All children emerging from the care system will be able to remain with their foster carer families after they turn 18 following a £40 million funding injection and a new legal requirement on councils to provide support, which builds on previous initiatives to strengthen the mechanisms in place for care leavers.
Children’s Minister Edward Timpson announced this week that he intends to place a new legal requirement on children’s services to provide monetary support for every young person who wants to remain in their foster placement until their 21st birthday – allocating local authorities £40 million over the next 36 months to effect the necessary changes in time.
Edward Timpson, who grew up in a foster family with parents who fostered, feels that giving children and young people already vulnerable from being in care the right sort of support just as they are leaving care is crucial to their life chances.
A significant number of local authorities already give young people the chance to stay but with little financial incentives, it can be testing for the foster families. Once enacted the new initiative will mean all councils will have to follow the national standard and we are allocating £40 million towards the costs.
This is a progressive reform to the wider package of support and help for care leavers, including changes to the procedures so eligible young people remain in care until they are ready to move out and much more effective financial help for young people leaving care at 18.
This will enable up to 10,000 young people leaving stable and secure foster placements to transition from fostering to independence when they are ready, rather than when the corporate parent requirements them to.
Children in care usually have much lower educational attainment and are more likely than the general population to be out of education, work or training.
The initiative announced this week is the latest in a series of changes the Coalition has improved achievement for children and young people leaving care.
Working in partnership with Children’s Services, local authorities and third sector organisations , the Government feels it has effected the following changes :
- launched the ‘Charter for care leavers’ – an undertaking between councils and young people emerging from care – which outlines the support they should expect up to the age of 25, with many Children’s Services Departments signed up
- Brought in the Savings Account Initiative for all children in care with tens of thousands of accounts now being opened
- produced the cross-government strategy for care leavers, which holds together coherently the Government plan from housing to health care services, and from youth justice to educational providers – and to help care leavers to live self- sufficiently once they have left their foster home
- Engaged with all children’s services focussing on dramatic improvement to financial support for care leavers which has achieved a huge increase in the number of local authorities now paying £2,000 or more through the Setting Up Home Allowance
- improved public transparency by publishing an annual set, outlining statistics on care leavers’ educational and work status, and from this October 2013, Ofsted’s children’s service inspection framework will focus more specifically on the achievement and attainment of care leavers
- Brought in the pupil premium plus for all children in the care system from the first day of the fostering arrangement , raising the the school’s allowance by £1,000
- Required every local authority to put in place a ‘virtual school head’ – a professional tsar who campaigns for the education of looked-after children and acts as their overarching head in a corporate parenting capacity
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