Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what is their timetable for updating the Statutory Guidance on Promoting the Health and Well-being of Looked After Children, published in March 2015; whether there will be a specific focus on mental health services for this group; and how they plan to deliver updated guidance in a culturally sensitive way.

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 the age of 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’.

This commitment was reaffirmed in September 2023, but a timeframe for completing the update has not been set. However, the department and the Department of Health and Social Care continue to work together on this update and will work with a wide range of stakeholders with a diversity of professional and lived experience to ensure that the guidance is sensitive to the health and wellbeing needs of all looked-after children and care leavers.