I am grateful for this contribution from one of our readers, who was inspired to write following publication of Martin Narey’s recent report into Childrens Homes. Should more of the money currently being used to provide residential or foster care for children be used to support families instead?
A Relative’s View on Children’s Homes
If you ever meet a strange person gingerly crossing a wooden bridge looking as though they think they are going to fall through the gaps that they couldn’t possibly fall through that is probably me.It is as a result of a childhood trauma of having to cross a wooden railway bridge going to visit my half brother in who lived apart from me in a Children’s home. I both loved visiting and hated leaving without him believing as small children do that it was my fault that he was there.
He was placed in the home aged 2 by his father when my Mum fled from what would now be called coercive control. My Mum was told by what was then Social Services that she had no say in the matter and there was never a court case. There was no social services involvement at all in my childhood, but the impactof being apart my brother has been lifelong has now spanned three generations.
My Observations:
Children in children’s homes are more likely to be living away from their local communities than those in foster care (37% are placed more than 20 miles from home and outside their local authority) Recommendation 7: I urge local authorities and consortia to be cautious about following any hard and fast rule about placement distance and to recognise that the right placement for a child is more important than location. They should no longer impose geographical restrictions on where homes must be located in order to be included in contracts.
This really does not work to maintain family ties and it seems to be a secondary consideration. These family ties once stretched are very difficult to strengthen again, my Mum describes the tie to her son as thin as a thread. I myself know very little about my brother’s childhood as he doesn’t speak about it. Isolation is a key factor in development of mental illness and children leaving care are very likely to be isolated.
The average weekly cost of a place in a children’s home is approximately £3,000, with little difference in cost between local authority, voluntary sector and private sector provision
My Mum needed support not condemnation, in her day single mothers were scorned, she soon got her self straight, but even then wasn’t allowed to have her son back. I really do not see any change today time and again we hear some Local Authorities would rather shell out this average of £156,000 per year rather than support parents with much lower outlay.
But fostering is the right choice for most children who cannot return home, enter special guardianship, or who are unsuitable for adoption. And local authorities must treat it as the first option, not least because it is much less expensive than residential care. According to DfE, the average cost of foster care has been estimated at around £600 per child per week compared to around £3,000 per week for a child living in a children’s home.
My brother stayed in the same home for 14 years, I do not know if fostering was considered at all. Today I do not believe that all Local Authorities consider fostering as a first option especially if a child has special needs, yet they will wriggle out of their obligations to provide support to such familes which would stop problems escalating to crisis in the first place.
“In 2014-15, eight commercial fostering agencies made around £41m profit between them from providing foster placements to local authorities. This is pure profit. It’s after allowances for foster carers, staffing costs and support services… The fact that £41m of public taxpayers’ money, allocated to support children in state care, actually ended up in the pockets of … some seriously rich capital firms is obscene.”
I agree with the last word. Imagine what £41m could do if used to support families.
The Howard League believe that children are “pushed into the criminal justice system by homes which are supposed to be helping them.”86 And the Prison Reform Trust (PRT) – which published its own report on this subject just a few weeks after the Howard League – was reported as saying that “children in care are sucked into the criminal justice system for trivial reasons.”87 It is a pity that statement did not reflect the more nuanced conclusions of the PRT report, because, like the Howard League assertion, I believe it to be unfair. The Prison Reform Trust’s laudable aim is that children in residential care – as far as is possible – are diverted from the criminal justice system and, particularly, from custody.
Sir Martin Narey does not believe that children are being criminalized, this is actually what I find to be the most disturbing part of the report. From my experience they most certainly are for the most trivial of reasons and they are victims of crime within the homes.All is not rosy.
Alongside this:
Recommendation 16: The Department for Education, in consultation with Ofsted, needs to reconsider their guidance – taking account of recent Court judgements – to ensure that staff are able to keep children safe by preventing them leaving homes at time of danger, either by locking doors or using restraint, and that they can be confident in the legality of their doing so.
I do not know the legality of these measures, but I can see them being open to abuse.
