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Calls mount to boost advocacy services for vulnerable children

5 mins read Social Care
Children's rights professionals and charities say that improving children's access to advocacy services will boost their outcomes and save money in the long term, as provision across the country remains patchy

The welfare of looked-after children has occupied the political and media spotlight for much of this year.

Following a spate of reports and reviews regarding residential care and adoption, much of the debate has focused on the failure of local authorities and providers to deliver appropriate services to some of the most vulnerable children in the country.

As a result, children’s rights professionals and charities are calling for an overhaul of advocacy services for all young people living away from home, from looked-after children to young people in custody and children in residential special schools.

This is underpinned by the belief that enabling children to have a greater say over their care will lead to the right decisions being made for them at the earliest possible opportunity.

Children’s advocacy
John Kemmis, former chief executive of the advocacy charity Voice and now a children’s rights adviser, believes it is time to introduce a national strategy for the development of children’s advocacy across England (see "A national strategy for advocacy", below).

According to Kemmis, any such strategy must be backed by practical solutions to allow children the opportunity to access independent, child-centred and reliable advice wherever they may be.

“Advocacy has developed in a fairly ad hoc way over the past decade and the idea of a strategy is to get it on a much firmer footing,” says Kemmis.

“Particularly for children who are away from home or those whose parents are not able to provide advocacy on their behalf, there is a need to look at how children are supported when things are not going very well for them.”

Kemmis believes that current advocacy provision in England is far below the standards necessary for children to have a truly meaningful say in their care.

“There is no doubt that when there are competing priorities, children don’t have a very strong voice, especially children who are in need, or in prison, in care or a long way from home in special provision,” he says.

“If all children in care knew that they could access advocacy services, which clearly they do not, that would offer a safeguard for them. But providers must also be clear that access to advocacy is a duty.

“I believe it should be a requirement of all care providers to provide access to independent advocacy, not least because more care services are being privatised.”

Kemmis says that while there is an upfront cost involved in providing such services, delivering effective advocacy could reduce an organisation’s expenditure in the long term.

“If children have a voice in the decisions being made about their lives, those decisions are much more likely to be good and therefore will improve their outcomes,” he explains.

In July last year, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England published a report into the state of advocacy services in England.

The report concluded that there remains a postcode lottery for children in terms of the availability, independence and accessibility of advocacy, particularly for the most vulnerable children.

It also found that monitoring and evaluation of advocacy remains inconsistent.

Children’s commissioner for England Maggie Atkinson says: “There is currently a very patchy picture across the country and not all advocates are properly professionally registered or safeguarded or guided by their own professional standards.

Monitoring services
“Too often the services that children need – albeit extremely supportive and very well run – are delivered by short-term grant-funded voluntary organisations that are never sure what their long-term future might be. There is no proper national regulatory framework and there ought to be as there is for therapists, doctors or lawyers.”

Atkinson believes there is an opportunity to strengthen the monitoring of advocacy services as Ofsted inspections evolve.

“The plan to move towards joint inspections offers great hope because the aim is to look at an area from the child’s perspective, taking the expertise of the different inspectorates into the same space,” she says.

“It is about making people realise that if you can advocate for a child, their outcomes are likely to be better than if you can’t and poor outcomes are more expensive.”

The Children’s Society delivers advocacy services in seven areas across England and has undertaken a study of the effectiveness and cost of services and trends, including the characteristics of the young people supported and the types of issues that advocates work on.

David Hounsell, economic adviser at the charity, reaffirms the view that advocacy is currently “patchy” across England. “If you look at local authority data on spending, around a third don’t appear to be spending anything on advocacy for looked-after children,” he says.

“In our services, there has been a reduction in funding. Also, one or two of our services had been experiencing small reductions in funding even before the past few years, so when you look back five or six years, this can add up to quite a significant amount.”

Hounsell says that in some local authorities, the charity’s contract stipulates which children are eligible for advocacy, for example, children in care. But in other areas where they work, their contracts enable them to offer their services to all local children.

“We would support a call to look at revised standards and guidance surrounding advocacy and monitoring frameworks so that children’s rights are very clear and inconsistency is reduced,” Hounsell adds.

Communicating views
“The independence of the role is extremely important because advocates must be able to communicate the views of the child or young person. Training levels must also be appropriate for advocates and, importantly, provision must be accessible for all ages and groups, such as those with significant communication difficulties.”

Although England is yet to benefit from a solid plan for developing advocacy services, the Welsh government is working on a strategy to make professional independent advocacy available to all children involved with the state, particularly those who are looked-after, as a matter of urgency.

The National Children’s Advocacy Consortium is hoping to follow in Wales’s footsteps. It published a report earlier this year saying that there should be a regulatory framework “to monitor both the provision and quality of independent advocacy”.

Wendy Banks, co-chair of the consortium, says the organisation is currently working on revised national standards for advocacy, which will ultimately form part of its proposals for a national overhaul of services.

“We’re developing work on what are essentially elements of a strategy,” she says. “That includes proposals on training for professionals, young people’s access to services, funding, monitoring and inspection. It’s a 12- to 18-month programme of work to promote advocacy, so we’re starting with those national standards.”



A national strategy for advocacy

John Kemmis, former chief executive of the charity Voice and now a children’s policy consultant, believes there are three key areas that must be addressed to strengthen and improve advocacy ?services across England.

Access – Children living away from home must be informed about advocacy services and how to get help when they need it. There should be a requirement on all providers of care to arrange for an ?independent advocacy service and the strengthened children’s commissioner post could be required to monitor the ?effectiveness of services.

Quality – All advocates should hold the national advocacy qualification and be attached to accredited advocacy ?organisations. Agencies delivering services should be registered and signed up to a set of agreed standards.

Funding – Resources to fund advocacy should follow the child as part of a care package and advocacy contracts should be commissioned on a minimum five-year basis to make sure there is a continuity of provision. Funding to train the advocacy workforce should also be made available.

A national standard with clear expectations on service providers and commissioners is required, otherwise failings in the care of vulnerable children will continue. Such an approach would also support the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child requirement for children to be able to express their views.

“It is acknowledged that the care, youth justice and refugee systems, as well as services for children with disabilities or special needs, do not always live up to the standards children need,” he says. “Independent advocacy can provide a crucial safeguard to ensure their wishes and feelings are heard and respected. We need to raise the profile of advocacy. It must be seen as a mainstream service and not as a token add-on.”

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