45. In discussing the position of disabled children, the Review concludes that they are extremely vulnerable to abuse of all kinds, including peer abuse, and high priority needs to be given to protecting them and ensuring that safeguards are rigorously applied. (8.22) It recommends that statistics should be collected to enable policy makers and planners to assess need, establish trends and develop services accordingly. (8.24)
Agreed. High priority should be given to protecting disabled children who make up a large proportion of children living away from home and who are particularly vulnerable. This is why we have included an objective on disabled children in our new objectives for children's services. The Government is considering how best to introduce the Children Act 1989 principles into the care of disabled children in residential care homes and nursing homes. This will be developed with the new regulatory arrangements and further details will be available in 1999. Consideration is also being given to the data which can and should be collected. Further information on this will be available when the Department of Health go to consultation on their performance assessment framework for social services. (Response Chapters 3 & 7).
46. The Review discusses the need for co-operation between education, social services and health authorities and for a specific commitment to work together to protect disabled children. (8.25)
The action outlined in response chapter 7 will help with improved co-operation generally, and the inclusion in the new objectives for children's services of one dealing specifically with promoting the welfare needs of disabled children will provide an incentive for the agencies to work together to ensure that disabled children receive good quality care. In addition, the Government will ensure that the revision of "Working Together" (to be published in Spring 1999) covers the particular problems of child protection in relation to disabled children. The Government is also considering regulatory changes to ensure disabled children in all settings are protected.
47. There should be greater interchange between disability and child protection services and clarity about who is responsible for child protection procedures when a child is disabled. (8.26)
Agreed. ACPCs should ensure that local inter-agency child protection policies and procedures address the needs of children with disabilities. It is the responsibility of each agency - social services, health, education and Police - to follow their own agreed procedures.
48. The Review advocates involving disabled people in policy making (para 8.28) and helping children to protect themselves and have means of gaining help from others when needed. There may also be a need for specialist advocacy/best friend service for disabled children independent of service providers. (8.27 to 8.29).
& 71. The Review recommends that the Department of Health/Welsh Office supports a project to test the feasibility of providing independent visitors to all children looked after by local authorities who might benefit from them.
The Government will take action to ensure all children statutorily entitled to independent visitors are provided with one. It will also seek to encourage befriending and mentoring schemes. There are already a number of schemes in place in London (funded by the Department of Health through Section 64), Leeds and Bedford as well as some useful pieces of research by a range of organisations (including the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and a Government funded project by the Who cares? Trust) which provide evidence on the current range of services provided and their benefits, costs and feasibility. The Department of Health and the Welsh Office will pull together this evidence and consider how to take further work forward. This will be linked with the "Quality Protects" programme.
50. Where a child has been abused, police, social services and health authorities should provide personnel who have been trained to communicate with those with learning disabilities. (8.32) Further work is needed in developing non-verbal means of communication and systematic approaches to interviewing and discussing emotional issues. (8.33)
The revised Working Together guidance will look at the needs of all disabled children when it is published in Spring 1999.
51. There should be a good representation of women amongst carers (of disabled children) and always one or more (for) children to confide in. (8.34)
& 75. The Review recommends an appropriate gender balance in the management of residential services for children, within the overall policy of appointments being made on merit. (10.28)
The Government agrees that it would be best if women were well represented among all carers and management. However, this does not remove the need for good recruitment and selection practices which take into account the needs of the children being looked after and these must be followed before the sex of the applicant is considered.
53. Young children are less able to protect themselves and to complain. Regulatory bodies need greater awareness of this in considering the position of younger children in foster care, preparatory schools and hospitals. (8.38)
Agreed. The "Quality Protects" programme will give children a greater role in service planning and development which should provide them with a more effective voice. Work is on-going at the University of Swansea and through the looking after children: good practice, good outcomes materials on facilitating greater participation for younger children. This issue will also be considered when legislation is prepared to set up the independent regulatory arrangements.
