Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the merits of the recommendation in the Fourth report of the Education Committee, Session 2015-16, HC 481, that all looked-after children should have a mental health assessment carried out by a mental health professional.

The Government response to the Education Committee report into the Mental Health and Wellbeing of Looked-After Children is being jointly drafted by the Department of Health and the Department for Education. Ministers in both departments are assessing the recommendations in their entirety and the joint response, expected to be published after recess, reflects the importance that both departments place on joint working to meet the needs of this vulnerable group.

The Department of Health and the Department for Education have already established an Expert Working Group to consider how to improve the mental health and well-being of looked-after children, children adopted from care, care leavers and children leaving care under a special Guardianship Order or Child Arrangements Order. The Expert Working Group will include a focus on assessment and identification of mental health issues and difficulties.

The group, co-chaired by Professor Peter Fonagy, Freud Memorial Professor of Psychoanalysis, University College London, and Alison O’Sullivan, former president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, first met on 11 July 2016. Meeting notes, Terms of Reference and a work programme will shortly be available on the website of the Social Care Institute for Excellence (http://www.scie.org.uk/) which are co-ordinating the work of this group.