2009 Erratic care system ‘is a catastrophe for vulnerable children’

Eén van de dingen die ik van een mamoedt had willen weten is wat er met haar gebeurde toen de nieuwe directeur kwam. Zij heeft hem rond geleid. Hij liep op sandalen. Het moet een mooie dag zijn geweest; hij had zijn korte broek aan.
Zij, hoop ik, een oud rose ambtsketen om!


The Times
April 20, 2009

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The highly critical report also condemns local authorities for encouraging children to leave their foster homes when they are 16. That is often the point when vulnerable young people go off the rails, left alone in a bedsit or flat and given little support with managing their finances or looking after themselves.
The Government has recently said that no child should leave care before the age of 18, but the MPs said local authorities were dragging their heels because of the costs, and that in any case 21 should become the normal age to leave care.
The report echoes concerns voiced by Andrew Flanagan, new chief executive of the NSPCC, who told The Times this month that he feared children were being left in danger at home with their parents because the care system was such a poor alternative.
The outcomes for children in foster and residential care are very poor. Three quarters of those leaving care have no qualifications and within two years half become unemployed and one in six homeless. Half of those in jail aged 25 or under have been in care, as have a third of the whole prison population.
The committee is concerned that the care system’s poor reputation may contribute to reluctance to take children into care when necessary.
The MPs also urge ministers not to neglect residential care as an alternative to foster care, pointing out that care homes are used far more widely elsewhere in the European Union and to good effect.
The report criticises the low level of qualifications of staff in care homes and says they should all be trained to NVQ Level 3 without delay. In other parts of the EU, professionals in care homes are usually graduates.

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