Does Every Child Matter - Essay Example

Running Head: DOES EVERY CHILD MATTER? Does Every Child Matter? of the of the This paper involves the evaluation and comparison of efficacy of ‘Every Child Matters’ programme for the locals and Immigrant/ asylum seeker or refugee families living within the United Kingdom. Its participants involve the children and parents of local and asylum seeker families. The result of the study will confirm ‘Does Every Child really Matter’ or it is just a name of a programme. The study will give new directions to the social services in providing an improved provision of facilities to the children of both the locals and asylum seeker families. Does Every Child Matter? Title ‘Evaluation and Comparison of Efficacy of ‘Every Child Matters’ programme, between locals and asylum seeker families within the United Kingdom’ Background During the past several years, the plight of the large numbers of unaccompanied immigrant and refugee children has garnered significant attention from the media, the legal community, and the public. In addition to unaccompanied children, an increasing number of immigrant and refugee children are put in the foster care system each year as abused, neglected, or abandoned, regardless of their legal status. Immigrant and refugee children, depend on state of current residence to provide access to reliable care giving and a stable environment. (Simon, C.A and Ward, 2010, 80) One critical consideration is the paramount standard in the legal and social welfare fields: in the best interests of the child. How do the country interpret the "best interests" of immigrant and refugee children? The aim of this assignment is to draw attention to the background strategy and scheme of the ‘Every Child Matters’ programme. The paper will discuss how the programme has been working locally by collecting and comparing data from families of locals and the asylum seeker families in order to evaluate ‘Does Every Child Really Matter? Literature Review During 1998 the British government prepared proposals in the green paper regards to childcare challenge. (Knowles, 2009, 145) The green paper embarked the national childcare policy to make reasonably priced good value childcare to every child including immigrant children aged 0-14. (Fields, 2003) So this was the basic aim of Sure start programmes and is still considered important for providing these necessities to 0-4 year olds. Since 1999 British government spent $425 million for these children and families for following three years. (Jones, A. 2001, 260) The basic aim of government to start sure start was to get rid of child poverty and deal with social exclusion by giving desired help to immigrant parents by supporting them in nurturing and providing good health, safety and learning ability to every child from their birth. According to the plan, Sure Start was supposed to follow a cross-Government policy for children age 0-4 and their parents in disadvantaged regions. A considerable amount of this money was kept as capital expenditure. Its purpose was to make some extra services available and to increase or improve offered services. This money was also significant to provide extra training to existing and up coming volunteers, professionals and workers. This programme has assisted in improving lives for children of immigrant families by providing them with improved childcare, wellbeing, early year schooling and support in parenting. (Chen, 2000, 597) According to the "National Priorities Guidance for Health and social care" (1999). The basic priority for Health and social care would be to: identify at least one significant initiative related to sure start and consider how the sure start programme would fit and contribute to the locally agreed strategies for social services, health and education, as set out in early years development plan and others. (Alston, 2004, 01) The core services were specially asked to take part in the sure start programme. They initiated community nursing services, family and community centres, and health clinics. Sure Start gave a new direction to inter-departmental and inter agency working. (Cheminais, 2008, 115) Their objective included to remove barriers that kept immigrant families away from receiving the basic services they should had received long back. Sure Start focused on families who were unable to receive such services and could never come forward to seek support and guidance. Sure start provided a chance to think about the wellbeing and community care needs of immigrant families and helped in the expansion for suitable delivery mechanisms that were specifically culturally sensitive. Its aim was to remove the existing gap among expert and general services like mental health professionals of children gave training to their juniour staff; hence, they could help families who see early signs of emotional and behavioural problems in their children and to avoid more severe problems at a later phase. This service is corresponding to work of Social Services it cannot be treated like a substitute. (Downs, Moore, McFadden, Michaud & Costin, 2004) Up till 2003, Sure Start had already supported development of 250 projects, with the goal of bringing efficient and well-organised services to families. All of the services were built up keeping in view the approach of community development as much as possible, including the basic requirements and wishes of local citizens. Just before 2002, this programme was offering services to twenty five thousand children