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In October 2006, the Government published a Green Paper Care matters:Transforming the lives of children and young people in care a document which was widely welcomed as offering the first opportunity to look in depth at the needs of looked-after children. After wide consultation, the White Paper Care matters: Time for change was published, together with a suite of reports. This was followed in November 2008 by the Children and Young Persons Act, which set out very clearly the new arrangements for looked-after children. During the past 12 months, the children, schools and families select committee, which has taken a particular interest in looked-after children, has been gathering a huge amount of evidence both written and oral to the committee. Committee members also visited Denmark and looked at the experience of looked-after children across Europe. In its report, published last week, the committee welcomed the priority the Government had put on this particularly-vulnerable group of children. However, the committee was still of the view that the Government had not done enough to tackle some of the underlying challenges, nor had it set out how the new arrangements would benefit specific groups of children, including unaccompanied asylum-seekers and looked-after children who entered custody. A recurrent theme in the report, impossible to legislate for, was the need to establish good relationships in the care system. First and foremost, of course, it was the young person in care who needed 'stable, reliable bonds with key individuals [as these] are fundamental to children's security and development'. However, it was not just the relationship between the young person and the social worker that was critical but often fractured by high staff turnover, heavy workloads and high vacancy rates. These same problems also reduced the time that social workers could devote to forging constructive relationships with families before it became necessary to consider care proceedings. Barry Sheerman MP, who chairs the committee, spoke passionately about the need to work with families where children were living in misery, where early support could help deal with issues that might, if left, lead to a child being taken into care. Another key issue, highlighted by foster carers, was the lack of consistency and vast inequities in the payment and conditions in the foster care sector. These financial issues were often compounded by a lack of support to foster carers, in terms of planned respite and access to expert advice. Throughout the report, the conclusions returned to three themes the skills, capacity and commitment of the workforce; the need for the local authority Œthe corporate parent¹ to act more like birth parents would with regard to their children; and the need to take far greater notice of what the children themselves had to say about their care. Inevitably, the events in Haringey, following the death of Baby P and Lord Laming's progress report on the protection of children in England, weighed heavily with the committee. While it was acknowledged that 'even the best child protection systems will not be capable of eradicating child murders [the committee is] convinced that better early intervention is vital to reducing the likelihood of child misery and ensuring children's wellbeing'. One of the major questions in the Lord Laming¹s progress report was the effectiveness of inspection and monitoring, and this was also raised in the select committee report, which stressed the need for inspectors to focus on assessing quality rather than merely measuring processes. An essential element of this quality assessment must be 'children's assessment of the care they receive independently sought and expressed'. The National Health Service provision for looked-after children was given particular attention, with the committee criticising the Government for the timidity of its approach to specifying what should be provided for looked-after children. They should have a much higher profile in the NHS performance frameworks, the committee believed and, at the service level, guaranteed access to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. The report contained 72 conclusions and recommendations none of which will come as any surprise to those working with looked-after children but after Green Papers, White Papers and legislation, the message is plain: Just do it. Chris Waterman is a children¹s services commentator

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CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE

Just do it

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