Ensuring every child has meaningful relationships on which they can depend
Cathy Ashley
Monday, August 7, 2023
A new government funding stream is available to local authorities (deadline 25 August) to help make it a reality that children in care and care leavers have the lasting relationships they can depend upon.
We all need people to turn to in our lives, for emotional and practical support – whether it’s family, friends or wider community. These relationships, formed from early childhood, also help shape our sense of who we are. Yet, for many children in the care system, these relationships are often broken.
Many are separated from their siblings, have to change school, are moved far away from family and friends, and some experience frequent changes of foster carers or children’s homes. Too often this leaves them isolated. Moreover, as they approach 18, they often face a care cliff, with their professional support systems disappearing leaving them more vulnerable to poverty, exploitation, poor mental health and loneliness.
It is therefore not a surprise, albeit a terrible indictment on our country, that 25 per cent of homeless people are care leavers, and that care leavers in England are over ten times more likely than their peers to be not in education, employment or training at the age of 21.
The charity Family Rights Group designed the Lifelong Links approach to turn this on its head.
The purpose of Lifelong Links is to ensure that children in care and care leavers have the meaningful relationships in their lives that we all need.
The child is at the centre of the approach - it only happens with the child’s agreement and it goes at their pace.
Lifelong Links was initially trialled between 2017 and 2020 in seven local authorities in England.
Family Rights Group is currently working with 32 local authorities in Britain to support them to implement Lifelong Links in their locality.
Isabelle Trowler, chief social worker for children and families at the Department for Education, has described Lifelong Links as “one of the most successful innovations in our sector in the last 10 years”. Family Rights Group’s ambition is that every child in care and care leaver is offered Lifelong Links, and of course that relationships aren’t broken in the first place.
The Lifelong Links approach involves a Family Rights Group trained Lifelong Links coordinator using a range of tools, to find and safely connect the child with relatives and others who care about them, such as former foster carers or their school friend’s mother. The network is brought together at a celebratory Lifelong Links family group conference where a lasting support plan is developed with and for the child or young people, which needs to be embedded in the local authority’s care or pathway plan.
The transformational impact of Lifelong Links is demonstrated extensively by multiple independent evaluations.
Professor Holmes’s evaluation of the initial three-year trial of Lifelong Links in England found that 78 per cent of children experienced an improved sense of identity. Significantly, Lifelong Links has improved the stability of children in care’s living arrangements, with 74 per cent of children remaining in their foster care or children's home compared with 41 per cent in the comparator group. In a subsequent longitudinal study, Professor Holmes also found a significant improvement in the wellbeing and mental health of children who had participated in Lifelong Links.
Reports from practitioners show a big impact on individual children’s lives. On average, children and young people expanded their social networks from seven to 26 individuals – a staggering increase. Some of these include grandparents who have been storing up birthday presents for their grandchild in the hope that one day they would be able to see them again. There are numerous examples of children finally starting to see brothers and sisters who they had been separated from, and being reacquainted with foster carers, pets, teachers and even former social workers who had been particularly important to them.
The ripple effect of Lifelong Links extends far beyond childhood. A study by Professor Michael Sanders at the King's College London Policy Institute in July this year showed that care leavers who experienced Lifelong Links are 10 per cent less likely to face homelessness. This powerful statistic demonstrates that strong family and community relationships are essential for young adults to thrive. Lifelong Links helps to achieve this.
At a time when local authorities are financially very hard pressed, there is now a new opportunity for all English local authorities to apply for funding from a £30 million Department for Education funding stream for children in care and care leavers in order to “help children in care and care leavers to identify and connect with important people in their lives and build stable, loving relationships.”
This is an ideal opportunity for local authorities to fund the introduction of Lifelong Links in their localities. The funding is until March 2025 and is part of the government’s stated commitment in its strategy Stable Home Built on Love “to put relationships at the heart of children’s social care.”
If your authority is interested in applying for funding to progress Lifelong Links, it is important that you contact Family Rights Group.
We can guide local authorities through this process and work through with you a bespoke package of support going forward which includes training independent Lifelong Links coordinators, provision of resources and guidance and helping you establish a high-quality Lifelong Links service for children in care in your area.
Applications to the DfE need to be submitted by 25 August 2023 so the timescales are very tight. Please contact lhutchinson@frg.org.uk if you would like to discuss this further.
Cathy Ashley is chief executive of the Family Rights Group.