every month. The next plan was to deliver services to four hundred thousand children which included approximately 33% of all 0-4 years living in poverty in the UK. Early results from an extensive assessment implied that Sure Start did have the right direction of work; they took regular feedbacks from parents, in order to make sure that the offered services were concentrating on the necessities of the individuals who were meant to use them. Nearly all the schemes included parental presence in the board of management. These schemes included active involvement of specially fathers, offered special prerequisite to facilitate parents with language, literacy or mobility problems. Such programmes have been regularly evaluated from the time of implementation. Since then Sure Start has been improved and transformed according to government guidelines and legislation one amongst the most current is Every Child Matters. (Does Every Child Matter, 2008, 04) ‘Every Child Matters’ was issued as a green paper by the British government during 2003. It was issued in conjunction with the demonstration of the passing away of Victoria Climbe. Victoria Climbe was an abused child; she was terribly abused and ultimately murdered by her great aunt and her partner. Eight year old Victoria Climbe was introduced with lots of social workers and police etc. But none of them could recognise and protect her that lead to her death. The green paper comprised of several plans of supporting defensive services by concentrating on four most important themes: Enhancing the focus on help of children’s families and carers as they are the most concerned people for children. Making sure to offer necessary intrusion before children start to get affected by the crisis and protecting them. Discussing the basic problems acknowledged in the description of the death of Victoria Climbe - weak responsibility and poor assimilation Assuring that the individuals working with children are appreciated, content and qualified. Immigrants and refugees risk encountering multiple difficulties such as health problems, psychosocial upheavals, substance abuse, economic and housing difficulties, English proficiency, and intergeneration conflicts, most of which are common and due to their at times traumatic and violent migration experience (PotockyTripodi, 2002). After implementation of Every Child Matters", the National Service Framework for kids, young citizens, and maternity services (2004), pointed towards the fact that the most of the service requirements for children were in the community. The childrens National service Framework standards contain three parts. The first part comprises of standard 1 to 5, which are applicable for every child or young person. Standard 1 It involves promotion of healthiness and well being. It recognises requirement of early intervention delivery with the help of a co-ordinated programme of action. Standard 1 emphasises on prevention and concentrates on life long advantage, with the help of NHS in partnership. Standard 2 Standard 2 involves support of parent by ensuring that they receive the detailed knowledge of services and support and assist parents to look after their children well. By doing so, they prepare them to provide opportunities to their children to be strong and secure. Standard 3 Standard 3 involves provision of co-ordinated and well0organised services to children, young persons and their family to fulfil their individual needs Standard 4 Standard 4 involves provision of services after children grow up into adulthood. It needs to ensure the delivery of age appropriate services which are reactive to their specific needs as they grow to become adults. Standard 5 Standard 5 involves safeguard and promotion of the Welfare of Children and young People. It is carried out by agencies making efforts to protect children that are suffering harm and to uphold their interests. Furthermore defend children who have a history or are prone to harm. Social workers can authorise social service agencies to continuously provide services to children living with their parents in poverty. Social workers-who know about the psychosocial processes and effects associated with migration, as well as the traumatic effects of involuntary or partly voluntary migration (Russell & White, 2001)-could communicate with the social services and supervise the provision of services to the children In addition to unaccompanied children, an increasing number of immigrant and refugee children are put in the foster care system each year as abused, neglected, or abandoned, regardless of their legal status. No statistics are available to tell how many end up in juvenile dependency court proceedings and foster care each year. According to federal data, however, about 1.6 million children under the age of 18 in the country are undocumented immigrants. Considering that 14 million children were reported living with at least one foreign-born parent in 2002 (approximately 19% of all children), and that 2.7 million of these were foreign-born (Fields, 2003), the number of immigrant and refugee children in the child protection system should not be underestimated. The 1990 Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) statute also protects abused, neglected, and abandoned children. To qualify for protection under the SIJ statute, an undocumented child must be declared a dependent of a state juvenile court, placed in the care of a child welfare agency, and deemed entitled for continuing foster care for the