Children on edge of care, and the role of social workers associated with them - Essay Example

? Children on "edge of care", and the role of social workers associated with them Introduction “The true measure of a nation’s standing is how well it attends to its children- their health and safety, their material security, their education and socialisation, and their sense of being loved, valued, and included in the families and societies into which they are born.”(UNICEF, 2007, 1) The topic of child abuse and the subsequent need for their protection has always been an acknowledged social problem, though legislations in this regards are a relatively new subject. The language used in describing the issue of child protection has undergone many transformations over the years, and has especially seen marked changes in the last 40 years. From 1960s medico-social perspectives that exposed and treated the ‘battered babies’ (Parton, 1991), to the modern day twenty-first century provisions for ‘child care’ by the UK government, represent the huge transition in the perspectives of the state and the society on the issue of child protection. “The primary focus of official concern has broadened considerably. While in the 1960s it was ‘battered babies’, in the 1970s ‘non-accidental in jury to children’, in the 1980s ‘child abuse’, and for much of the 1990s ‘significant harm and the likelihood of significant harm’, the focus of the new millennium is ‘safeguarding and promoting the welfare of the child’” (Parton, 2007, 9). My article will examine this concept of safeguarding the children in UK, as those under ‘edge of care’; mainly in the context of the children’s act of 1989 with special emphasis on the sections 17, 20 and 31; along with the children’s act of 2004 and 2005, to have a more holistic view on this subject. My article will examine the various implications of these current acts to ascertain as to whether these are the best possible provisions that can be made for the benefit of the children under care, in UK. My article will also explore the role of the social workers in this regards and the optimum assistance they can offer to maximise the benefits to the children that come under this care. Discussion Background study on children under Care: It is a well known sociological and psychological fact that children need a secure and stable familial atmosphere within their homes, “in order to enable them to develop attachments and achieve the outcomes, to which we aspire, for all children. However, some children who are not able to form these attachments in their present living circumstances may need to be moved, which entails difficult judgements for all concerned”( Department for education and skills, 2006, 4). Protections for such children, were given a legal framework for the first time through the legislation of the Children Act 1989. Under section 31 of this 1989 act, children without stable and secure homes are liable to come under the overall care of the local authorities. ‘Children in care,’ however is a blanket term that covers all children that are being cared for by the local authorities, including “those subject to care orders under section 31of the children act 1989 and those looked after on a voluntary basis through an agreement with their parents” (Lall, 2007, 3). As per the Department of Education, the children that are placed for some reason under care of the local authorities in England /UK, form one of the most vulnerable social sections, in today’s context. “The majority of children in care are there because they have suffered abuse or neglect. At any one time around 60,000 children are looked after in England (of whom some 59 per cent are subject to care orders). Some 90,000 children are looked after at some point in any one year” (Department for Education, 2011). Children in care can be broadly divided into 3 basic types. These are: Any child placed under the care of the local authorities (LA). Children that are provisioned to a statutory care order under the rulings of section 31 of the Children Act 1989. Children place under LA care by their parents, through a voluntary agreement under section 20 of the Children Act 1989. A majority of the children in care are generally placed in foster homes (around 73%), while a small percentage remain at various children’s homes (10%), while the remaining are placed under different settings like that in boarding schools or under certain placement arrangements with the parents, that generally come the ‘transition’ part of going back home (ibid). Statistical representation of the children in care in UK: A look at the recent statistics released by the Department for Education on 30th September 2010, show us that the percentage of children in care (in England) has shown an incline since 2009. The representations show that “there were 64,400 looked after children as at 31 March 2010, an increase of 6 per cent from 2009 and an increase of 7 per cent since 2006... 7,800 children started to be looked after during the year ending 31 March 2010. This is an increase of 8 per cent from the year ending 31 March 2009 and 13 percent from the year ending 31 March 2006. Of these children 9,500 are classed as being taken into care...Overall, the main reason why social care services first engaged with children who started to be looked after during the year was because of abuse or neglect (52 per cent). This percentage has increased since 2009” (Department for Education, 2010). From the Care Leavers’ Association’s report we find that of the total number of children that registered into care, ending with 31st March 2010, besides the majority percentage being registered in care owing to abuse, 12% came from dysfunctional families, 9% belonged to families that were facing high levels of stress, 8% of the children were facing ‘absent parenting’, 4% came from a family where the parents were either seriously ill or had disabilities rendering them incapable of taking care of the child, 3 % of the children came owing to the fact that they were disabled, 2% were registered because they showed ‘socially unacceptable behaviour’ (Care Leavers’ Association, 2010). It was further seen that 73% of the children registered into care as of 31st March 2010 were placed in foster homes, which is an increase of around 69 % from the 2006 figures. 