CYP Now Children in Care Supplement 2013

Foreword

The “perfect storm” of rising care applications and diminished resources is an all-too-familiar picture for children in care across the land. Another record-breaking year saw applications for 2012/13 exceed 11,000, and so the challenge of securing stable, loving homes and positive outcomes for society’s most vulnerable children and young people becomes ever greater.

These circumstances have resulted in some real examination and soul-searching on the very purpose of care for children. Local authorities and care charities alike have sought to ask some fundamental questions over the past 12 months about what works, through the Association of Directors of Children’s Services and The Care Inquiry, respectively.

This year’s Children in Care supplement sets out to address the main challenges head-on, and focuses the spotlight on some of the most innovative and effective practice.

The features inside look at how local areas are commissioning care placements, often together, with a focus on children’s outcomes rather than pure cost; the efforts to prevent sexual exploitation of children in the care system; opportunities for young people leaving the care system provided by the From Care2Work scheme; and how the provisions in the Children and Families Bill will work in practice – namely, the duties on councils to pursue “fostering-to-adopt” options and to appoint virtual school heads to track and boost school attainment for looked-after children.

Changes and challenges are not in short supply in the care system. They rarely are. But we must never forget that neither is the determination and dedication of a range of (usually unsung) professionals who devote all their energies to keeping children safe and giving them the best possible chance to have a good life.