reason of abuse, ignorance, or abandonment. The child is then eligible to obtain an immigrant visa and apply for permanent residence (Chen, 2000, 597). The 1961 United Nations Convention Concerning the Powers of Authorities and the Law Applicable in Respect to the Protection of Infants is the most significant binding international treaty for the well-being of immigrant and refugee children. For the first time in history, a treaty aimed to protect the interests of the child as a central principle, a shift from earlier rules that premised solely on the competing rights of parents. This treaty was a precursor to the 1989 Hague Convention on the Rights of the Child, which addressed childrens rights far more comprehensively but still used the United Nations best interests standard (Siberman, 2000). The 1989 Hague Convention established this standard as the one that nations must employ to shape their policies and practices affecting children (Jones, 2001, 253). A number of provisions in the 1989 Hague Convention presume that maintaining family unity best serves childrens interests of the child, describing the family as the natural environment for childrens growth and well-being. Article 7(1) grants each child "as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents," while Article 8(1) grants the "right of the child to preserve his or her identity, including...family relations...without unlawful interference." Article 9(1) specifically bans separating children from their parents except under specific conditions. Sure Start programmes are designed according to these standards and are determined to reach the goals as advised by the national service outline. In 2004 the Spending analysis White Paper was released with the announcement of the Public Service Agreement (PSA) targets for the following three years. These targets are meant to improve outcomes for young citizens are usually programmed under objective 1. PSA target 1 is an assurance to provide a healthy start to every child in life by eliminating inequalities and it is calculated with the help of Foundation Stage Profile (FSP). Its main characteristic is that it involves the Communication, Language and literacy (CLL) and individual, communal and emotional growth (PSE) of the child. As these have a huge effect on learning life chances of children. PSA target 2 is the Childcare Growth that concentrates mainly on the British Governments stratagem to eradicate child poverty. It mainly points towards the dedication to work with private and charitable sector providers to give high-quality childcare and to recover take-up by poorer families. Hence, main goals are to boost the stock of childcare places to fulfil demand, decreasing turnover if achievable; to spread out stipulation all through the working day, and to help local targeting to fulfil local requirements. The resolution will promote considerable expansion in childcare based in primary schools, between 8am and 6pm, total 48 weeks in a year. A recent key legal development for immigrant and refugee children is the Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act of 2003, which is still being debated. Recognising that undocumented and unaccompanied immigrant children face even greater hurdles than other children, this law aims to protect an estimated 5,000 children by mandating that they receive legal counsel for their immigration proceedings. This proposed law is expected to reduce barriers that threaten immigrant and refugee childrens wellbeing, including limited English-speaking proficiency and the risk of deportation. This law would also assist prospective adoptive parents when a childs immigrant status is pending. The states retain primary responsibility and administrative competency to protect childrens welfare (Nugent, 2004). The best interests’ standard is the sole criterion for protecting childrens well-being. The meaning of "best interests" for the immigrant and refugee child is extremely ambiguous. For child welfare professionals-including social workers opinions and judgments is difficult, and thus, advocating on behalf of the children. The idea of keeping the child in the United Kingdom as an essential interest for immigrant and refugee children is also applied to the parents in terms of their visitation rights. Purpose of the study Based on a comprehensive review and analysis of different state laws and statutes this paper will identify certain factors that differentiate immigrant and refugee children from other children in the UK. To address their special needs and circumstances, the paper will compare efficacy of ‘Every Child Matters’ programme for children of asylum seeker families. Then study will suggest an approach in which child welfare workers can communicate and negotiate with social workers and work effectively to provide an improved and equal provision of basic necessities for the children of asylum seeker families too. Participants Besides writer, participants of the study include 24 children of under 4 years and their parents, who are living in a small town situated in Southern part of London. Out of these 24, 12 children belong to British families who were living poverty life before receiving help from ‘Every Child Matters’. Rests of the 12 children belong to asylum seeker families. All of these 12, are born outside the UK and came to the UK with their parents as asylum seeker. Methodology This study involves the opinion seeking ad then comparing the efficacy of ‘Every Child Matters’ from children and parents