Children In Care Get "A Raw Deal" Say MPs In New Report

Children in care "get a raw deal" and the government is not doing enough to help them, MPs have said in a new report.

The report by the Commons Public Accounts Committee "Children in Care" says that in particular, the Department of Education shows "alarming reluctance to play an active role" in improving the lot of these children.

The report comes a day after Ofsted found child social care inadequate or requiring improvement in three quarters of the English local authorities it inspected last year, with services under "intense pressure".

The report says that 62% of children in care have suffered abuse and neglect but "too many still do not get the right placement first time, too many are moved too often, and too few are placed close to their homes."

In 2012-13 more than a third of children in care had more than one placement during the year, while a third of children in residential care and 14% of fostered children were placed more than 20 miles from home, it found.

The MPs say such instability can have a long term impact on emotional and physical health, social development, education and future employment prospects. They describe the gap in educational attainment between children in care and their peers as "shockingly wide".

The report urges the Department of Education to take an interest in the outcomes of its initiatives, evaluate progress and share successful practice.

It also urges the setting up of a national database of missing children, arguing that without such a register it is harder to find children who go missing from care, including victims of sex exploitation.

MPs also want the DfE to set out how it will attract more high-quality people into social work, to allow Ofsted to inspect council children's services more frequently and involve the watchdog in improvements between inspections.

New Report Says Children In Care Run Away Despite The Risks

Photograph by Pink Sherbert Photography

A new report from the Children's Rights Director for England finds that children in care are running away from placements despite being well aware of the dangers of sexual exploitation, drugs and gang culture.

The report Running Away 2012  found they ran away for many reasons, such as stress, anger and unhappiness at being in care.

The research gathered views from 62 girls and 36 boys from different ethnic backgrounds and in different types of placement.

The children identified many dangers associated with running away - getting raped, being sexually exploited, being stabbed, being kidnapped, being taken and trafficked for sex, being murdered, getting involved in drugs or being made pregnant.

However,  issues such as anger, stress, fear of people living in the same placement, feeling "you don't get what you want or need in your placement", not being listened to, being scared and getting away from bullies were felt to justify the risks associated with running away.

Children's Minister Edward Timpson said: "We have been very concerned that some local authorities and care homes are letting down children by failing to act as a proper 'parent'. "This is a very important report - which makes clear that carers and social workers need to listen and address children's concerns as early as possible, before it reaches the crisis point of them feeling they have no option but to run away."

Figures published by the Department for Education last month show the number of children in local authority care in England rose by 2% from 65,520 last year to 67,050 this year. 

Launch of GSCC's Practice Placement Report

The General Social Care Council (GSCC) today published its report, “The supply of social work practice placements: employers’ views” which analyses the views of employers on the provision of practice placements for social work students. This report is the first of five learning and research reports that will be published by the GSCC ahead of its closure on the 31 July 2012.

The press release which includes a link to the report can be found on the GSCC website - http://www.gscc.org.uk/news/47/Employers+value+experience+of+having+students+on+placements%2C+GSCC+report+finds.html

Kerrin Clapton, the author of the report has also written a blog for the Guardian Social Care Network which was published this morning. This can be viewed here - http://www.guardian.co.uk/social-care-network/2012/may/02/social-work-practice-placement-students