"I met people from my regional adoption agency just last Thursday—I thank them and all their partners for their excellent work—who raised the adoption and special guardianship support fund, recognising that the quantum in resource is not there and that the demand is so high. Will the Minister meet the …..." Rachael Maskell - View Speech
"City of York council has gone from “requires improvement” to “outstanding” in all areas due to the innovation it is driving. In particular, it has been working on halving the number of children in social care, ending the use of agency workers and setting up a SEND hub. The director …..." Rachael Maskell - View Speech
"The hon. Member is making an excellent speech. One of the things that has constantly dogged the profession has been the pressure, the extent of the case loads and the circumstances that social workers and other professionals work under. Those pressures are not abating at the moment, as local authorities …..." Rachael Maskell - View Speech
"What keeps me awake at night is knowing that poverty levels are rising sharply. It is those pressures on families that often lead children into the care system. Given that the report did not have the remit to look into the intersection between poverty and the challenges that families face, …..." Rachael Maskell - View Speech
"This has been an incredibly powerful debate and the quality has been of the highest standards of this place. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions, including my hon. Friend the shadow Minister, and the Minister for setting out her proposals.
"I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this debate on birth parents, because we know that they often experience a lot of trauma, not least in the age of social media where they can have unsupported contact with their birth child and even more trauma can occur as …..." Rachael Maskell - View Speech
"I am grateful to the Minister for her response so far, but she will also recognise that, such is the churn of social workers involved in the adoption process, that birth parents often have six or seven social workers over the course of an adoption discussion to the point of …..." Rachael Maskell - View Speech
"I am grateful to the Minister for allowing another intervention. The Mockingbird set-up that is used in fostering is another example of a network of support built around foster parents. Could that not also be translated into the adoption process, particularly bearing in mind Rachel de Souza’s report on the …..." Rachael Maskell - View Speech
"The independent review of children’s social care highlighted the cost of the failure of residential care settings—both the financial cost and, most importantly, the cost to children of failed care. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to improve that care and to ensure that we move from a …..." Rachael Maskell - View Speech