Rifling through the pages of this week's Children Now suggests that looked-after children would be a good place to start. There is a range of issues that must be addressed. For instance, the Analysis on page 11 investigates what needs to be done to close the gap between the educational performance of children in care and their peers. And one of our features profiles local authorities and independent providers that have developed innovative approaches to increasing their supply of local foster carers, to coincide with Foster Care Fortnight (p20).
However, the news story on page eight reveals worrying evidence of how some social workers are trying to help the children in their care. Results from a Fostering Network survey has discovered that some carers feel "blackmailed" by social workers into taking children they don't have the skills or experience to care for.
What the research doesn't state is the effect of such placements on the children and carers involved. But it doesn't take much of a leap to see a link between such practices and outcomes like poor exam results and placement instability. It also may help to explain why some local authorities struggle to retain experienced foster carers, never mind attract new ones.
This research also raises, but doesn't answer, the question of why this happens. One explanation must be that social workers are acting out of desperation and a misguided belief that a placement will help the child in the short term. If this is true, then this desperation stems from a lack of children's social workers, the shortage of 10,000 foster carers, and real pressure on councils to reduce the number of looked-after children placed out of authority.
While it is only right that social workers must stop the practice, if central government prioritised looked-after children, and the services they receive, it could ensure that some of the UK's most vulnerable children, their carers and social workers are no longer placed in impossible situations.
