The Child Minder

by Lauren Revans

Normally I quite like Jonathan Ross – even if he is vastly overpaid. But on Friday night, he definitely overstepped the mark.

I am having a crisis of faith. I thought every child was supposed to matter. Yet just this week, I came across a 12-year-old boy whose story suggests otherwise.

Hayley Prew’s article about her experiences of children’s homes in our September 13 user-led issue made for distressing reading. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it also provoked a flood of responses from children’s homes’ providers wanting to tell their side of the story.

Here's a nice idea - "a planned intergenerational community", called Treehouse, set up in the US to bring together families with foster children with older adults who can act as de facto grandparents.

Care Matters, this week's white paper on children in care, the biggest piece of policy for the group over the past decade, promises social workers more freedom to spend time with children so they can get much-needed consistency of care.

At a meeting of key players in the children's sector earlier this week to discuss the proposals contained in the Care Matters green paper, one message that came across loud and clear is the need for beter placement choice for children in care.

But key to that is ensuring the availability of quality residential care placements, as well as quality foster care placements.

Commission for Social Care Inspection chair Denise Platt criticised the "underlying antipathy" towards residential care in the government's proposals and ensuing discussions, while Victoria Climbie Inquiry chair Lord Laming complained about the polarised debate on the issue.

Research by A National Voice, which represents care leavers and children in care, confirms the importance to young poeple of having the option of a place in a decent children's home as an alternative to a foster care placement.

For their sakes, we must not allow residential care to be devalued or treated as second best. We should be focusing our efforts instead on ensuring residential staff receive the training they need to give children in their care the necessary support.

“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.

The promise from the new chief inspector of schools for a greater focus during inspections on the educational attainment of children in care is all well and good, but only if it leads to real change.

We are already only too aware of the poor level of education many children in care receive. The latest official statistics show that only 7 per cent of these children achieve five or more GCSEs at grade C or above. More than half leave school without a single GCSE or GNVQ to their name.

New research from the Department for Education and Skills on the activities and experiences of 18-year-olds reveals that, for those who leave school empty-handed, there is a 30 per cent chance that two years later they will not be in education, training or employment. This is the legacy of the 50 per cent of schools who the chief inspector says are failing to support looked-after pupils well enough.

New government-commissioned research published this week on kinship care placements has highlighted examples within the current system of both the perverse and the downright unfair.

The study by researchers at the School for Policy Studies at Bristol University reveals that, despite family and friend carers being significantly more disadvantaged than unrelated foster carers, they are likely to receive less in the way of financial assistance. And despite both groups of carers looking after children with similar experiences and difficulties, significantly more kin carers receive little or no training or social work support.

But perhaps most peversely of all, the study reveals that kin carers who don't meet the standards for approval as foster carers because of past difficulties or health problems can be advised to pursue a Residence Order instead, under which social work support and monitoring ceases and payments become discretionary. The result is that those kinship care placements carrying the greatest risks receive the least support and scrutiny.