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2 Looked after children in Scotland today
I mean you have to understand why you're in this situation, … and that there's nothing you could have done and that maybe this is the best thing that could have happened to you. (Ross)
Context
9. The Scotland Act 1998 (schedule 5) sets out the national commitment made at the time of devolution to working towards a fairer society for all Scots.
The prevention, elimination or regulation of discrimination between persons on the grounds of sex or marital status, on racial grounds or on grounds of disability, age, sexual orientation, language or social origin or of other personal attributes, including beliefs, or opinions, such as religious beliefs or political beliefs.
10. Scotland has serious problems of alcohol and drug misuse, poverty, violence and self-harm both in the cities and in rural areas. Glasgow has one of the highest murder rates of any western European city (The Herald 27 March 2006). Scotland has a prison population on average amongst the highest of any European country. The Scottish Executive has responded to these issues with a number of strategies to reduce suicide, violence and enhance educational opportunities. 1 However, there are still inequalities in health, employment and education.
11. A number of research studies (Scottish Executive 2002c) tell us that children who become looked after are mostly drawn from families who live in areas of deprivation and disadvantage. In addition to experiencing loss, separation and family conflict, children who become looked after are likely to have had reduced opportunities in many areas of their early lives.
12. The growing complexity of modern society appears to be affecting the welfare of all children in the United Kingdom. Two studies (Meltzer et al. 2004 and Griffiths 2005) have concluded that the mental health of British adolescents has declined over the last 30 years, a unique trend, since other countries experienced stable levels of child and adolescent mental health problems during this time. Griffith's study notes that:
Adolescence is the most tumultuous period of life. Young people must learn new social roles, develop new relationships, and manage enormous physical changes and far-reaching decisions about their futures, yet the attendant mental health issues are often ignored (2005:4) .
13. Research by Griffiths shows that adolescent emotional problems such as depression and anxiety have increased since the mid 1980s. Adolescent conduct problems show a steady rise for both boys and girls over the 25 year study period " Most striking is the fact that rises in mental health problems have occurred despite improvements in economic conditions and physical health" (2005:8).
14. The studies found that children from poorer families have a greater risk of experiencing mental health problems. Family discord and stressful life events are positively linked with mental health issues. The studies also identified that certain groups of children are at greater risk of experiencing mental health problems, "children with severe illnesses, disabilities and learning difficulties, looked after children, the young homeless and young offenders" (Griffiths 2005:8).
How many children are looked after?
15. Local authorities and the Scottish Executive collect annual data on looked after children. The term 'looked after' includes children who are living at home and children living away from home in foster or residential care. At any one time, the number of looked after children varies, as children start and stop being looked after. The number of children starting to be looked after during the financial year 2004-05 was 4,333, which was 5% less than in 2003-04. The only group within which there was an increase in starting to be looked after were boys less than one year of age and girls aged one to four years. This may be a result of the increasing numbers of young children referred for child protection inquiries. There was a 15% increase in the numbers of boys aged zero to four years and a 7% increase for girls in the same age range (Scottish Executive statistics 2005). The number of very young children who were looked after in 2005 was 0.5% of the child population of Scotland.
16. On 31 March 2005, 12,185 children were being looked after by local authorities, 1.1% of all children and young people under 18 in Scotland.
Table 1. Care setting of all looked after children by percentage on 31 March 2005
Looked after children living at home or with extended family/friends | Looked after children living with foster carers, prospective adopters | Looked after children living in residential accommodation | Looked after children living in secure accommodation |
|---|
57% | 30% | 12% | 1% |
17. Of those children who are looked after away from home, 67% live in foster care. The pattern of care for children between residential and foster care has changed in the last 30 years.
Table 2. Changing numbers of children in foster and residential care 1976-2005
| 1976 | 1987 | 1996 | 2005 |
|---|
Children living in residential care | 6,242 | 2,784 | 2,001 | 1,539 |
|---|
Children living in foster care | 3,763 | 2,750 | 2,620 | 3,630 |
|---|
18. Residential accommodation for children and young people is provided in local authority homes, voluntary sector homes, residential schools and other residential accommodation. Finding an average cost for this category of care is difficult. Schools include the cost of education. Some places provide special care for children with complex needs and there is a wide range of providers in the voluntary and private sectors.
19. The cost of placing children in foster care is difficult to assess accurately as local authorities pay their carers different rates. A study by the British Association for Adoption and Fostering ( BAAF) and The Fostering Network ( TFN) (2005) estimated that the payments to foster carers in Scotland varied from £120 per week to a maximum cost of £385 per week. The same report estimated that local authorities needed to spend more on foster care, both in developing support and training and also in payments to families.
20. Less than 2% of young people who are looked after and accommodated live in secure accommodation. This group of young people presents some of the greatest challenges to the staff who care for them, as they require a high level of support and resources to meet their needs. Services for them are particularly costly to run. The average cost of a bed in secure care per week in 2004-05 was £3,458 per child. The overall estimated cost for secure accommodation in Scotland is £16.6 million, an 8% increase on the previous year. Boys outnumber girls in secure accommodation but the ratio has changed. In 2000 there were 71 boys in secure units and 16 girls, in 2005 there were 65 boys and 35 girls.
