The move follows a report by the joint Parliamentary committee on the Bill, which called for it to ensure care planning reflects the "multi-disciplinary, regularly reviewed, advocacy-based" procedures of the Children Act 1989.
Nancy Kelley, senior policy officer for Barnardo's, said that despite the vulnerability of children taken into compulsory care, under current 1983 mental health legislation there was no requirement for appropriate local authority staff to be contacted when they were examined, and for a child-in-need assessment to take place.
Although the provision for this existed in the Children Act 1989, she said if there was no requirement for it to happen when the new Bill went through, children's wider needs would continue to go unmet.
She claimed this was exacerbated by the assessment's narrow focus on measuring clinical standards to see if the criteria for compulsory treatment had been met, rather than identifying community or educational support.
"Parallel assessments need to happen if we want to try to understand families' needs and how best to support children. We need to think about more than clinical treatment."
She believed it was crucial that social services were involved with families throughout the process as part of care and discharge planning, and that the welfare principles of the Children Act, currently only contained in the Bill's code of practice, needed to be made explicit.
The committee also opposed the Bill's proposal to treat 16- and 17-year-olds as adults rather than children, warning they needed to have access to safeguards available to children that the Bill will introduce. These include a review every three months and an individual written care plan, approved by an independent medical expert.
Kelley, a spokeswoman for a coalition of charities that submitted evidence to the committee, including NCB, NCH, YoungMinds and the Children's Legal Centre, also supported the committee warning that 16-and 17-year-olds, many of whom were in care, were likely to be vulnerable.
However, Sue Bailey, chair of the child faculty of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, supported the Bill.
"It's appropriate in terms of what we know about children's autonomy and capacity," she said. "By 16 they may have left school or work and are making their own decisions.
"I'm not saying parents shouldn't be involved but young people should be empowered in their own decision-making."
- www.publications.parliament. uk/pa/jt/jtment.htm.
