To What Extent Does English Rights Law Recognise the Children's Rights to Make Their Choices in Care - Essay Example

TO WHAT EXTENT DOES ENGLISH RIGHTS LAW RECOGNISE THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE TO MAKE THEIR OWN CHOICES WITH REGARDS TO BEING IN CARE? : Course: Professor’s Name: Date: To what extent does English rights law recognise the rights of children and young people to make their own choices with regards to being in care? INTRODUCTION Children in care mean children and young people who are looked after by local authority in accordance with the Children Act 1989. These children are looked after on a day-to-day basis because of different reasons such as the inability of their parents to take care of them or the death of parents or for other reasons. On the other hand, care means what is necessary for the health, welfare, maintenance and protections of someone. Children in care have the right to be looked after and cared for while they are under care. Children rights are policies that protect the rights of children. A child, from the day he or she is born up to the age of 16, has a right to provision, adequate standard of living, healthcare, education, and services as well as to play. When we say a child should be protected, it means children have the right to be protected from abuse, neglect, exploitation and discrimination. Participation means that children have the right to take part in community programmes and have access to services. An example of this would be engagement in youth activities and access to libraries. Economic, social and cultural rights refer to meeting the basic needs of a child food, housing, water, healthcare and education. All children have rights irrespective of the situation the child is in, from being with family to living in care. Their rights are based on their needs to survive, grow, participate and achieve their potential. However, children rights are still often violated because every child living in the UK is not safe. While some do not have food to eat, others are being looked after safely. Children are denied their rights with thousands dying from preventable diseases and millions more missing chances to go to school or have food, clean water and shelter. These are basic necessities, which every child should be provided with. Instead, some children are subjected to violence, abuse and discrimination. In this essay I will explore the state of children in care aged 5 to 16 within the UK, using theory such as childhood studies, social welfare and human/children rights. I will approach include review of academic literature literature, government reports and NGO groups. I will explain how being in care works and the relevant laws and legislations. I will also asses if it is successful for some children and how being in care does not work and the implications it could have on some children. Using Lord Lamming and other theorist, I will illustrate issues about looked after children, especially the outcome to how children turn out after spending years in care. BACKGROUND Children who are in care may be some of the most marginalised and invisible children in our society. Not many people care about them and many turn a blind eye on them. This group of children have historically been subject to state involvement through “child welfare/Child Protection” legislation and have been looked after by children’s services agencies operating with a “welfare” ethos (Ofsted 2014). Ofsted reports mention expose how local authorities are failing to observe the rights of children by failing to provide them with education. Some local authorities are failing to properly arrange and monitor the effective education for children directly in care (Ofsted 2014). Johnson (2012), in his article in the Telegraphs, questioned the fact about the system of care. According to their report, the system is letting down vulnerable and needy children. According to the author, in the UK, there were a total of 10 local authorities, including Hackney, Bath, North East Somerset and Westminster that had no children homes in their area at all. This meant that children had to be sent out to care homes over 100 miles away from their current location or other siblings. Johnson (2012) indicates that the effect of children being failed in care homes will leave children devastated and most likely go to prison or end up having mental health problems with low expectations and extremely poor chances for the future. This suggests that failure of care simply means failure to keep the child safe from physical and sexual abuse. It reflects the failure to provide stability and security, health and educational rights to needy children. Relevant laws describe how a child should be looked after and guarded. The Children Act of 1989 states that parents should ensure that children live a comfortable life by providing all the basic needs. Laws and Legislation and How It Works Legislation is law, which has been broadcasted by governing bodies. Legislation can have many purposes such as regulation, authorisation, proscription, provision (funds), sanctioning, granting, declaring or imposing restrictions (Rubin 1989). The implementation of the Children Act 1989 would ensure good care, bringing up and protection of vulnerable children. The Children Act 1989 shows connections between this comprehensive legislation for the upbringing of children and developments in research, which have both influenced and monitored the law. The children Act was ratified in 1989 and this was a legislation that brought together the law about caring for, raising and protecting children in care. This was to ensure that children are given the best care within their family home, with both parents playing a full role without resort to legal proceeding. This Act is an attempt to protect children from harm and being neglected. There have been developments in Law, Policy and related research over the last three years. There have also been improvements in child care, but there has also been a downfall, especially regarding living in care and the neglect and abuse that children can encounter when living in care. Trying to find out how the children rights work remains pivotal for understanding the condition of children living in care. Children rights try to achieve a balance between child protection and family support. The children Act was put together so that it could provide a balance between child protection and family support. This Act relies very much on social workers who bring to the attention of relevant authority or bodies if something is not right or if a child is at risk of significant harm and then to decide which services are appropriate to the child. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is another legislation, which was adopted by the United Nations in November 1989. This legislation spells out the basic human rights to which children all over the world are entitled. UNICEF works for children in more than 190 countries and believes that every living child has the right to grow up safe, happy and healthy. In 1989, the government recognised the human rights of all children and young people under the age of 18 by signing the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child. This convention aims at protecting children. It emphasises that every child has the right to a childhood. Therefore, they have right to safety, education, and health. Children also need to be provided with clean water, nutritious food and medical care. The right to be treated fairly regards to changing laws and procedures and the right to be heard. There is also the Data Protection Act, which prevents confidential information and personal information being passed on without a person’s consent. This also applies to the case of children. Everyone that is involved with children is very likely to hold personal information about them, which does include sensitive information. The Data Protection Act covers how personal information about people is to be protected. The companies that hold people’s/children’s personal information must comply with the provisions of the Data Protection Act. It ensures that the data is gathered and processed fairly, information held is secure and is only used for the purpose for which it is collated (Data Protection 2006). Akiyama (1995) asserts that data controllers must not only be focus on protecting and safeguarding personal information, but must be aware of the wider context. An example of this Act interpreted in the light of European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right of respect each person’s private and family life, his home, correspondence as well as any relationship of confidentiality (Akiyama1995). Therefore, people holding such personal information must balance the rights of others, the interests of the public, the protection of people and the preventing of crime, all of which may relate to vulnerable children. There may be different situations where private information may be revealed (Data Protection Act 2006). Consequently, we need to protect vulnerable children by observing their rights. There are always problems with these Acts, because they do not stop children abuse in care or in their homes. The Children Act, in many ways, deters social workers from intervening in cases of abuse and neglect. It is worth mentioning that between 1991 and 1995, the early years of the Act, there was a quick decline in the numbers of children in care from 60 000 to 40 000 in 1991 and 1995 respectively (BMJ 2014). Even though this was a positive outcome, it was unlikely that the abused and neglected children were being taken into care before 1991. There had been a drop by 33% in the occurrence of abuse and neglect over the four years. Also, it was unlikely that there had been an improvement in preventive and therapeutic work with the abusive families over this time to achieve any significant change. Nonetheless, the society should make social workers feel empowered to take the above actions and should praise them for their authoritativeness and courage when they perform their tasks. They should not be made to feel that they have failed as professionals because they were unable to work satisfying miracles with the family (BMJ 2014). However, there are also positive aspects to the Children Act. The Children Act has many positive features of such as the inclusion of “likely future harm” as grounds for care proceedings, the increased emphasis on the need to ascertain and respect the childs wishes, and the inclusion of private schools in the responsibilities of social services. Also, where all agencies share a confident view as to what constitute the best interests of the child, the Children Act can prove perfectly effective as a vehicle for achieving this objective. However, this is a relatively rare occurrence. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely and rapidly ratified treaty in history. However, it has not achieved universal ratification and UNICEF mention that Somalia is still a non-member of the UN convention on the rights of children because the Somali government does not recognize the accord. By signing the convention, the United States has signaled its intention to join. Also, there have been problems with implementing the laws. After two years, the convention came into effect for the state and thereafter each five years. Many countries however, are behind the committees’ schedule. The UN Convention failed to file their first report and by 1998 because only 113 countries had submitted their report (Ramesh 2011). Another issue would be that the UN Convention defines a child to be anyone under the age of 18 unless the national laws indicate differently. In the UK the ages is 18 to vote. According to Amnesty International, this implies that children in the UK are old enough to kill, but too young to vote. Also many countries employ children as soldiers, making 300,000 estimated the world over (BBC 2014). This violates children right to safety. Finally, The Data Protection Act is not a barrier for sharing information. Within the Data Protection Act, there must be Consent sought from parents unless doing so would put a child at risk. It is also important to know who has Parental Responsibility for a child and therefore, early years and childcare settings are committed to building an open and supportive professional relationship with families as the first contact. Abuse Children in care can experience many types of abuse such as physical, sexual, and emotional as well as being neglected. These types of abuse can cause severe damage to a child or vulnerable person. In a care setting environment, there tends to be a high number of abuse because they are ignorant of a child’s emotional needs (Briggs 1997). Briggs indicates that studies have shown that teachers or care givers commonly use emotional maltreatment along with punitive practices to discipline and punish children for unwanted behaviours or just because they wanted to or try to convenience them of their inability to learn. Physical abuse may involve hitting, shaking, throwing, poisoning, burning or drowning just causing physical harm to a child, or when a parent tries to make a child deliberately sick (Parton 2011). On the other hand, sexual abuse involves forcing or enticing a young child to take part in sexual activities. This could also include non-contact activities, looking at children in suggestive manners, sexual images or watching sexual activities or encouraging children to behave in sexually inappropriate ways, grooming a child in preparation for abuse (Parton 2011). Neglect refers to the failure to meet a child’s basic needs as well as physical or psychological needs. Neglecting a child is likely to lead to serious impairment of his or her health or development (Speighta & Wynneb 2000). Finally, emotional abuse can be referred to as persistent emotional maltreatment of a child to cause serious negative effects on the child’s emotional development. An example of this would be denying the child the opportunities to express their views, and deliberately silencing them or making fun of what they say or how they communicate. This could adversely affect their self-esteem. The overall OFSTED’s evaluation of 50 Serious Case Reviews conducted between 1 April 2007 and 31 March 2008, highlighted “the failure of all professionals to see the situation from the child’s perspective and experience; to see and speak to the children; to listen to what they said, to observe how they were and to take serious account of their views in supporting their needs as probably the single most consistent failure in safeguarding work with children” (Working Together to Safeguard Children 2010 p.32) The following are statistics that show the positive and negative effects of children in and out of child care and the impacts of the laws and legislations in place. 65,520 children were placed in care in England as at 31 March 2011. Over a year, approximately 91,000 children were in care for spent some time. 60% of looked after children were subject to a care order. 74% were looked after in foster placements (including 11% with family or friend) 12 % were in some form of residential provision (in secure units, children’s homes & hostels, residential schools or NHS Care homes). Over half of children in care (58%) are aged over 10. The largest category of need for looked-after children was abuse or neglect, with an estimated 40,410 (62% of the total) being in this category. 77% of the looked-after children were white; 9% were mixed-race; 7% were Black; and 5% were Asian. The proportion of children who experienced 3 or more placement changes in the year was 11%. 3,050 looked after children were adopted (5% decline since 2010) (Working Together to Safeguard Children 2010 p.32). Conclusion With regards to child care, it has been very successful with looking after children in care and there have been successful cases due to the Acts being put in place such as the Children Act of 1989, the Data Protection Act and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. These are legislations that were put in place to protect children and their rights. They also protect the rights of children put under care. Children in care are looked after by the local authority and can sometimes be mistreated. In my opinion, children do not get fairly treated when in care or do not get treated as well as children should. In as much as the authorities try to give the child a normal life, children in care do not have as perfect lives as those living with their parents. However, putting all the trust in local authorities to look after children, there have been some cases where children in care have suffered from the different types of abuses. Different types of legislation have been put in place to stop this from happening. As such, efforts are being made to improve the laws and legislation that are in place to protect the rights of children. The English laws recognise the rights of children and young people to a wide extent with regards to making their own choices of being in care, which is supported by all the established Acts. Bibliography Akiyama, R, Hasebe, T, & Yoshioka, M 1995, “Electronic data protection system,” Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Briggs, F, & Hawkins 1997, “Child protection: A guide for teachers and child care professionals,” Allen & Unwin. Hill, M & Aldgate, J 1996, “Child welfare services: Developments in law, policy, practice, and research,” Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Johnson, W 2012, Care system failing the most vulnerable and damaged children,” The Telegraph. Accessed March 26, 2014 LSCB 2009, “Legislation.” Accessed March 26, 2014 Parton, N 2011, “Child protection and safeguarding in England: Changing and competing conceptions of risk and their implications for social work,” British Journal of Social Work, Chicago. Ofsted. Accessed March 26, 2014 Ramesh, A 2001, “UN Convention on Rights of the Child: Inherent Weaknesses,” Economic and Political Weekly. Rubin, EL 1989, “Law and legislation in the administrative state,” Columbia Law Review Speighta, N & Wynneb, J 2000, “Is the Children Act failing severely abused and neglected?” Arch Dis Child, vol.82, pp.192-196. Accessed April 7, 2014 UNICEF, “The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.” Accessed April 7, 2014 Read More