of originally British and asylum seeker families. A questionnaire will be prepared and distributed amongst participants in order to take their opinions on the facilities given to them under ‘Every Child Matters’ act. This questionnaire will involve questions about ‘Every Child Matter’s success. It will represent how much successful it has been in eradicating child poverty and how it deals with social exclusion and offer desired help to the parents to locals and asylum seeker families. It will also evaluate how much support it gives to the parents in nurturing their children and in providing them with good health, safety and learning ability to their child from the childbirth. Hence it will interpret the best interests of the both the locals and immigrant and refugee children. The computer database will be used to search laws and acts related to this issue using the key terms "best interests" and "immigrant or refugee" and identify and analyse states statutes and codes and related law and social work journal articles. The ancestry approach will be used to include a few cases, which were cited by state cases and are central to the best interest standard. In review of ‘Every Child Matters’, legal status should not be factor in determining the best interests of children residing within the UK. Social workers are strictly asked to not to show any discrimination while performing their jobs. Their acts should only and clearly interpret the best interests of the child without much consideration of the parents legal status. Data Collection The questionnaire will be taken to the houses of the participants. The participants will be asked to fill the questionnaire and send it back to the given return address. Later on qualitative and quantitative assessment of the feedback will be carried out using Statistical methods. Trough this exploratory study, selected cases will offer a descriptive snapshot of the general, wide-ranging circumstances of locals and immigrant and refugee children in the system and highlight their best interests from the state perspectives. A universal assumption is that the family is the best environment for the growth and well-being of children, and that the family unit serves their best interests. This assumption is reinforced in 1989 Hague Convention on the Rights of the Child. This study will consider factors that reflect unreasonable expectations for immigrant and refugee parents. Considering that half of the cases studied will involve parents with problems of depression, temper control, drug and alcohol addiction, or mental illnesses, social services provided to immigrants and refugee parents will be very broad, including parenting and anger management classes, counseling, alcohol and drug addiction treatment programs, family reunification services, and housing referral. Most immigrant and refugee parents, however, will find it difficult to navigate the complex child welfare and social service system and understand with instructions from social service agencies. In addition, social services are not always provided in the refugee and immigrants native language and few services are culturally appropriate. Ethical Considerations Moral welfare is a highly contingent social construct based on political and social judgments and on objective or scientific data about what is best for children in an ideal society (Bartlett, 1988). Depending on the cultural context, the best interests standard will be interpreted in diverse, even contradictory ways (Alston, 2004, 01). Taking basic necessities from children has always been criticised as cultural genocide-undermining childrens sense of cultural identity by completely disconnecting them from their birth communities (Lynch, 2001). Thus, the moral welfare of immigrant and refugee children inevitably should include cultural factors. Children’s welfare laws actually seek to protect childrens basic rights. Even though the social services make every effort to provide both types of families with equal amount of provision, but in some case the special needs of immigrants and refugees will be ignored. However, study will make every effort to judge the reasonableness of the department of human services efforts according to the circumstances of both types of families. Many immigrant and refugee parents, especially undocumented immigrants are prone to face difficulties that will further endanger their survival in dependency proceedings. Although legal status should not be an issue in the consideration of the childs best interests, many related factors such as parents involuntary separation from the child because of detention or deportation and voluntary separation caused by migration may affect availability of facilities to the refugees. Reliability and Validity The study will make sure to carry out every effort to evaluate the actual results of the study. It will prove the fact that for the best interests of the child, social services will need to adopt standard factors such as reasonable services provided in a timely and appropriate way for provision of services. It will demonstrate, how much social services have been successful in providing a sound material family environment, and a moral and intellectual environment for the children living currently in poverty. Immigrant and refugee parents, who are unable to provide these conditions as readily as other parents should be given more consideration, for example, many immigrant and refugee parents may have difficulty complying with social service agencies