I know from my family situation, being brought up in a Childrens home is certainly no substitute for family life, it leaves deep scars on the child, siblings , parents and grandparents. No matter how many decorations are put up pronouncing home is where the heart is or other such sentiments it is not the ideal place for a child to grow up in. It is rarely stable, there are many moves and children grow up not having the first clue about family life. It really is time for a policy change, to start using some of the obscene costs to actually support children and familes.
Thank you very much to the reader who contributed this post. I agree with almost all the points made.
My view is that the Human Rights of thousands of children are regularly abused by the Authorities. What is the basis of my assertion?
Historically when inhumanity occurs ,it has been caused by arrogance , false dogma and false ideology on the part of the perpetrators. The child -protection professionals operate on the FALSE ideology that it is better for children to be taken into care than to remain with natural family and when doing so they ignore the law (Children’s Act) . Children are better off with natural family and that ,in cases where families are struggling, neglecting children, are acting or have acted criminally etc. it is the task of the Authorities to protect the children by offering support , working with Police etc. and reforming families. It is not true that blowing families apart is good for children! Lifelong mental torture and degradation awaits children so treated.
I am taking this opportunity to reproduce a comment i made over a year ago on another thread ( see below). Readers ,please note at the end where it says that the best way we can bring about change is by Public outrage and demonstration.
Parents ,children and grandparents who are victims or see inhumanity should express outrage and disagreements on these forums and join in discussions.I hope the anonymous writer of this post will help us and contribute regularly.
HOW SOCIAL WORKERS HAVE SET THEMSELVES ABOVE THE LAW, HISTORIC DEVELOPMENTS
The popular general perception of the child-protection system and the ideological perception that it is in some way advantageous to children to be taken into care has set, over a long period of time, into a gigantic, false belief. A monolith.
Since Dickensian days when destitute or sick parents were put into workhouses and asylums by the courts, the system has spoken in terms of the salvation of helpless children.
The doctrine is that the parish, borough or city council has, by necessity, taken on a fatherly role on behalf of the state. On the grounds that the state is the ultimate parent and that a father will always act only in a child’s interests, courts consistently rule that its procedures and methods should not be scrutinised carefully if at all. (Parens Patriae)
Social justice and better living opportunities for children-in- care has always been illusory. In real terms, homeless, poor, disturbed, neglected and orphan children have been removed from natural families into institutional care to be stigmatised psychically for life and to suffer alienation under the indifferent eyes of the community and the highest courts alike. They have been moved about at will and often mingled with the mentally ill, juvenile delinquents and other outcasts from society.
The nature of public care puts the interests of children secondary to the penchants and financial interests of those within the system responsible for organising it and those charged with fostering and raising them.
Although it is a fact that some of the more blatant indignities softened in the twentieth century, the basic system of care at the lowest cost persisted. It is also a fact that the system has been guilty of many, many excesses.
Institutional Inhumanity and Corruption.
The inalienable natural right of a family to rehabilitation was eroded. Profiteering from public resources by officials is not a new phenomenon. For example, children were used as a resource and shipped to Australia for exploitation on labour camps and farms. This crime was perpetrated on a grand scale by Authorities ostensibly responsible for their rehabilitation home to families. Children were often lied to, being told their parents were dead and mothers and fathers were kept in the dark.
During the nineteen seventies and eighties, social and personal dislocations resulted in a rise in problems in the community. Faced with mounting public pressure for the prevention of child abuse; ‘quickie’ hearings and rubber-stamp commitments of a long-term nature for ever more trivial reasons became the practice.
Consistent with a growing trend towards ‘care in the community’ agencies were created by social workers to organise the placement of children and to guide paid carers. Foster –care developed into an industry with its own self-perpetuating instincts and commercial inclinations towards growth.
A pattern of injustice emerged which came to a head when Social workers and their consultant ‘experts’ instigated widespread witchcraft and sex-abuse cases across the country which resulted in the wrongful, mass removal of children from their family homes.
The violation of constitutional and human rights by the legal process and the system of expert assessment had become unacceptable to the Public. It has to be said that the sometimes criminal culture of child-abuse existing in care was also one of the driving forces for change. For the protection of innocent children and their families, legislature was rewritten and strict procedures relating to the fairness of social work enquiries and court protocol was set down by statute (The Children Act 1989).