2,300 children were placed for adoption by the 31st March of 2010, while 3,400 Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC) were taken into the Care programme as of 31st March 2010, which is a decrease of 12 % from the 2009 figures (ibid). From the above figures one picture stands out very clearly, most of the children that enter care, come from a background where either they have been direct victims of abuse, or have lived within a family that was dysfunctional in nature, and in all probability have witnessed abuse of other family members. Such children when they enter care are already traumatised, and need extra support and consideration. To get a better understanding of the type of children that come into care we can take a look at Stein’s research papers that delineates 3 main types of children generally seen here: ‘victims’ (highly vulnerable types and extremely traumatised, thus unable to respond to the given care services); ‘survivors’ (who are willing to respond to the availed services); and the last type that ‘move–on’ (also responds well to services) (Stein, 2006, 277). Health, educational and placement statistics: In a survey conducted by the UK Public health department on the health and education of these children in care, showed some rather disappointing results. This report showed that only 12% of the children that are placed in care received 5 A*-C grades at their GCSE (or equivalent) examinations when compared to the score of 59% from the children coming from normal circumstances. It was also noticed that amongst the 11 + year old children in care that were old enough to appear for the GCSE/GNVQ examinations, only around 65% appeared for the test. Around 50% of the children placed in care complained that they were not given adequate access to various positive activities, while it was also noted in the report that around 9.6% of these children that were aged 10 years or more had been either convicted or warned for criminal activities during 2006, which is significantly nearly 3 times more than the children under normal circumstances. The health statistics of these children were also not very encouraging, and it was seen that around 45% of the children in care were found to be have mental disorders (significantly higher than the general population figures that were around 10%), while children in care were 4 times more likely to turn into drug or alcohol addicts, and the worst and the potentially more dangerous part observed was that many of these children missed out on sex education and the advices on the correct use of contraceptives (Lall, 2007). Another important issue for the children under care is their placement problem. “Of the 7,500 children leaving care 2,400 (32%) had one placement for their last period of care, 1,900 (or 25%) had two placement for their last period of care, and 1100 (15%) had three placement for their last period of care. The remaining 2,100 (28%) had upwards of three placements, with 460 children (6%) having more than 10 placements in their last period of care” (Broad, 2006-07, par. 1.3). This poor record of placements as seen in children in care tends to create instability and problems in later life adjustments. Thus from an overall survey we find a rather dismal picture, as regards the children that are registered in care under LAs, thus implying the fact that there is something amiss in the entre system of child protection in UK. In this context we will now examine the Children Act of 1989 (with focus on the sections 17, 20 and 31), amendments made in children act 2004 and 2005. The 1989 act is considered a landmark legislation in terms of providing holistic safeguarding measures to those children that need protection and care, while also providing them with the much desired legal support. Children Act 1989 (section 17, 20 and 30), Children Act 2005 and Children Act 2005: The Children Act 1989 was the legislation brought in by the UK government primarily to fulfil the conditions made obligatory under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Article 9 of this UN Convention espies the rights pertaining to a child that wants to live with his parents (except when the condition is deemed suitable by certain experts, that he be separated from his parents), while Article 18 makes it obligatory for the states to “render appropriate assistance to parents and legal guardians in the performance of their child-rearing responsibilities.” These rights as ordained by the UN are reflected in the section 17 of the Children Act 1989. Under this section, children are in ‘need of care’ when “they are unlikely to experience ‘a reasonable standard of health or development’ without assistance, or if they are disabled” (Morris, 2005, 1). It is for this reason that the Children Act 1989 introduced “the 'no order' principle and by replacing voluntary care with the more positive concept of local authority 'accommodation'. This assumption of ‘no order principle’ under s.1 (5) of the CA 1989 states, “The Court shall not make any order… unless it considers that so doing would be better for the child than making no order,” thus making state or court interference strictly limited, while parental assistance is given more importance in decision making, pertaining to the child’s care. Thus, when children are 'looked after' by the local authority, parents would [still] retain 'parental responsibility' and would be treated as partners” (Gordon, 1997, 662). In fact, right after the implementation of this act, even with this clause, there was huge outcry from the parents and the extended family members that felt that their children were being forcibly taken away from them, and soon there were a perceived decline in the number of ‘abused’ children that came under the ‘care’ (showing that the doctors connived with the parents); while the social service workers faced a large flak for being either over-protective or under-protective about the exposed child abuse cases (Broadhurst, Grover, and Jameson, 2007, 23). It is in keeping with this sentiment that the Children Act of 1989 reflected that “the best place for the child to be brought up is usually in his own