outcome of childcare

Children go into care either under care order, voluntary agreement by their parents, or for reason of police protection. Different care system depends on the individual circumstances and needs of each child. 62%, the majority of looked after children, are provided with a service due to abuse or neglect. Where children are exposed to neglect or abuse, local authority should be efficient and quick to bring them into care, either placing them in foster care, children’s home, special guardianship or adoption.

Delays in adoptive system can cause lasting harm to vulnerable children, and may rob them of their best chance of love and stability of a potential family. As children grow older in care, waiting to be matched to an adoptive family, it gets less and less likely that they will be adopted at all. A recent investigation by Professor Elaine Farmer suggested that family finding in most local authorities tends only to begin after the court has considered and made a placement order, which can take months. In particular, young children and infants need to form attachment or secure and stable relationship in order to develop physically, emotionally and intellectually. Otherwise, they may have difficulties forming attachments later in life according to the child welfare information getaway. Delays in moving them into stable, long term placements can be harmful to them, whatever their age.

Apart from the delay these vulnerable children had to go through in the care system, the statistical first release by the department of education provided the information on outcome for children who have been looked after continuously for at least 12 months at March 2013. It appeared that children in care have poorer outcomes in all aspects than children not in care, including educational attainment, health and wellbeing, offending, substance misuse and exclusions from schools.

However, despite poor outcomes, there have been improvements for almost all measures. In terms of educational attainment, the achievement gap between looked after children and non-looked after children has reduced in recent years. Though, there still remains a large attainment gap.

Nevertheless, the new Children and Families Act will mean changes to the law giving greater protection to vulnerable children. The act also changes to the adoption system, which is the new 26 week limit for care proceedings to reduce unnecessary delay can be put into practice, meaning more children who need loving homes are placed faster. The government is also making it mandatory for every council to have a ‘virtual school head’ - an individual who champions the education of children in care and acts as their overarching head. Besides, the allocation of the new pupil premium plus would be fully utilized, securing the best educational support and service for children in care, and narrow the attainment gap.

Now, just to summarise, despite the rather inefficient care system and poor outcome of looked after children, the government has taken steps to improve the care system. The outcomes of children in care will improve when the new Act come into force.