instructions because of their limited English; others face financial instability because of their ambiguous legal status, while more will be coping with employment, housing insecurity, and legal troubles common to immigrants and refugees. ‘Every Child Matters’ do not consider the parents legal status as a determining factor and social services mostly do not consider these typical conditions as more difficult for immigrant and refugee parents to provide. In failing to recognise these unique and problematic situations, courts unfairly burdened immigrant and refugee families. Time Scale January 2011-April 2011 Research on Internet for journals and library for books Take notes on articles and books, work on how to format research data Start writing the Literature Review & ask for teachers feedback Final Modification for the Literature Review May 2011-July 2011 Actual submission of Literature review report Make questions for questionnaires and interview Get teacher’s feedback of the report. August 2011-September 2011 Submit Final Form of questionnaires and Interview questions Distribute questionnaires among the selected people Conduct Interview October2011-November 2011 Collect the questionnaires and put together statistical results for analysis December 2011 Writing final draft of study and seek the teachers comments Perform all editing and complete the "Final Chapter of Research Project" References Adler, L. S. (2001). ‘The meanings of permanence: A critical analysis of the adoption and safe families’. Harvard Journal on Legislation, 38, 1. Alston, P. (2004). ‘The best interests principle: Towards a reconciliation of culture and human rights’. International Journal of Law and Family, 8, 1. Bartlett, K. T. (1988). ‘Re-expressing parenthood’. Yale Law Journal, 98, 293. Brandes, J. R. (1999). Judging the best interests of the child. Accessed November 1, 2004, from http://www.brandeslaw.com/child_custody/judging_best_ interests.htm#bottom Chen, G. Z. T. (2000).’ Elian or alien? The contradictions of protecting undocumented children under the special immigrant juvenile statute’. Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, 21, 597. Cheminais, R (2008) ‘Every Child Matters’ A Practical Guide for Teaching Assistants, David Fulton Publishers, UK, Pg 100-120. Downs, S. W., Moore, E., McFadden, E. J., Michaud, S. M., & Costin, L. B. (2004). ‘Child welfare and family services’: Policies and practice. Allyn and Bacon. Does Every Child Matter, (2008) ‘Refugee and Migrant Justice’, Pg 4. Fields, J. (2003). ‘Childrens living arrangements and characteristics’: March 2002. Accessed October 26, 2004, from http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p20-547.pdf. Jones, A. (2001). ‘Child asylum seekers and refugees’. Journal of Social Work, 2(3), 253-271. Kanaiaupuni, S. M. (2000). ‘Child well-being and the intergenerational effects of undocumented immigrant status’ (Report No. IRPDP121000). Knowles, G (2009)’Ensuring Every Child Matters’ A Critical Approach, UK, Sage Publication, Pg 150-170. Levesque, R. J. R. (2000). ‘Cultural evidence, child maltreatment, and the law’. Child Maltreatment, 5(2), 146-160. Linares-Fierro, J. (1999). ‘A mother removed-a child left behind: A battered immigrants need for a modified best interests standard’. The Scholar: St. Marys Law Review on Minority Issues, 1, 253. Lynch, P. (2001). ‘Keep them home’: The best interests of indigenous children and communities in Australia. Sydney Law Review, 23, 501. McCarthy, J. (1998). The cps drug use dilemma. Assessed October 22, 2002, from http:/ /www.lindesmith.org/library/mccarthy2.cfm. Mercer, K. L. (1998). A content analysis of judicial decision-making: How judges use the primary caretaker standard to make a custody determination. William & Mary Journal of Women and Law, 5, 1. Miller, G. (1993).’The psychological best interests of the child’. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 19(1/2), 21. Moye, J., & Rinker, R. (2002). ‘Its a hard knock life: Does the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 adequately address problems in the child welfare system?’ Harvard Journal on Legislation, 39, 375. Nandy, L (2005) ‘The Impact of Government Policy on Asylum-seeking and Refugee Children, Children and society’, vol 19, pg 411- 413 Nugent, C. (2004). ‘Unaccompanied immigrant and refugee children: Reforms for the most vulnerable detainees’. Accessed October 16, 2004, from http://www.ilw.com/ lawyers/articles/2004,0616-Nugent.shtm. Pruett, M. K., Hogan-Bruen, K., & Jackson, T. (2000). ‘The best interests of the child: Parents versus attorneys perspectives’. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 33(1/2), 47. Russell, M., N., & White, B. (2001). ‘Practice with immigrants and refugees: Social worker and client perspectives’. Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work, 9(3/4), 73-92. Schwartz, L. J. (1991).’ Religious matching for adoption: Unraveling the interests behind the "best interests" standard’. Family Law Quarterly, 25, 171. Simon, C.A and Ward, S (2010) ‘Does Every Child Matter?’ UK, Routledge; Pg 80-90. Siberman, L. (2000). ‘The Hague child conventions: The internationalisation of child law’. In S. Katz, J. Eekelaar, & M. MacLean (Eds.), Cross currents: Family law and policy in the United States and England (pp. 589). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Starr, S., & Brilmayer, L. (2003). ‘Family separation as a violation of international law’. Berkeley Journal of International Law, 21, 213-287. Read More