Post -1989
In the wake of the Act, several crosscurrents have become apparent. Deep-seated public apathy, the cornerstone of false dogma mentioned above and the resistance of the ‘child savers’ has not extended the reforms beyond label changing. Despite the ambitious rhetoric of the law and because of the idealism of family court judges, actual changes have been limited by Social Services mismanagement.
Systemic failures including departmental mind-sets, the training of personnel, staff shortages, lack of sufficient finance and the facilities available to mend families predominate over aspirations.
Despite the constant repetition of fatherly platitudes, rather than working with the new law to improve matters and lessen problems by keeping children with families, Local Authorities deceptively sought to increase them.
New categories, criteria and ‘concerns’ were devised to deny families not guilty of specific crimes their rights and instances of child removal have rocketed.
In a supposedly more enlightened era, social work professionals have changed little in essence ethically. Many parents, if ever called upon to do so, will testify that they give unlawful evidence in court and still “ lie” to children; parents; foster-carers and other professionals.
Since 1989, it has been necessary to oust several paedophiles from positions of influence within the department in some areas. The erosion of generally accepted family rights continues.
Children are still moved around at will, often parted from siblings and too often placed long distances away from their roots. Whilst casting aspersions all around them and sending their own false messages, the CS allow only minimal contact provisions and deliberately discourage secure attachments to natural parents on the grounds that these would jeopardise placements by giving a child false hopes. Care-plans for long- term fostering are wrongly changed to ones of permanence despite the legal duty to plan for rehabilitation when it becomes possible; indeed the CS is charged with assisting such a natural process. Without any discussion of rehabilitation, schemes are even hatched to keep families separated when children reach 18.
The inalienable human rights of children to follow their own religious and cultural heritage are regularly compromised. The courts follow the advice of the CS which is that placements take first place.
It appears certain children (e.g. ASD) are being targeted for long-term foster care. Any child or parent not ‘squeaky-clean’ mentally or physically can easily become subject to the clichés used by ‘concerned’ social workers.
The institutional abuse of children continues by all reports, particularly in care homes apparently, and general neglect of ‘Looked After Children’ abounds.
Because, protection is not seen as punishment, normal rules of ‘reasonable doubt’ are invalid. Often the court bases its decisions on psychological, social work and CAFFCASS reports made without enforcement of guidelines. These cannot be disputed. Hearsay statements signed or not, also help to determine the court’s final order.
The final and perhaps most vital part of the family court proceedings , the disposition or care-plan phase has not been permeated by the strict rules laid out in the Children’s Act. The lower courts cling to the label of a civil proceeding to be decided on the ‘balance of probabilities’ supplied to them by the CS in its role of ‘child saviours’. The ‘due process’ rights of families are not rigorously enforced by lawyers and courts accustomed to a paternalistic role.
Informal procedures common to informal, undisputed family proceedings are transposed into infinitely more serious, disputed cases. To fulfill the role of state patriarch, the judges are so eager to assist the Local Authority, they will even take on the mantle of its advocate and arrange themselves for evidence in its favour. The Judges will put social workers into the witness box and ask them specific questions in order to satisfy points of law with more haste and justify seemingly extreme findings. No transcripts are ever issued.
In other words, the Courts look to Local Authorities to act correctly and absolutism thrives as a result.
Owing to all this, the protections extended to families are not yet included in family courts thus the Children’s Act has failed thus far.
Interestingly, however, it has been established in Common Law by the High Court that the removal of a child from family should never be ordered without the procedures having been adhered to meticulously.
A child’s right to substantive due process, the promise of fairness and their right to home rehabilitation implicit in The Children’s Act presents a great challenge and the biggest legal problem of all. Whether higher courts- by refusing to grant applications for leave to appeal, will continue to refrain from interfering with local judgments –or whether they will assert the family rights granted by Statute and reaffirmed in Common Law is a disquieting question. The answer is probably no, unless parents can get more influential backing for appeals by organisations by lawyers and the Legal Funding Commission.
I have described a ‘monolithic dogma’. Unfortunately, family support groups, schools, doctors and extended family members who actually witness malpractices are prone to it too and will give the benefit of any doubts they hold to the Authorities. Even witnesses who support a family, having given their evidence, if it goes against their views, will assume that a court made a decision based on fair procedure.