21. The numbers of looked after children vary in different parts of the country. There is likely to be a relationship between areas which have high levels of deprivation, and children being looked after. Other factors, such as local authority policies on family support and resources, may also affect rates of looked after children. We discuss this further in this review.
Who are the children looked after by local authorities?
22. Although in this review we refer to children and young people, all are individuals with different needs. Where appropriate throughout this review we discuss the needs of particular groups of children and young people. These include children of different age groups, boys and girls, children from black and minority ethnic ( BME) communities, children from travelling families, disabled children, and gay and lesbian young people.
23. Children and young people who live in rural and remote parts of Scotland belong in all the groups we discuss. However, becoming looked after can have particular implications for them, for example a plan to sustain them in their own community can be hampered by limited resources. A decision for a looked after child or young person to be accommodated can result in them being moved a long way from home.
Gender and age
24. The experience of children and young people who are looked after is determined to a considerable extent by their age and gender. Girls are more likely to be adopted and fostered (Sinclair 2005). Boys, especially as they get older, are more likely to be cared for in residential settings and they outnumber girls in secure settings. In the last six years, there has been growth in the number of very young children (aged below one) becoming looked after, from 50 children in every 1000 in 2000, to 92 children in every 1000 in 2005. The reasons for this increase are not yet clear. There are speculative suggestions about the impact of drug misuse amongst parents and increased contact by agencies with young children and their families, which are discussed in chapter 7.
Children and young people from black and minority ethnic ( BME) communities
25. The 2001 census found that people in BME communities live throughout Scotland but the majority have settled in urban areas. BME communities are much younger, over 50% are aged less than 30 years compared to 35% for the whole population. In 2005 the Scottish Executive estimated there were 188 BME children who were looked after. The Scottish Executive annually collect information on the ethnic background of looked after children and also those children starting to be looked after during the reporting year. From 2006-07 the Scottish Executive will also collect information on the ethnic background of those children eligible for aftercare services.
26. Singh (2005) identified that 45% of black and minority ethnic looked after children are described as being of mixed parentage. It is likely that most black and minority ethnic children in Scotland are placed with white foster families.
The profile of children in foster care in Scotland is culturally more diverse than the foster carers, with 2.5 % of children from an ethnic background other than British while only 0.6% of foster carers are from other cultures or communities (The Fostering Network 2005:5).
Children and young people from different faiths
27. We know little about the issues of faith and children who become looked after. A study of children's perspectives on believing and belonging (Smith and Khanom 2005) looked at the impact that religion has on young people's lives by examining the extent to which religion contributes to shaping both their identities and the type of social networks within which they find themselves.
It found that:
Friendships develop across and between religious and ethnic groups in primary school although this experience changes outside school, where children's choice of friends is often shaped by family circumstances and religious affiliation…The amount of time spent by the more observant children on their religion impacts on their relationships outside school, with more devout children having less social interaction with other children (Smith and Khanom 2005:1).
28. Some of the young people we met told us that carers or staff did not always understand the significance to them of their faith.
Children and young people from travelling families
29. Children from travelling families are a small proportion of looked after children and little is known about their experience of being looked after. Travelling people are not legally members of an ethnic minority in Scotland 2 (unlike England). There is evidence that they have suffered discrimination for generations. As the Deputy Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality has stated " prejudice and overt discrimination are the daily experience of gypsy and traveller people." 3
30. In evidence presented to an equal opportunities committee of the Scottish Parliament, the voluntary organisation Save the Children asked over a hundred gypsy traveller children whether there had been any improvements for them since an inquiry in 2001. 84% felt that discrimination against them had got worse, 77% felt that their living conditions whether on camp sites or houses remained the same or had got worse. 71% reported that conditions at school were either the same or worse and 84% said that access to a dentist or doctor had remained the same or had got worse (Commission for Racial Equality 2005.)
Disabled children
31. Disabled children and children affected by disability account for about 15% of looked after children. 50% of the children and young people have social, emotional and behavioural difficulties while the remainder have physical or learning disabilities, mental health problems or multiple disabilities. Some looked after children are affected by a family member with a disability. Most disabled children who are in foster care are looked after not because of their disability, although this may be a contributing factor, but for the same reasons as other looked after children, namely the existence of risk or abuse (Sinclair 2005).
32. For many years children with complex needs were cared for in hospitals. This has declined in the past 20 years with the advent of care in the community. Short breaks are now offered in family homes or in small residential units staffed by people with nursing and social care backgrounds. The costs of these different services vary, but for children with very complex needs the costs per child can be in the region of £2,000 per week. Children and young people who live in remote communities cannot always have these met in their home area. The provision of a short break can mean a long journey from home and a high cost of fares for parents who may want to visit them.