54. Children who live far away from home may be at more risk. Schools with more than 10% of pupils from abroad might revert to annual welfare inspections. The accreditation of "guardianship" schemes should be accelerated and their use by parents and schools encouraged. Arrangements for a foreign child aged under 16 to live with a private family for 28 days or more comes within the scope of private fostering regulations, which should be applied. (8.43)
Rejected. Our consultation on the Review's recommendations showed that there would be difficulties in requiring schools with more than 10% of children from overseas to have welfare inspections annually instead of every four years. This is because the proportions of overseas pupils can fluctuate from year to year. In addition, they do not appear to be directly correlated with the degree of welfare risk and the additional resources required would therefore not necessarily be well spent. The Government will give further consideration to how best the spirit of this recommendation - that appropriate safeguards be maintained at schools with pupils made vulnerable by parental inaccessibility - can be taken forward. (Response Chapter 5).
Where a child is living with a private family for 28 days or more current private fostering regulations apply. Following correct procedures will be addressed in the "Quality Protects" programme and the Social Services White Paper will make clear the Government intends to improve enforcement of the private fostering arrangements, targeting the most vulnerable groups. (Response Chapter 3).
55. Placing authorities should retain protective oversight of all children they are responsible for and children placed by social services, educational and health authorities some distance from their homes must not be overlooked. (8.42)
Agreed. Placing authorities have legal duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children they are responsible for. This will be picked up in the "Quality Protects" programme.
56. The Review supports recommendations 1-13 of the Bridge Consultancy report In Care Contacts - the West Case about children who absconded from local authority care and remained untraced. (8.45)
The Government will develop further the guidelines arising from work by the LGA and ACPO on tracing young people missing from care and will issue statutory guidance on this by April 1999. It will monitor their implementation through SSI and SSIW inspections. (Response Chapter 2).
57. Refuges play a useful role and there is a case for recognising them in service plans, and for extending - perhaps as a regional resource - to other centres of population. Ideally as part of a more strategic approach to the problem of homeless, "missing" and disturbed youth. (8.47)
Agreed. The Government recognises the important role refuges play. Plans for taking forward work with the voluntary sector and local government in this area are being drawn up. (Response Chapter 2).
59. The Department of Health/Welsh Office should amend Section 24 of the children Act 1989 to convert into a duty the local authorities power to assist a child they have looked after, and to make clear the looking after authority is responsible for after care. (8.64)
The Government will legislate when the opportunity arises to strengthen the powers and duties of local authorities under the Children Act 1989 to provide support and assistance to young people who have been looked after. This will include a duty to assess and meet the needs of care leavers up to the age of 18. The Government is also minded to extend this until the age of 21, but will first consider affordability. The Government will also legislate to ensure there is a continuing responsibility on the authority which looked after the young person to provide after care assistance. (Response Chapter 4).
60. An inter-departmental review of treatment (of persistent sexual abusers) to develop proposals for its co-operation and development is recommended. (9.8)
Agreed. More needs to be done. The Home Office and Department of Health are taking forward a recommendation by HM Inspector of Probation that youth justice services should include treatment to ensure sexual offending by adolescents is properly addressed through assessment, intervention and relapse prevention services. The Probation Service is delivering many programmes to sex offenders under their supervision. The Home Office and Prison Service are evaluating the outcomes of sex offender treatment programmes and will then decide what further action to take.
61. There is some recognition of the importance of discovering pornography and pursuing the leads that it provides but the resources that are allocated to this are relatively small. The police and HM Customs and Excise are urged to dedicate more resources to this and to build up their expertise so that more pornographers are identified and prosecuted and more of their customers are identified and put on centrally held lists of paedophile suspects. (9.26-7)
The Government gives, and will continue to give, high priority to the detection of child pornography. HM Customs have set up a network of Paedophile Intelligence Liaison Officers throughout the UK and a National Intelligence Co-ordinator was appointed to the National Intelligence Division on a full-time basis in 1997. Customs detentions of paedophile material are also copied to the National Criminal Intelligence Service for inclusion on their Alert Database of known or suspected paedophiles. The deployment of police resources is a matter for individual Chief Officers of Police but it is clear that combating the spread of child pornography, particularly via the Internet, poses particular challenges. In recognition of this, the whole question of the strategic implications for law enforcement of Internet related crime is currently under consideration by senior representatives of the police, following a recent report by the National Criminal Intelligence Service.