It is a massive task to overturn a pillar of such proportions but, after public outrage and demonstration, the Children’s Act 1989 went a long way towards achieving justice for children. Procedural rights are written into the Law. The responsibility for enforcing it lies with lawyers in the courtroom.
The Public need to understand exactly why injustices happen and I hope this potted history helps. The answer is the Courts over- reliance on the integrity of the CS and Local Authorities. On the historical evidence, Public demonstration and outrage are required before any real changes will come about.
‘Dirty tricks’ and illegitimate aims are different questions. Institutional corruption must be directed at a high level and only a Police enquiry will get to the bottom of those issues.
“Without any discussion of rehabilitation, schemes are even hatched to keep families separated when children reach 18.”
Yes I can certainly see this happening, I also agree that historically the poor have always been targeted as though it is a crime to be poor rather than a reflection of the society with live in. How anyone cannot see that there is a definite element of social engineering is beyond me.
I agree,Sam,, it is social engineering. However,in my book,there is nothing whatsoever wrong with social engineering.I wish i had the power to do a little bit of it myself.
Politics is basically social engineering and laws are acts of social engineering if you think of it. The whole point of it is to bring a happy existence for us all .
Where social engineerings goes wrong is when the Authorities carry it too far ,exceed their powers and impose (social engineering) plans and schemes,orders etc. which contravene the human rights of citizens. It is cruelty to children.Which is ,of course,why the Public instituted the Human Rights Act to protect ourselves .
The European Convention on Human Rights was instituted just after World War 2 ( around 1948) which was fought to put an end to the most savage and barbaric acts of human engineering ever seen. The convention was agreed mainly at the behest of the United Kingdom. It was agreed by all Europeans long before the EEC was thought of. So no one should be fooled into thinking that Brexit will affect our human rights. The EEC did not define them. The convention will stand as before. Don’t worry,the U.K. will not go back on conventions which we fought to impose on the World.
Except that is exactly what the Conservatives wish to do. So excuse me if I don’t share your optimism.
There is also newly published report on YPs’ views on being in residential accommodation in Wales here – http://www.childcomwales.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/The-right-care.pdf
Thank you Julie
I do like the way the report is set out, it is easy to read and understand.
I have picked out this so far bearing in mind I am a parent who is worried about what appears to be a somewhat slapdash way that young people are discharged from the care system : ” Elliott’s recent
research in Wales found that 181 of a total
of 402 (45%) of those leaving a children’s
home returned home to birth families.
Professionals said that if a young person
has consistently expressed their wish to return home on leaving care, the matter
should be “grasped” earlier to enable that
move to be done in a supported way. ”
This is not just a problem in Wales.
I suspect the authorities wish to contrive if possible to engineer a situation whereby the social dislocation ( the parting of families) is permanent and lifelong.
It is as though they want to prevent any form of genuine rehabilitation process.
It is hard to understand why when the reunification of families that is keeping families together should be the target everyone works towards. Not permanent liquidation.
This is why we have to question motives. They appear to want to physically stop these problem families from reproducing , to completely remove them from the equation and to eradicate ‘risk’ totally. Apart from an impossibility, such policies are inhumane.
They are chasing the impossible and need to do some soul-searching. What annoys me is that the research which we have been linked to is merely confirmation of what we have all known for years. Nothing ever seems to get done about it.
It is the duty of lawyers to stop the inhumanity. Only then will the LA’s reform practices.
Clearly, one tactic they use is to target the children of care-leavers on extremely questionable grounds. Quite how they do so needs exposing and we need to know the experiences of care-leavers to establish the full truth.
I hope care-leavers will contribute to the forums.Anecdotal evidence and personal experiences are very important.
I can report the experience of one 18 year-old care-leaver second hand to readers. She wanted to be reunited with her mum and went to great efforts to track her down.When the SW found out the poor girl was meeting her Mum,the department contrived to put a stop to it. How? By threats and coercion is how! She warned her that should she continue to engage with Mum , her own child would be taken for adoption. Can you imagine having to reply to such a cruel,inhuman demand? What choice would you make?
Is this why the other 55% don’t go home to family?