Young people might be ‘written off’

Children are in danger of being split into the “deserving and
undeserving” in our future care systems, a leading academic has
warned.

Professor Robbie Gilligan, director of the children’s research
centre at Dublin university, told a conference in Perth, Scotland,
that the challenge when considering the future for looked-after
children must be to recognise the value of diversity in children
placed in care.

He told the conference, organised by nine major children’s
charities, that future services were more likely to rely on
community-based programmes and that children entering the care
system were likely to have more intractable problems.

Gilligan said:”As the welfare state is rolled back we will see the
return of the deserving and undeserving poor. So too we will see
the same principle applied to categories of children who will be
seen as less compliant and less attractive. They will be seen as
less deserving of our care.”

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