic reasons that caused them to enter care are often never really dealt with. One said:

“Wounds turn into scars that will never heal”.

Another child, describing her care experience, explained to the committee that she had just accepted that she did not deserve the best in life. No children should ever have to carry these burdens with them throughout their lives.

It is therefore vital that the Government accept this amendment. Some £1.25 billion is on the table to improve mental health provision in the UK, and we must ensure that this reaches looked-after children. A robust legislative framework that puts the needs of looked-after children first is a vital way of achieving this.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

Amendment 33 in this group is mine. In the natural parent system there are normally one or two people who are linked to the child, and that link continues. When children go into care, the difficulty is that the staff looking after the children are apt to be different from day to day and week to week, and certainly from month to month. My proposal is that when a child comes into care, a member of the local authority care staff should be appointed with a responsibility for the well-being of that child. When I use the phrase “well-being”, I am thinking of course of the Care Act and the wonderfully large coverage that that phrase embraces. It is extremely important that this should happen.

Inevitably, there will be a need for change from time to time. I have therefore proposed that where it has to be changed, a new appointment is made so that there is always some individual responsible for the well-being of that child. An example of where this can happen and be important is in relation to the provision for the child. If a child is being provided for in a certain situation and it appears that a more inexpensive arrangement can be made for that child’s care, the idea might be to move that child from the more expensive arrangement to the less expensive. It is important that someone with responsibility for the well-being of that child should have an opportunity to be involved in that kind of decision. That seems to be well worth while.

The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, in his report on deaths in custody, suggested that where a vulnerable person came into the custody system it was important that a single person should have responsibility for looking after the well-being of that vulnerable person. I do not think the Government have actually refused to accept that particular proposal but they have not accepted it as yet. What lies behind that proposal is very much the same as what lies behind mine and I hope the Government will accept both.