family and that the child in need (who includes the child with disabilities) can be helped most effectively if the local authority, working in partnership with the parents, provides a range and level of services appropriate to the child's needs. To this end the parents and the child...need to be given the opportunity to make their wishes and feelings known and to participate in decision-making” (Childrens Act of 1989- guidance and regulations, 1997, 1) Under acts 17 and 20 of the 1989 act and also under act 53 of the 2004 act, it is necessary for the court to “ascertain the child’s wishes and feelings regarding the provision of those services” and also those children that are looked after by other relatives to require regular visits from the care services. In most of the cases, it has been seen that keeping the child within the care of the extended families creates a better result than completely removing him from parental influence (Gordon, 1997, 663). Owing to this mindset it has been noticed that there has been a perceptible shift in the modern day social service working methods. The daily task for most child-care social workers now revolve around work like “risk assessment” (France and Utting, 2005), 'evidence collection,' and the constant surveillance of children considered to be at risk of abuse. However in this field of reporting carried out by the social service workers, “there [are] concerns [pertinent to] the quality of social workers’ assessments in child protection cases... [As] for example, it was shown that investigations of alleged child abuse tended to focus on risk assessment rather than assessment of the needs of the whole child... In particular, social workers carrying out an investigation might not pick up problems of domestic violence or of drug and alcohol misuse. However, at least superficially, investigations appeared to contrast with section 17 responses, where research revealed high levels of satisfaction amongst parents and children receiving social work” (Platt, 2006, 267). There are alternatives that being made available as day cares, where student- parents or working parents can keep they are children, while they are away. “Kinship care” is another arrangement where “a child’s main carer is not a parent, but comes instead from the child’s wider network of family and friends. It is often called “family and friends care.” The arrangement might be temporary or permanent, and may or may not be supported by a formal legal order, or assisted by a Local Authority” (Finding Kinship Support for children on the edge of care, 2008). The Children Act 1989 under section 17, places importance on kinship care, where a child when under certain legal conditions cannot be kept at home, can be placed with the extended relatives or with friends, and this process is known as “immediate placement,” or kinship fostering. The Children Act 2004 further reaffirms and fortifies this ‘kinship fostering’ by making it necessary for the parents to register this process and for the authorities to ensure that the child is faring well. Here the social service workers must “visit the foster carer before the child arrives; visit six weekly during the first year of a placement and then every three months; satisfy themselves that the child is being properly cared for (covering their needs relating to development, emotional well-being, education, religion, culture, language and race, health and physical care),” (Morris, J. 2005, 17,). Here the last ‘overall care’ part being covered under section 31 of the 1989 Children Act. Further, the section 44 of the Children Act 2004 and later again the 2005 act, rectified the Children Act 1989 and made the LAs duty bound to spread awareness of the ‘private fostering’ or ‘kinship fostering’ and the necessity to register such cases and to report cases that have not been registered or appear suspicious. The 2004 act also makes it compulsory for provide monetary assistance to the foster carers, that would cover all the costs of the child under foster care (Brophy, 2006). This financial assistance has been provided in order to give an overall care, as specified under the section 31 of the 1989 act. Owing to the large number of cases where children have been referred to the court, under the section 31 citing inability by the foster carers to take overall acre of the child, due to financial constraints, the government had made this amendment in the 2004 act (Wellbourne, 2008). Wellbourne in her article also stresses on child care that involves the child’s extended families, friend and other networks within the family’s known circle, as an alternative care arrangement. As per Wellbourne, this would lead some of the more vulnerable children living on the edge of care, to shift away from the courts, into settings that are more informal and managed by the local authorities. However on the negative side of this ‘kinship care’ are cases where children are smuggled into UK (seen mainly in African and Chinese families), and kept hidden under the concept of ‘private fostering’, by family members, albeit illegally. “A private fostering arrangement is essentially one that is made privately, without local authority involvement, for the care of a child under the age of 16 (or 18 if disabled) by someone other than a parent or close relative with the intention that it should last for 28 days or more” (ECPAT, 2007a, 26). Here, more often than not a large number of these smuggled children are trafficked mainly for sexual exploitation (Almandras, 2010), and kept under ‘private fostering’ by the so called ‘relatives,’ that are actually traffickers masquerading as relatives. One of the most infamous cases pertaining to ‘private fostering’ however involved a ‘real’ family member and a smuggled child. In this case, Victoria Climbie, an illegally trafficked 8 year old African child was tortured to death in the ‘foster home,’ by her great aunt and her live-in partner (Laming, 2003), showed the negative side of ‘private fostering.’ This case is in fact seen as a complete failure on the part of the concerned medical authorities and social service workers (that had earlier seen signs of violent abuse on the child, but had remained inactive owing to the ‘no order principle’). Thus, kinship fostering or even private fostering by relatives, may seemingly appear beneficial, but is not without pitfalls, and “should only be made when it can be demonstrated that the placement is a safe and positive choice. An over-reliance on the blood tie can leave children at risk of long-term significant harm or abuse. Naivety in child protection work is costly and it is children who will ultimately pay the price (Foulds, 1999, 82) Under Section 20 (1) the local authorities are obliged to provide “accommodation for any child in need within their area who appears to them to require accommodation as a result of:(a) there being no person who has parental responsibility for him (b) his being lost or having been abandoned, or (c) the person who has been caring for him being prevented (whether or not permanently, or for whatever reason) from providing him with suitable accommodation or care”. Section 20 (3) also makes it necessary for the local authorities to “provide accommodation for any child in need within their area who has reached the age of sixteen and whose welfare the authority consider is likely to be seriously prejudiced if they do not provide him with accommodation.” However here certain problems are faced by the authorities, in relation to underage and unaccompanied asylum seekers, Section 20 [1] and Section 20 [3] though seemingly applicable to all young children seeking asylum in UK, however, many LAs do not provide for such accommodation under Section 20 of the Act to the 16-17 year old asylum seekers, since they are without their parents, (the decision makers, under the ‘no order principle’). Instead, they provided accommodation to such children, under Section 17.8, and took refuge under the 'no order' principle mainly to avoid responsibilities of the refugee children (Morris, 2005, 8). To make amendments the government clarified that “where a child has no parent or guardian in this country, perhaps because he has arrived alone seeking asylum, the presumption should be that he would fall within the scope of section 20 and become looked after” (Department of Health, 2003). However another problem faced by the social service workers in this line is that, once these children cross the age of 18, they are removed from their accorded accommodation in foster homes, and sent back to their countries of origin, without any thoughts for their well being or safety. This is one problematic area where the social service workers and the government are yet to find out a workable solution. Children with handicaps (physical and mental) also face discrimination, in the sense that children having disabilities when placed under care, are rarely asked for their opinions (as specified under section 17 of 1989 act), either by their parents or by the social service reviewers. “Both education and social services professionals admitted that they would rarely know if children were safe and happy” (Abbott et al., 2001, 113). Often such children are place in residential schools or boarding houses, and the local authorities feel that they have provided adequate accommodations as under section 20. In a report prepared by the SEN, it has been shown that the disabled children are not regularly reviewed or monitored by the social service carers (SEN Regional Partnerships, 2005, p. 40). Reasons given for the failure of the social service workers in making the regulatory follow ups were, “a shortage of social work time and expertise, particularly when placements were a long way away and/or children had significant communication and/or cognitive impairments. It also seemed to be rare for assessments or care plans to cover how parents could be assisted to maximise their child’s experience of family life. Overall, there was little sense of local authorities acting in partnership with parents to maximise children’s life chances” (Morris, 2005, 16). Yet it is known that disabled children when not monitored regularly and when far away from their parents are more vulnerable to abuse (Kennedy, 1996). Recognising this danger the government issued a circular that stated that children with disabilities should not be kept under general circumstances, in schools maintained by the social services departments, unless these children are well cared for. However, even there is a loophole in this circular, and the disabled children that stay in residential schools (funded by the LAs, hence not directly under the social service departments) find that they are still left out in the cold. Conclusion: Form the above discourse it is very clear that there are serious lapses in the proper functioning of the social service workers and also on the part of the LAs, especially in assisting disabled children in getting their rights and full care. The Climbie case also showed the lapse in effective functioning, and also the callousness on the part of the social service workers in blindly adhering to the ‘no order principle’. The rights as provided in the Children act 1989 and later amended in the acts of 2004 and 2005, are more or less holistic in nature, however they must also be correctly translated and strictly implemented by the government and the LAs; while it is the duty of the social workers to the do necessary follow ups and report accordingly, and to take the necessary precautionary measures and other arrangements, if any signs of abuse are notice in a child placed under care. Bibliography Abbott, D., Morris, J. and Ward, L. 2001. The Best Place to Be? Policy, Practice and the Experiences of Residential School Placements for Disabled Children. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation/York Publishing Services. Almandras, S. 11 March 2010. Human trafficking: UK responses. House of Commons Library. Home Affairs. SN/HA/4324, 4. Broad, B. 2006. Care Leavers in Transition. DfES Youth Strategy Review. 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Innocenti Report Card 7, UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, Florence, 1. Wellbourne P. 2008. Safeguarding children on the edge of care: policy for keeping children safe after the Review of the Child Care Proceedings System, Care Matters and the Carter Review of Legal Aid. Child and Family Law Quarterly, 20(3), 335-358. Read More