Letters to the Editor: The lad is not for Turing

I fear that Jane Racz (Turing Scheme: how young people can benefit from opportunities, CYP Now March) protests rather too much in her articulation of, and advocacy for, the UK’s new Turing Scheme that, whatever its strengths, is a pale shadow of the EU’s well-established Erasmus+ programme that it replaces.

The Brexit deal did not include the UK’s participation in Erasmus+, a package of exchange programmes financed by the European Union that has developed over the past 30 plus years. Many will have heard of Erasmus, the student mobility programme, but there is much more to Erasmus+ than that. Hence the PLUS. It is about universities, vocational education, school exchanges and “ordinary kids”.

Disingenuously, UK ministers have skilfully portrayed the “Erasmus” programme (they conveniently overlook the +) as for privileged young people – students – and proclaim the Turing Scheme as serving more disadvantaged young people, ignoring the fact that the “youth” element of the EU’s programme already gives priority to young people “with fewer opportunities”. Moreover, within Erasmus+, the EU first doubled the amount available for ordinary kids, and it has just doubled it again. The budget for the next seven years for Erasmus+ overall will be more than ¤23bn. The UK’s funding of the Turing Scheme to the tune of £100m this first year pales into insignificance.

It is argued that the Turing Scheme will also enable young people to develop soft skills and key skills, and that it will enhance intercultural tolerance and understanding. That is what Erasmus+ was already doing. Erasmus+ has built on learning over many years, ensuring opportunities for all kinds of young people and those who work with them. Young people are now to be only partially provided for, and the latter will now have no possibilities for the professional exchange of knowledge, experience and practice.

The Turing Scheme, initiated by a Department for Education that has no responsibility for the non-formal education and learning sector, is an attempt to reinvent the wheel that need not have been abandoned when the UK left the EU. We can but hope that the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, in its review of youth work in England, may help to square the circle. Wales has already set that ball rolling through announcing its international learning exchange programme, one that it claims will plug the gaps that Turing has exposed.

Professor Howard Williamson, University of South Wales

Kinship charity name change

We wanted to let you know that kinship care charity Grandparents Plus has changed its name to Kinship, to better represent that the organisation supports all kinship carers, while reflecting the diversity of the kinship care community. Although many kinship carers are grandparents, about half are siblings, aunts or uncles or friends.

The name change is designed to remove barriers that might prevent people from contacting the charity and to communicate its purpose and relevance more effectively.

At a time when the number of children going into local authority care is higher than it’s been for decades, kinship carers are playing an essential role raising and caring for hundreds of thousands of children.

Many kinship carers face huge challenges, and don’t always get the recognition and support they need and deserve. While all its services, networks and community will stay the same, Kinship believes its new name will help to give kinship carers a collective, more visible identity that will lead to them being more respected, valued and supported.

Ruth Barrows, Kinship

Is Care Review part of a consultation overload?

I very much agree with Jonathan Stanley’s points about the raft of reviews taking place related to young people in care (Sector “overwhelmed” by raft of inquiries running alongside Care Review, campaigners warn’ cypnow.co.uk 22 March). Apologies in advance, but there’s a part of me that is a bit “seen it before”. What has changed (and what has not) as a result of even the recent set of reviews (Narey/Owers’ Foster Care in England, Narey’s Residential Care in England, to name but two)?

There’s a case for the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care in England to bring all this work together. But one that has such a broad agenda to cover in such a short time? The voice of care experience should be at the centre of any review but sector organisations also have a key role to play. Yet there’s little indication that the various reviews running in parallel recognise that they may cover the same ground, consulting with the same people. Consultation overload? Yup. But if the review leads can promise real change, I’m there!

Once again, we’ll be positive, hope for the best, carefully consult, send in some considered ideas. But these reviews take us away from our core role – it costs time and money to have people in meetings and writing submissions – so it has to be worth it. I wonder what the cost-benefit analysis would say?

Harvey Gallagher, chief executive, Nationwide Association of Fostering Providers