62. The Review recommends that there should be a ban on the export of child pornography as well as its import; the Customs Consolidation Act should be amended to cover "signals" as well as "articles" so that the Internet is covered. (9.29)
Officials are examining options for introducing legislation to prohibit the export of child pornography. In considering the options they will bear in mind that UK domestic controls already make the possession of child pornography illegal both for personal use and for distribution within the UK, whether for eventual export or otherwise. As Customs powers and legislation are directed at the movement of goods, not electronic signals, legal advice is that it is inappropriate to amend the Customs Consolidation Act to cover the importation of ìsignalsî as well as ìarticlesî. Officials are exploring other means to cover the Internet. (Response Chapter 9)
63. The Review recommends that child prostitution should be dealt with as a child protection issue, and calls for a review of the legislation to ensure that there are adequate means of deterring and punishing those who exploit young people in this way. (9.30-40)
& 64. All agencies should work together to ensure that there is a coherent policy for dealing with child prostitution from a child protection perspective. Area Child Protection Committees should take an active interest in (child prostitution) in their area and social services should ensure that there are staff trained in how to deal with child prostitution. Those dealing with child prostitution in police forces should have knowledge of child protection work, or work closely with those who do. (9.40)
Agreed. The Government's policy is to regard children in prostitution as victims of abuse who should be helped to leave that way of life. Those who exploit children in prostitution are already liable to prosecution under the criminal law.
The Government is determined to ensure that there are effective inter-agency arrangements in place to ensure that children are dealt with appropriately and that abusers are punished. The Department of Health has consulted on revising "Working Together" guidance which suggests that ACPCs should be encouraged to develop protocols for handling the problem in their area. The revised document will be published in Spring 1999. The Home Office and the Department of Health are preparing new guidance to police and social services on how to deal with children in prostitution. The Government has announced its intention to review the law relating to sexual offences. This will include consideration of the offences and penalties that should apply to those who exploit child prostitutes. (Response Chapter 10).
65. To combat bullying, managers of children's homes should set and monitor standards of acceptable conduct, including the conduct of staff to residents. Organisations providing children's homes should implement effective anti-bullying strategies. (9.44-5)
&73. Bodies with responsibilities for children living away from home should possess effective policies for preventing and confronting all forms of racial harassment and ensure managers enforce them. No adult with responsibilities for children living away from home should "not notice" it or assume nothing can be done. (10.25)
&74. Sexual harassment should be regarded as seriously as racial harassment and appropriate sanctions and training applied to perpetrators. (10.28)
The term "bullying" can be used to describe activities ranging from physical violence through racial and sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, using threats to obtain money or property to psychological torture. Ways of preventing and detecting bullying must stay near the top of the agenda in all settings where children live away from home. Management should set and monitor standards of acceptable conduct, which includes the conduct of staff to residents. The revised "Working Together" guidance which will be issued in Spring 1999 will discuss what constitutes effective anti-bullying strategies. This will build on good practice examples received as responses to the consultation paper and on work that has already been taken forward in schools.
66. The Review urges the Prison Service to take the management action needed to implement anti-bullying strategies consistently in all establishments in which children aged under 18 are detained. (9.49)
The new Youth Justice Board will take account of this in advising on standards for juvenile secure facilities and in monitoring the delivery of these standards. In the meantime, there are a number of initiatives to prevent bullying and to deal with bullies. A project aimed specifically to reduce violence in young offender institutions is already working to co-ordinate the various measures designed to promote good behaviour and to tackle the bad. The key to tackling bullying and self-harm is the provision of full, active and purposeful regimes and high quality relationships between the young people and staff. Central to the latter is the culture of an establishment. Much effort is now being made to change the culture in those establishments which look after the juveniles by better staff training. The Prison Service provides training which was designed by the Trust for the Study of Adolescence for which formal accreditation is now being sought. The Prison Service also recognises the important role of education in regimes for juveniles. A key element of the new regime standards for juveniles will be education. Education will tackle the commonplace literacy, numeracy and social skills problems and prepares them either for a ëlearn to learningí or for employment (Response Chapter 9).
68. The right to use corporal punishment should be removed from those boarding schools which still retain it. (10.6)
Agreed. The School Standards and Framework Act 1998 outlaws corporal punishment for all pupils in maintained and non-maintained schools and for children receiving nursery education. The provisions will come into force on 1 September 1999.
