Speaking to an assembled group of senior leaders in children and young people services in Manchester, Ann Graham, President of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS), today said:
On What is Care For?
“Today, ADCS is publishing an update to our position statement, What is Care For? This time, in this newly updated version, we’ve really honed in on the needs of adolescents.
“We’ve not shied away from the hard questions of ourselves either, like, is care always the right or best response to a young person who is being criminally exploited or making attempts on their own life? In the absence of an alternative, sometimes, we find, it’s the only available option.”
On exploitation, violence and safeguarding adolescents
“We know that children who are missing from one area are often missing together with their friends from another area. They are being criminally exploited for the purposes of financial gain, trafficked to ‘transport and sell’ drugs across the country.
“Children exploited in this way are often also exposed to violence, which has become normalised in society. I think this is shocking and often wonder how did we get here?
“As a sector, we know that a critical protection against violence and exploitation is reducing school exclusions so that children remain in education, with the support of all agencies working together; schools, social care, early help and health services, this can be done. This is challenging, collaborative work.
“I hope that the work we will do together, with government, our statutory partners and others, is such that, we incrementally find ways of keeping more and more children in the school system so that they have supportive opportunities to be safe and to maximise their life chances.”
On NEETs
“Alan Milburn recently published his interim report on his review of young people and work. The findings should be a warning to us all about the consequences of a shrinking public sector combined with policy decisions that do not prioritise or centre on the needs of children and childhood. It is not surprising to me that we are seeing the impact of this now in real time, a child turning 16 this year has grown up only under austerity.
“The ‘Milburn review’ was clear, some of the biggest predictors of becoming NEET are having an education, health and care plan or SEND need and missing school. The latest statistics show two million children and young people have SEND needs and the numbers of pupils who are persistently absent, suspended, excluded or home educated continue to rise with no indication of when these trends will reverse. Conference, this should be a worry to us all. A big, bold response is needed.”
On SEND and inclusive education
“Creating an inclusive education system, where every child and young person can achieve and thrive, is our collective number one priority and will transform the position we find ourselves in now. We must learn the lessons of the past in order to avoid repeating them:
- A lack of genuine shared accountability across education, health and care partners;
- Local authorities carrying responsibility for delivery without the necessary levers to influence provision or spending;
- EHCPs becoming the primary gateway to support and funding, driving escalating demand;
- Funding arrangements that incentivise crisis intervention and escalation rather than early support;
- An approach to funding that has generated unsustainable financial pressures and growing deficits (notional budgets anyone?); and,
- An overemphasis on compliance and process as a measure of successful reform implementation, rather than on the quality of provision and outcomes for children and young people…”
On tackling structural inequalities
“Socio-economic status can drive the level and type of intervention children and families receive, whether that be higher intervention of children’s social care where there are indicators of social disadvantage, ongoing racial disproportionality in the youth justice system, particularly for our Black and mixed-heritage boys, or how racism and discrimination is experienced both by families, and staff, in maternity services… It can feel challenging to raise these issues in a political and diverse world, but we mustn’t shy away, it’s incumbent on us all to strive to do more.”
On early intervention and family hubs
“The early years is where we can collectively set the foundation for the best start in life, working with parents and in wider family contexts, to build the resilience and stability children need to thrive in childhood.
“There is great work being done in family hubs up and down the country and with a commitment to full roll out, more areas are set to benefit from this way of working.
“But this is about more than buildings and individual children, it’s about community resilience.”
On coherent and manageable reform
“The layering of significant reform which we are currently experiencing is like nothing before, it is overwhelming and we have been raising the alarm with government.
“We are in the process of change but we are changing cultures as well as systems. And culture change takes time! The real risk is that we don’t achieve the vision because we are stretched too thinly across multiple and often competing priorities, and don’t have the time needed to properly embed the changes we are making. For some of us, and I’m speaking about my colleagues experiencing LGR, the ask is even more daunting and the risks are even more stark.”
“… ADCS is ready to work with government across the plethora of reforms but we must be a partner in that process. DCSs understand our local places, can make the right connectivity and deliver because we know our children, we know our families and we know our communities.”
The full speech can be found on the ADCS website www.adcs.org.uk
ENDS
