, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Yes, thanks very much. We are aware of the call to make care experience a protected characteristic, and I believe it was a recommendation from the review of social care in England that was published last year. For that to have any statutory basis, it would…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Well, mental health, again, was raised at the summit as being absolutely crucial. Mental health comes up with young people all the time. So, obviously, I work very closely with the Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Well-being to do what we possibly can to…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Well, this declaration is going to be signed. This is going to be signed by the First Minister on behalf of the Government. That hasn't been able to happen yet, but we have got a date, I believe, now coming up for it to happen. That will commit the Government…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Yes. Well, the education Minister was present at the care summit, and I think all those issues you've mentioned were raised directly with him. I know young people feel so strongly about people coming into schools and taking them out of class to have a…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
It's absolutely crucial that it encompasses all Government portfolios, because, obviously, we're representing the social services part of the Government, and children are affected by so many other things—lots of which we've talked about today—education…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Yes, there's a lot of ongoing work that we'll need to keep you in touch with, I think.
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Thank you very much for that question. In order to try to improve the transition from care to independent living, which is obviously crucial, and we've talked about that a lot of today, we'll shortly be publishing a new version of the care leavers…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Well, Social Care Wales commissioned independent work on the terms and conditions of social workers, and they commissioned that earlier this year. This work identifies earlier this year. And this work identifies that, where they don't already exist, case-load…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Directly answering Laura's question.
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Reliance on agency workers is a very significant cost to local authorities, because they have to pay so much for them. Social Care Wales has funded work that is led by the Association of Directors of Social Services Cymru to review the cost of agency workers…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Yes, thank you very much. Our attraction and recruitment campaign, WeCare.Wales—I'm sure most of you will have seen their adverts—has really highlighted the role of the social worker, with real-life stories on the website and social media channels with the…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Yes, I think that this is an absolutely key issue, because that's the feedback that we've had from young people, that having constant changes of social workers is really so disruptive and does affect the ability of young people to trust in a social worker…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Yes, of course. It's not in my portfolio, but I'm working on it with the Minister for Social Justice and I'm in most of the meetings.
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Well, I'm very strongly in support of it and I'm very proud that Welsh Government is doing it. I think it shows our value for care leavers and I think all the evidence we've received so far has been very positive. Obviously, it's still very early in its…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Yes. I mean, unregistered placements happen because of a crisis and children are placed there. Over-16s, who are placed in unregulated placements, it certainly sounds, from our knowledge and from the evidence that you've received, that they have not been…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
No, no, I'm not saying it's not happening; I'm just thinking it's not—children under 16, it's hard to imagine that it could possibly be the right placement for them in an unregulated setting, because they should be somewhere that should be registered.
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Yes.
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
That's right. And I can't really see the circumstances where that should ever happen, because if you're under 16, why would you be placed in an unregulated setting? You may be placed in an unregistered setting, because you need care. So, it shouldn't happen…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Unregulated placements are placements that provide support only, and not care, as I know you're aware, so they don't fall under the remit of any regulation by CIW. I think it's important to remember that there is a clear distinction between unregulated and…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
[Inaudible.]—from young people, did you, who told you this, yes?
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
[Inaudible.]—strongly that if a young person is in a foster placement, if they want to stay there, if it's been their home, they should be able to stay there. It's completely wrong to have a barrier at 18 years that they cannot stay there. So, that's why this…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Thank you very much, Buffy, for that question. I just have to say at the beginning that I've seen really good examples of what personal advisers are doing to help young people, and I met some fairly recently up in north Wales, in particular. So, I think there…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Well, I think we look forward, really, very much to seeing what you recommend on this, because this is something that I think we do need to think about. There are different ways of providing advocacy. I really look forward to what the committee will recommend…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Care Inspectorate Wales doesn't routinely record the numbers of children who are subject to a deprivation of liberty order. However, as the newly formed deprivation of liberty courts are being reviewed, the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory has published…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Certainly I think this is something that we would be keen to explore, but I think, obviously, it would be a complex thing to bring in. I don't know how high up it would be on our list of priorities, but I think we would certainly explore it. We'd be very keen…
