ADCS launches inquiry into the care system
Neil Puffett
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Directors of children's services have launched an inquiry into the purpose of the care system, as part of plans to radically improve provision for looked-after children across the country.
According to the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) paper, What is Care For?, a total “re-examination of the care system” is necessary to address long-standing problems.
Directors plan to probe three key areas including how to better serve the needs of young people in the care system, how to improve placement stability, and how to secure more permanent placements for children who are not adopted.
The paper highlights the lack of evidence on effective practice to support young people entering care, and the need to review how services are tackling the difficulties that young people in care face.
Special attention will be paid to services for adolescents and the links between young people who enter care as teenagers and then go on to become entrants to the youth justice system.
Work on placement stability will consider how early help services, as well as the child protection system, can do more to keep young people at home safely, rather than going in and out of care.
Meanwhile work on permanent places will consider how children who will not be adopted could be offered a permanent home.
This might involve reforming the system of kinship care, and considering how kinship carers might be better supported.
Andrew Webb, vice president of ADCS and one of the authors of the paper, said: “The care system serves some of the most vulnerable children and young people in our society, and sometimes, frankly, it does not serve them as well as it could.
“Directors of children’s services have taken the initiative to begin this piece of work considering the care system as a single system.
“We hear a lot about separate parts of the system reforming adoption, or children’s homes, for example - but these debates tend to be had in isolation.
“Instead this paper seeks to return to a child centred vision of the care system, a system that aims to ensure every child gets the right placement at the right time.
“Over the next few months we will be investigating these areas in more depth and will be making recommendations for improving policy and practice.”
