We must do more to support adolescents at risk
Andrew Webb
Tuesday, October 26, 2021
In October, the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory (FJO) published a set of papers on the theme of adolescents in care proceedings that incorporated a blend of qualitative and quantitative studies, with one notable headline finding: the number of 10- to 17-year-olds subject to care proceedings rose by 95 per cent between 2011/12 and 2019/20.
Increases in the oldest children coming into the system were particularly sharp, with 15-year-olds growing by 150 per cent and 16-year-olds by 285 per cent.
If this rise in the use of care for adolescents could be linked to significant improvements in its impact on life outcomes then it would be something to celebrate, but this is very far from the case: the studies show that planned placements are relatively rare, placement breakdown relatively frequent, and a third of those aged 16 received no final order. Sadly, this is all despite the principal finding of the 2012 What is Care For? report by the Association of Directors of Children’s Services that the cohort for which care was demonstrably least successful was those entering as adolescents.
Who are these children, and why are they coming into care despite the evidence of its limited positive impact on outcomes? While there has been an increase in the number of older adolescents being brought into proceedings on their own, 80 per cent of those aged 16 and above were in proceedings with younger siblings. This challenges the narrative that the main reason numbers have gone up is an understandable response to the risk to individuals of extrafamilial harm. In fact, where concern about extrafamilial risk factors did feature, it often existed alongside intrafamilial concerns including experience of chronic neglect and abuse, complex trauma, instability and loss – all of which are likely to affect challenging behaviours and vulnerability to risk in adolescence. The parents of many adolescents had significant and longstanding vulnerabilities, including high incidences of substance misuse, mental health problems and domestic abuse.
Although adolescents in care proceedings represent a small part of the care population and the work of children’s services, this is the cohort on which the most money is spent, with the least impact. This issue must not be ducked by the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care. The FJO identifies the need for more and better evidence from research, but it seems to me that we already know enough to get started. In a world where every penny matters, we need to spend more of it supporting families and less of it separating them from their children.
This is not an issue to be resolved by focusing on the market for care or organisational structures, it is a matter of practice: an issue that will only be resolved using the family as the lens, preferably without recourse to the courts. The reported variation between councils suggests that successful local solutions have been found, but the challenge of changing complex systems with all their resources locked into care placements should not be underestimated.
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Andrew Webb is independent chair of the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies