Recently in Barnardo's Category

The government has finally published its formal response to David Norgrove's family justice review - and it's not without controversy.

Although it accepts almost all the review's recommendations, Norgrove has already criticised the government's announcement on shared parenting following divorce or separation. (He said don't do it. Ministers look like they might.)

For social workers and children's guardians, the biggest news is probably the confirmation that the government will introduce a statutory six-month limit on care cases by 2013. (But this shouldn't come as a huge surprise given the government's position on this back in November.)

Those I've spoken to have mixed feelings about the deadline. Some feel confident it will speed up decisions and reduce delay (some children wait 55 weeks for their case to be completed), while others are adamant the deadline will only heap more pressure on a struggling system.

One guardian said: "We could see some poor practice if people are just desperately trying to meet deadlines." Nushra Mansuri, professional officer at the British Association of Social Workers, previously told me: "It won't help reduce delay. Most social workers don't have the resources to complete care cases in six months so this could just be setting them up to fail."

Barnardo's chief Anne Marie Carrie said the deadline would reduce delay, but acknowledged the difficulties of meeting it. "We must not underestimate the challenge in achieving this, with record numbers of care applications having been received in the last half of 2011," she said.

Maggie Atkinson, children's commissioner for England, said she recognised the challenge "in ensuring that all essential evidence is placed before the court within this timeframe".

• The government also announced plans to implement the review's recommendation for a co-ordinated family justice system, including a single family court across England and Wales, and a Family Justice Board.
 
• Family courts body Cafcass will move from the Department for Education into the Ministry of Justice by 2015, to "bring court social work functions closer to the court process". And courts will be expected to rely less upon expert evidence - another controversial reform.

Children's charity Barnardo's has today launched a "landmark" new report into the sexual exploitation of children in Northern Ireland, based on research which found one in nine teenagers in the region had been sexually groomed by an adult.

The charity's report highlights the findings of the 2010 Young Life and Times (YLT) survey, an annual survey of 16-year-old care leavers and looked-after children living in Northern Ireland.

In total 786 young people responded to the survey, which this year included questions about sexual exploitation and grooming for the first time.

One in nine had been sexually exploited while one in 15 had been plied with drugs or alcohol before being abused. Almost two-thirds (62%) had not confided in any authority figure about the exploitation they had suffered.

Barnardo's research, entitled Not a World Away, highlights the particular risks posed to young people in care. Lynda Wilson, director of Barnardo's NI, urged agencies to "enact the recommendations contained within this report, without undue delay".

I'm sure you're all up to speed by now on the dramatic demise of the News of the World, the nation's best-selling newspaper which closed on Sunday after 168 years following allegations of corruption and phone hacking. (This included the particularly unpleasant allegation that the voicemail of murdered teenager Milly Dowler had been hacked by journalists.) 

News International boss Rupert Murdoch announced all proceeds of the paper's final edition would go to charity. And it seems Barnardo's will be one of the lucky three recipients. It's not yet clear how much money the charity will receive, but it should be a healthy amount given the paper's sell-out final issue. (A record £5m copies were printed to meet expected demand.)

Anne Marie Carrie, Barnardo's chief executive, yesterday thanked members of the public who bought the News of the World's last edition. "This money will help enormously in our mission to transform the lives of the most vulnerable children in the UK," she added.

Picture credit: Rex Features

Interesting piece from former children's commissioner Sir Al Aynsley-Green here on the mixed messages sent out by Barnardo's decision to run welfare services at the government's proposed detention centre near Gatwick airport.

Little extract: "This worrying development raises key questions, namely, are the big children's organisations effective advocates for children, or are they friends of Government? Can they be both, and if so, how and with what evidence of impact?

Well here's some news that won't surprise anyone working in children's social care. Thousands of children in care are being placed in children's homes and foster placements miles away from their local area, leaving them vulnerable to criminality, drug abuse and sexual exploitation, according to BBC coverage today.

According to the BBC, charities, including Barnardo's, are now calling on councils to increase local provision - something they will be expected to have done from April this year.

Is this an issue that needs highlighting? Will all local authorities have sufficient local provision by April? Is that realistic at a time when both purchasers and providers are being asked to make cuts? Some also point out that out-of-area placements can be vital, for example to sever damaging links in a particular community, such as gang membership, or because the young person needs a specialist, therapeutic placement not available in their own local area. 

But what do you think? Join the debate on CareSpace. 

Children's minister Tim Loughton has hit out at the "hints of political correctness" that are hampering children's chances of being adopted.

Speaking to Community Care for National Adoption Week - which started today - Loughton accused social workers of insisting on waiting for a "dream ethnic match" before placing children with prospective adoptive families.

Although he admitted that, for many children, a close match was best, he said professionals ought to consider whether children might be waiting several years to find the supposed ideal ethnic match when somebody else could offer a good quality placement sooner.

"The most important thing is the quality of the placement and the family, but there are still too many hints of political correctness in the system," he said. "Unless there are very good reasons not to, we should get on with giving children stable placement opportunities."

But Loughton confirmed he will not be setting any adoption targets, adding that he was "absolutely opposed" to those introduced by Tony Blair 10 years ago.

A report from think-tank Demos, commissioned by Barnardo's, recently recommended that targets would improve falling adoption rates nationally. But Loughton said: "I am fundamentally opposed to many targets, but I am absolutely opposed to adoption targets.

"I don't want to force local authorities to have to search high and low for prospective adoptive families in order to meet some artificial - though well intentioned - target set by central government. It is the wrong way to go about things.

"I want the number of children going into good quality stable adoptions to rise because we've got a greater availability of high-quality adoptive families, and because it is in the best interests of children for whom it is appropriate."

Loughton criticised local authorities for failing to use voluntary adoption agencies to recruit more adopters. He said councils used the costs of paying an agency as an excuse, pointing out that comparative research has shown there was little difference in cost.

"I think [councils] are hiding behind this excuse because the mindset is 'we want to keep things in-house'. It is absolutely wrong and it is flying in the face of the Children Act.

"I would question why there is a monopoly on children in the care system being the responsibility of local authorities and adoption systems being the preserve of local authorities," he said.

Loughton claimed that too much "back and forth" communication between adoption panels and the court system was delaying the issuing of adoption orders.

"Adoptions still take far too long," he said. "For babies born to parents who are clearly never going to be capable of looking after children, courts can quickly judge that the child is going to have a life in care so an adoptive placement should be sorted out as soon as possible."

Loughton said he had spoken to Sir Nicholas Wall, the president of the family division of the High Court. Wall will ask judges "to speak to adoption panels and I will ask adoption panels to speak to judges".

The minister added: "With better communication and co-ordination, we could speed up the whole system. There are some fairly solvable practical problems within the system and bigger problems regarding the mindset which I am determined to challenge."

I love these photos! They come from a personal advisor at Southwark Council's leaving care service. He set up a photographic project with their young  black people  to get them to explore their history - ie the 50th anniversary of the Windrush Liner arriving in Britain. The project has been delayed by two years but he tells me it has been a success with clients "who have been gradually more and more involved in the  project .-being prepared as modern young persons to take the plunge and put on vintage clothes and hats , and step out onto the streets of Southwark ... taking on the roles of their grandparents generation.... and by that beginning to learn something of the experience of that generation."

Be nice if they get a taste for history as a result of this project.