Gay and lesbian young people
33. The needs of gay and lesbian young people who are looked after have not been recognised widely. We refer to the work of the Albert Kennedy Trust ( AKT), which was set up some years ago to support gay and lesbian young people who are looked after.
34. The Trust believes that many young people are either not believed if they say they are lesbian, gay or bisexual or it is assumed to be a phase. Often professionals are unwilling to work with young people under the age of consent who are having sex. The Trust suggests that some professionals and foster carers do not understand the needs of lesbian, gay and bisexual young people. The Trust website explains the background as follows:
In 1989, 16 year old Albert Kennedy fell to his death from the top of a car park in Manchester whilst trying to escape a carload of 'queer bashers'. Albert was a runaway from a children's home in Salford and was depressed. His short tragic life had been filled with rejection and abuse. Manchester's gay community was moved into action by the Trust's founder patron Cath Hall, a heterosexual foster carer who admitted she could not meet the full range of needs of gay and lesbian kids coming through her care. As a result AKT was formed and in 1990 became a registered charity. AKT's mission is:
To ensure that all lesbian, gay and bisexual young people are able to live in accepting, supportive and caring homes, by providing a range of services to meet the individual needs of those who would otherwise be homeless or living in a hostile environment. ( www.akt.org.uk/history)
35. The Albert Kennedy Trust does not operate in Scotland. We think it is important to find out more about the needs of gay and lesbian and transgender young people who are looked after.
Why do children become looked after?
36. Children may be looked after for many different reasons, including protection from harm and abuse. Parents who are unable to look after their child may ask a local authority to do so. Young people aged over 16 years may choose to be looked after for a variety of reasons, including abuse, domestic violence or stress at home. Local authorities must provide accommodation for children who are lost, abandoned, or whose parents are unable to care for them. In all other circumstances the local authority may provide accommodation for children to safeguard and promote their welfare. Local authorities can provide accommodation to children and their families as part of a range of supports designed to help family problems. The legal options available to families and local authorities are discussed in McRae (2006).
37. When the 1964 Kilbrandon committee recommended an integrated child welfare and justice system, it argued that children who offend and those children who are in need of care and protection are very often the same. This is just as true today. Around 25% of children referred to hearings, are referred for reasons that include both offending and concerns about their safety and welfare. The majority of children who offend frequently were first referred to hearings as much younger children, usually between the ages of five and nine, because they needed care and protection. We discuss in chapter 7 the need to make sure that work with children and their families is effective at making and sustaining positive change over time.
38. In 2004-05 there was an increase in the number of children added to child protection registers because of physical neglect (up 2% from 2003-04). There were decreases in the number of children registered because of physical injury (down 15%), emotional abuse (down 13%) and sexual abuse (down 3%).
Why looked after children are often further disadvantaged once they become looked after
39. All children who are looked after and accommodated have experienced the trauma of being separated from their birth parents. In addition, many of them have experienced neglect, abuse and rejection or the early effects on their development of parental substance misuse. Only 1% of all looked after children go on to university compared to 50% of the general population; 46% of young women and 59% of young men leave school without any qualifications.
Looked after children can too often become needy, disenfranchised and alienated adults. It is widely accepted that they are more likely to need mental health services, go to prison, be homeless and have their own children removed from them. The cost of wasted potential, of long-term support services including the cost of imprisonment, and of another generation of children in public care is almost beyond comprehension ( BAAF and TFN 2005:4).
40. A young man of 21 who contributed to the review and is currently studying at university was in foster care for ten years. He reflected on the question, 'what would you say to the government about how we should make things work for looked after young people?' as follows:
I know … that not everything can be done for everybody, but … I can only say my experience … I was under supervision from when I was eight years old and there was consistency for me throughout that whole time. You know, there's never anything in the press about people such as myself having a nice time in care, its always about how young people got beaten up and tortured. It's always bad publicity in the papers and the news … it's just nonsense. (Fraser)
Further reading:
Joseph Rowntree Foundation (2005) Children's perspectives on believing and belonging
BAAF and TFN (2005) The cost of foster care - Investing in our children's future
MELDI (2002) Working together assuring race equality in partnership working with minority ethnic families of disabled children a protocol for inclusive service
Prevatt Goldstein, B and Spencer, M (2000) Race and Ethnicity A consideration of issues for black, minority ethnic and white children in family placement, BAAF
Commission for Racial Equality (2005) Gypsy Travellers: A draft strategy for the CRE in Scotland, 2005-2007
Web references
The Albert Kennedy Trust www.akt.org.uk
Advice line London 0207 831 6562 london@akt.org.uk
Joseph Rowntree Trust www.jrf.org.uk
Commission for Racial Equality ( CRE) 0131 524 2000 www.cre.gov.uk
Disability Rights Commission ( DRC) www.drc-gb.org
Equal Opportunities Commission ( EOC) www.eoc.org.uk
British Association for Adoption and Fostering ( BAAF) www.baaf.org.uk
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