One small step for care, one giant leap required

These include requiring the decision to place a child far from home to be made by a senior official who is certain such a move is in the child’s best interests. In addition, children’s homes will be required to notify local authorities when children move in from other areas. On the workforce front, a “comprehensive review” of training, qualifications and career pathways for children’s home staff is promised.

All of this is welcome. As ever, it is the skills of staff that has the greatest potential to transform vulnerable children’s lives. Building trusting relationships is one such skill. It should also be a minimum requirement for children’s home staff to be trained specifically on child and adolescent development, loss and trauma, and attachment theory.

Sadly, this is not always the case. There are many excellent, dedicated residential care workers. But there are others who feel undervalued and unsupported in their day-to-day practice and career development. Lifting the overall status of this group of people who care for some of the most damaged young people in society cannot come soon enough. But children’s homes do not operate in a vacuum – and this is where the government response is limited.

Not so The Care Inquiry – a collaboration of charities representing all care options – which publishes its findings this week. It identifies relationships as the “golden thread” in the lives of children in care. These relationships go beyond the care setting. So, as well as emphasising the importance of improving the skills base of residential care staff (including calling for a requirement for children’s home managers to be qualified social workers), it urges more system-wide change.

The report calls on schools to prioritise the needs of children in the care system through mechanisms such as virtual school heads, employed by each council to track progress and identify the needs of the local in-care population. It also urges that foster carers and kinship carers get more access to training and support, and that Ofsted gives “proper attention to how high-quality relationships are built” in settings. In a similar vein, the Association of Directors of Children’s Services’ position statement on adolescent care also advocates whole-system change and for other agencies to play a bigger role in improving the lot of children in care.

The outcomes of children in care continue to lag their peers to a shameful degree. In an era of public spending cuts, can we really afford to leave it to local areas to discover the answers between themselves? The government’s changes for children’s homes should help matters in children’s homes. Longer-term though, reforms need to be broader and bolder if looked-after children are to get the care they deserve.

ravi.chandiramani@markallengroup.com