70. Local authorities should offer children's rights services to all children they look after. Children's rights training should be included in training for all staff who work in residential settings. Children wishing to use the formal complaints procedure should be entitled to the services of an advocate. (10.11-12)
&127. Children wishing to use the statutory complaints procedure should be offered the help of an independent adult or children's rights officer. (18.14)
The Government supports the concept of children's rights officers. A Government funded research project by The Children's Society on complaints procedures is due to be published soon and the Government will consider the lessons to be learnt from this before devising further plans. There is no intention to take forward the recommendation to give children's rights training for residential care workers because it is intended that this will be dealt with within the NVQ training initiative which has been started with £2million in 1998/9 and will be funded to a larger extent over the following three years.
The Welsh Office is funding research into models for advocacy for children who are looked after in Wales. The results of this will be known early in the New Year and will be used to develop policy and plans in Wales. The Department of Health will also consider their findings.
72. A new organisation for young people who are or have been in care is needed which should be supported from statutory as well as charitable sources. (10.17)
Agreed. The government has commissioned First Key to take forward a project to establish a group to provide a national voice for looked after children and those formerly in the care of local authorities and has agreed Section 64 funding of £450,000 over the next three years. The Welsh Office will continue to support Voices from Care, a national organisation for young people who are or have been looked after.
77. The Department of Health, the Department for Education and Employment and the Home Office should consider commissioning a study which surveys issues of control across all settings for which these departments have a policy responsibility with a view to publishing a handbook of guidance and standards for managers and practitioners. (11.28)
The Government accepts further work on control is needed. The Departments are considering how to take this forward in the light of the Comprehensive Spending Review outcome and current guidance and practice.
78. If Taking Care Taking Control could be said to have addressed behavioural development, then the following topics remain to be addressed: health, education, identity, family and social relationships, social presentation and self care skills. We suggest that this could be the starting point for a curriculum of in-service training to be reflected in training materials applicable to foster care, residential care in homes and in (special) schools. To this core should be added training in how to ensure the safety of children living away from home and the care of children who have been abused. (12.13)
Agreed. Money from the Department of Health's TSP will be used to produce relevant training materials. Investment in NVQs will also help to deliver this. (Response chapter 8)
79. The Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work (CCETSW) should specify the content of child care training on courses which lead to qualifications by defining the content of a curriculum of learning, in addition to describing the competencies and standards which must be demonstrated. (12.22)
The recent establishment of a National Training Organisation for the Personal Social Services should help engage employers more closely in owning and addressing the current deficiencies in the quantity and quality of training. (Response Chapter 8).
DH and CCETSW have jointly commissioned the University of Leicester to develop the knowledge base and draft curriculum guidance for a new Post Qualification (PQ) award in child care. The intention is to fund the development of the curriculum guidance between January 1999 and October at six or eight centres of excellence with a view to starting courses in January 2000. This PQ level work will begin to distinguish the knowledge and skills which basically qualified social workers will need to demonstrate and in turn will inform a planned review of the DipSW in 1999.
A review of CCETSW's regulatory functions is underway and this will include consideration of the scope and strength of CCETSW's powers. This work is being done for the benefit of the GSCC which will be created when legislative time allows. It is intended that the GSCC will have the necessary powers to ensure that professional social work training delivers staff who are fit for the purpose.
80. The Department for Education and Employment and Department of Health jointly review and explore the scope for a common approach to developing training opportunities for carers in schools and homes in relation to National Vocational Qualifications and the Diploma in Social Work qualifications. (12.28)
The Departments will work together to consider the scope for joint training and develop a common approach. This will recognise that the two workforces are not identical and have some divergent needs. (Response chapter 8).
81. The Department of Health and the Department for Education and Employment commission the production of further training materials designed for the in-service training of carers without professional qualifications in schools and homes. (12.31)
DH will consult with the relevant employment interests on the sorts of new materials which are necessary and how they can be provided. DfEE will similarly conduct discussions about the needs of the workers in schools. (Response Chapter 8).
83. The Department of Health and the Home Office should jointly explore the potential for developing guidance and training materials designed to heighten awareness of child care professionals about the profiles and methods of perpetrators of child abuse. (12.37)
Agreed. The Training Support Programme in England is funding a project in 1998/99 and 1999/2000 on the profiles and methods of child abusers with a view to introducing training materials by the end of 1999. (Response Chapter 8)
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