Social workers must give children some stability

The Prime Minister recently set the sights high for children in care, announcing landmark reforms to allow children’s services departments that persistently fail to be taken over.

Children in care are the most vulnerable in society. Most have experienced traumatic events in their lives, many have been neglected, and all face growing up without their birth family around them.

The care system is vitally important but it is a means to an end – to provide every child with the best possible support to help them flourish. But children I meet often say that it doesn’t feel like this. Despite good intentions by often caring staff, many children say they don’t feel decisions are made with them.

Two concerns almost every child in care talks about are stability and trust. Many mention the number of placement moves they have had. Many have not been given enough say in where and when they were moved. They also question the amount of thought gone into matching them to placements.

Securing stable placements with trusted adults should of course be a priority for every social care manager. Suggested improvements from children themselves include having taster sessions to let children and foster families spend some time together; and ensuring a broad range of foster families so a choice is possible for the child and not just the prospective carers.

A poor match is often at the heart of a foster placement breakdown. In the national survey of children in care I published last summer, of the children who answered the question about placement moves, 50 per cent had not been moved within the previous two years but 40 per cent had moved between one and three times, and 10 per cent four or more times. Sometimes placement moves run into double figures.

Damaging disruptions
When you consider these can result in the need to change schools and healthcare arrangements as well, it is not hard to see how damaging they can be. No child would flourish with constant disruption of their home life, relationships and education, let alone those who are most in need of stability and trust because of past experiences.

On the quality of foster carers, young people say they want some input into foster care training. New methods of recruiting and training specialist carers are under way in parts of the country, as are foster hubs where carers support each other with more experienced carers taking the lead. But these approaches need to become the norm.

Sadly, it is the relationship with social workers about which children often say they are most disappointed. Stable relationships are at the heart of a successful time in care. Too many children don’t have the opportunity to build the relationships they need. High staff turnover, poor handovers between social workers and poor communication are experienced by many children. Some report multiple social workers in the last year – in some cases they move jobs before they have even met. Children want to see the disruption in these vital relationships brought to an end.

Over the coming weeks, I’ll be working with children to develop a pledge to which social workers can sign up – to guarantee regular contact, notification if there are changes, to attend meetings when arranged, and to reply to messages when received. All of these would be a normal expectation of any workplace or family relationship. The same level of expectation and courtesy must be the norm for children in care.

Sir Martin Narey’s current review of residential children’s care and a forthcoming care leavers’ strategy are causes for optimism. For the children I meet, the basic provision of strong, stable and loving relationships must be at the heart of reform.

Anne Longfield is children's commissioner for England