Children in Care
"Couldn't Care Less: Children In Care Report" | Published 08 September 2008
This report addresses the current state of the care system for children in the
Click here for the Children In Care Report
Click here to read the Executive Summary
Children in Care
Breakthrough Britain, published last year, covered the five pathways to poverty: family breakdown, failed education, debt, worklessness and dependency and drug and alcohol addiction. During the work on Breakthrough Britain, we began to notice that children in care had some of the worst outcomes of any group. They covered all the areas from family breakdown to drug and alcohol addiction and we felt that we weren’t able to report on the issues surrounding them in the time available.
As a result I decided that the Centre for Social Justice should commission another report on looked after children in care which would pull together members of the voluntary sector who deal with children in care, academics and those who were themselves in care as young people. We also took evidence and used extensive polling to find out what social workers and foster carers felt about the service they provided. I am particularly indebted to Ryan Robson who chaired the group.
The report shows that we take children into care because their parents are dysfunctional and can’t cope or they are threatened by abusive behaviour from their parents. However, once they are in care too often the state seems to lower their life outcomes, not raise them. The reports findings should make compelling reading for all politicians. As I read the report, I found myself getting angry that we as a society could have allowed so many children to have been failed by our statutory authorities. The appalling level of academic achievement, the high levels of mental illness, the destructive levels of drug and alcohol addiction and the criminality that so characterise these children, should anger us all.
This failure affects us for we are already picking up these enormous costs through the criminal justice system and the health service and these are set to rise. What the paper also shows is that other countries seem to be much more responsive to the needs of the children they have taken into care, often with better results. The recommendations in this report are about changing the way we look at children in care and how we live up to our responsibilities. However, what is needed first is the political courage to make this a priority and initiate the process of change to an area we all have brushed aside for too long. Only then can we answer the important question – who cares?
Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP
