Minister for Children and Early Years
Adam Ingram
Launch of Inverclyde's Children's Champion Scheme
October 4, 2007
I am delighted to be asked to speak at this unique event. The Scottish Government is committed to improving outcomes for looked after children, and as Minister for Children and Early Years, I am personally committed to ensuring that all our children achieve their full potential to become happy, confident and achieving and make an effective contribution to society.
My aspiration is that there should be no difference between the achievements of children and young people who have experienced the care system and their peers who have not.
To achieve that aspiration we need to be more aspirational for children, for the contribution that professionals and carers can make and for the contribution that we as politicians can make in providing leadership and setting high standards.
Inverclyde is the first council is Scotland to try this approach to corporate parenting. At its very heart is the recognition that people at the most senior levels can make a difference by being aspirational for children. Your champions have the clout to make a difference, at an organisational level and for individual children. You'll be taking on the role of the pushy parent for children who may never have received support from their own families.
Last week I spoke at the Scottish launch of the Buttle Trust's Quality Mark which recognises universities who provide excellent support to undergraduates who are care leavers. This is a great example of supporting young people to fulfil their aspirations. For too long, we have assumed that young people leaving care would not go on to further or higher education, but attitudes are changing and we increasingly know that this is not good enough.
At that event, I heard a young graduate who had been in care speak about the difference that stability, high quality support and security can make - she embodies my belief that if those things are in place, there are no limits to what you can achieve. As any parent would, councils have an ongoing responsibility to support care leavers as they make their way into independence.
Councils are entrusted with turning around the life experience of our most vulnerable young people. Children come into care from troubled early circumstances and I am under no illusions as to the challenge that you face in supporting them.
Council services touch every part of a young person's life, and we have an additional statutory responsibility for looked after children and young people, and the role of councils, with your community planning partners, as corporate parents is one of your most important - these are your children.
Children in care need to live somewhere they feel safe and nurtured; a place they can call home, a place free from abuse and harm, a place where they feel safe and confident to express their views, a place where they have space to develop into well-rounded successful and responsible adults.
I want to encourage all councils to show the aspiration that Inverclyde is showing here today. That is why today I am announcing one-off funding of £2.5 million for local authorities to support corporate parenting. For Inverclyde, that means an additional £53,000.
I will be writing to all Council Leaders, and officials will be writing to Chief Executives, to clarify the details, but it is my intention that this money will help to support your activities to improve outcomes for looked after children and young people through such activities as elected member development, multi-disciplinary training, producing written material and celebrating success.
The Scottish Government is committed to developing outcome agreements with local government. It is important for you to be clear locally about how your activities will contribute to achieving improved, sustainable outcomes for young people, and that you measure the impact of local activity as part of the self-evaluation processes.
For too long, our most vulnerable children have been left behind in the general improvement in educational attainment and prosperity which has been seen across the wider population.
While the achievement of the majority has seen year on year improvement, for looked after children educational attainment, success in getting into further or higher education, employment or training has stubbornly remained poor, as have homelessness, offending behaviour and health. This is no longer acceptable.
Many children who come into public care have lived in circumstances which are extraordinarily difficult and challenging, and too often when the state has intervened, their experience has fallen short of what we would want or expect. We must ask ourselves, "Is this good enough for my child?"
As a Government, we are clear that early intervention and prevention are critical. Identifying problems early in a child's life and providing effective early support and intervention can often pay dividends in the longer term. If we can develop better support for families, centred on the needs of the child and the family, or identify at an early stage where that will not bring about sufficient change, we can ensure that the right children are in care and that resources are targeted towards those that need them most.
As you have done in Inverclyde through your Talkback project, we must listen to those who have been in care, and try to understand how it really feels to be in their position. What makes a difference to children who may have been taken away from their families, who may have moved from carer to care, from school to school? They have little certainty in their lives, little consistency and little opportunity to build lasting relationships.
It can be the small things that make a difference, like having someone to take an interest in your progress at school, to make sure you attend regularly, to praise you when you do something well.
So that is the challenge - every child in care is your child. You are responsible for their welfare and support, just as we are for our own children. But how can a council be a good parent to individual children who all have their own needs, aspirations and personalities?
What is the safety net for young people leaving care and moving into adulthood? Most young people do not leave home at 16, or even 18, nowadays, yet not only do we expect looked after children to leave home, but also to go and live in bed and breakfast, or on their own in difficult areas. We expect to be at the end of a phone for our own children when they leave home, a source of emotional, financial and practical support. Who does that for care leavers? The very phrase "care leaver" implies that there will no longer be anyone who cares.
Accommodation is an area where every local authority, as a Corporate Parent, needs to ensure that young people are well supported.
I am particularly anxious to ensure that councils act collectively to fulfil their responsibilities to looked after children, and that elected members have the tools to challenge officers, and to hold them to account for the outcomes of the children in their care. Guidance will be produced in spring of next year, drawing from existing good practice, and the experience you have with this work in Inverclyde will inform it.
What is clear to me is that children and young people who have experience of the care system are no less able than their peers. It is our job therefore to provide them with every support and opportunity to aspire to and reach their goals in life. We have a duty to ensure that we give those young people who need them more choices and chances to succeed.
By giving young people the support they need and the chance to develop their full potential, together we will all contribute towards making Scotland healthier, safer, stronger, fairer and smarter.
On that note I will conclude by thanking Councillor McCabe and Inverclyde Council for inviting me to today's event and wishing you all the best with your Children's Champion Scheme. Enjoy being pushy parents!