The Child Minder

“The interests of the child and particularly the most vulnerable children must come first.” That’s what Tony Blair said yesterday, when announcing that Catholic adoption agencies will not get an opt-out from placing children with gay couples under new anti-discrimation legislation.

Yet in the intense debate over gay adoption, there has been very little focus on the interests of vulnerable children waiting for a permanent home - but plenty on Catholics wrestling with their consciences.

One much-quoted point in the media is that Catholic adoption agencies specialise in hard-to-place children. Yes, they do, but so do most adoption agencies. It is hard to find one that doesn’t boast of such expertise.

To read the government's 'progress report' on its war on antisocial behaviour, you could be forgiven for thinking that the only way to claim victory is to use more and more antisocial behaviour powers, more and more often.

In fact, the situation is somewhat more sophisicated than that. For many, the issuing of an antisocial behaviour order is actually a sign of failure, not success. Similarly, a fall in the number of asbos issued could be something to be celebrated not condemned if it reflects the success of voluntary preventive work in tackling antisocial behaviour instead.

A review of action against antisocial behaviour in Camden, due to be discussed at last night's housing and adult social care scrutiny committee meeting, confirms the complete lack of evidence (both locally and nationally) as to the effectiveness of the plethora of new powers available either in terms of reducing the levels of fear of crime among local communities or in terms of improving individuals' behaviour and life chances.

I'm sorry Mr Ried and Mr Blair, but without any such evidence, shouting about the growing numbers of powers used (and organisations allowed to issue them) is at best meaningless, and at worst misleading. Add to that the fear that these powers may be having a disproportionate impact on already disadvantaged groups, and the need to get on and collate evidence of their effectiveness before agencies are coerced into using them even more readily is overwhelming!

The government has announced the first 40 areas to commit to taking forward the government's Respect Action Plan and doing more to tackle antisocial behaviour and support difficult families.

The 40 Respect Areas (see below) will all provide family intervention projects to tackle problem families, offer more parenting classes for struggling parents, make wider use of the "tools and powers" available to tackle antisocial behaviour, and deal with social housing problems. They will also be expected to be more accountable to their local communities via 'face the people' sessions.

Hillingdon Council - criticised last week by the children's commissioner for allegedly offering a lesser service to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children than other children in care - took on the government at the High Court yesterday over the costs of caring for this group of children.

The council said a £6m cut in the grant it received for assisting young asylum seekers nearing adulthood had resulted in dramatic cutbacks in key services and contributed to anti-immigration sentiments locally.

The council is demanding an extra £40 per week per child to be able to provide these young people with the support they need.

The judge has promised to deliver his verdict on the case soon. But it seems obvious to me that the concerns flagged up by the children's commissioner and the massive funding cut imposed on the council are in some way connected.

The right outcome must be an obligation on the government to fund councils so they are in a position to provide an equitable service to all children in their care (without having to waste a penny more on legal challenges).

When the story of Ruth Kelly sending her son to private school first broke, I initially had some sympathy for her predicament. She was, as oposition leader David Cameron put it, a parent first and a politician (and ex education secretary) second, and was making a choice in the best interests of her son, who has learning difficulties.

But all traces of that initial sympathy evaporated at the weekend while reading a story in the Sunday Times. The paper reminded me that, while in charge at the Department for Education, Kelly presided over the closure of special schools up and down the country resulting in the loss of thousands of school places for children with special needs.

Kelly, who is now communities secretary, defended her decision to shell out £15,000 a year for private education on the grounds that her local council could not provide for her son's particular needs. But what about all the other parents out there whose local authorities cannot meet their children's needs - perhaps because of a local school's closure agreed to by a former education secretary?

Until everyone can afford the option of meeting their children's needs by going private, closures in the name of inclusion must end. Some children with special needs may undeniably flourish in a mainstream school setting, but others will not. And the state education system must continue to reflect that.

It must be hoped that the new school admissions code published this week will go some way towards closing the well-documented (and shocking) educational achievement gap between children in care and other pupils.

It is just a shame that we cannot welcome the code wholeheartedly, knowing that it also sanctions discrimination by academies against children with behavioural difficulties.

A cynic might suggest that allowing academies with spare places to refuse admission to children with 'challenging behaviour' in their first two years is nothing more than a blatant attempt to boost results at these controversial schools at a time when the government is trying to justify its unreserved support for them, despite widespread concerns across the sector...

I was horrified to learn from the children's commissioner this week that Hillingdon are operating a two-tier system for children in care, based on their country of birth.

The discriminatory system works like this: for children in care born in the UK, there is a presumption at the west London council that they will remain looked-after until they are 18; for those in the system who arrived in the UK as unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors, there is a policy of ejecting them from the care system as soon as they turn 16 and have notched up the minimum 13 weeks in care required to qualify for (significantly cheaper) leaving care services instead.

Hillingdon blames their actions on the government's failure to properly reimburse them for the 900 unaccompanied minors who have ended up in their care (via Heathrow airport). In deed, it is due to challenge the government's alleged underfunding of services for unaccompanied minors in the High Court next week.

But the fact remains that the council is operating a system which, according to the office of the children's commissioner, is unlawful.

From today, all councils across England are obliged to provide access for young people to youth clubs, sports facilities and art projects. They will also have to take account of young people's views about these 'positive activities'.

The change, proposed in the youth green paper Youth Matters and brought in under section 6 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, can only be good news for young people.

But the real challenge to local authorities now is to reach out to the "significant minority" of teenagers who currently can't, or choose not to, take part in any positive activities at all - and to ensure the extra £4.5m per year available for the next two years to fund things to do and places to go is spent on just that, and not syphoned off to fund more 'critical' services.

News of the case of nine-year-old Ashley from Seattle, who is said to have the mental age of a three-month-old baby and can neither walk or talk, is difficult to take in.

Three years ago, her parents decided to take steps to minimise Ashley's adult height and weight through hormone treatment. They also convinced an ethics committee that an operation to remove their daughter's uterus and breast buds were in the child's best interests as they would minimise the risk of sexual abuse and reduce her future discomfort.

In some quarters, the pair have been utterly condemned for their actions. And it is certainly easy to question the right of any parent or professional to condone such drastic medical treatment and procedure on behalf of another person for non-medical reasons.

But, elsewhere, there have been outpourings of empathy and support. People understand that this couple - who care for their daughter day in, day out and who know she will always have the mind of a baby - wanted to ensure their daughter could never become pregnant and that they would be able to continue to lift her and care for her at home.

With every new year comes new hope, and 2007 is no different!

I - presumably along with many of you - hope for greater equality, greater strides towards the elimination of child poverty, and improved life chances for disadvantaged children. But then we probably wish for that every year, with varying degrees of success.

More specific hopes for this year lie, for me, with asylum-seeking children and children with disabilties.

In December, the Every Disabled Child Matters campaign announced that it already had 10,000 supporters signed up to get rights and justice for disabled children. They have a new target of 25,000 signatures by July 2007, and I am hopeful that not only will they exceed this, but that the politicians and decision-makers will sit up and take notice of all these people and help deliver on the campaign's worthy objectives.

In terms of unaccompaned asylum-seeking children, my optimisim is more tempered. The Home Office is on the verge of announcing its plans for reforming the system that supports this group of vulnerable children - and I am desperately trying to remain positive about the whole thing.