, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Yes. I mean, obviously, the point of having the consultation is to find out what people think. Our commitment to this is unwavering, but, obviously, we will take into account what people have said and we will consider what they've said.
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Diolch. Thank you very much for that question. To eliminate profit from children's care is one of the top commitments of the Government, and we are determined to do all we can to take this forward, because the present market is unsustainable. There are very…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Well, obviously, advocacy, I think, is very important, and the role of parental advocacy is to support parents to positively engage with social workers, with third sector organisations, the family courts and other professionals to resolve issues that have…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
[Inaudible.]—that we took the initiative in Wales because it wasn't being rolled out in Wales because, obviously, family justice is an England-and-Wales issue. So, courts had been funded in England. I think there are about 15 courts in England, the majority…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Thank you very much, Ken, for that question. We are absolutely convinced of the value of the problem-solving family court model. I'm really pleased that the Welsh Government funded the family drug and alcohol court in Cardiff and the Vale. We provided…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Just to go back to what Alistair said about what the young people said at the summit, they do really feel that, because they're care experienced, they will not be treated the same as everybody else when they do have children themselves. And this came over…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Yes. Well, certainly, I agree that we need more of these projects and we need them more across Wales. And in the same way as we want to bring in the practice framework, which we hope will consistently provide better response to people's needs, we want to see…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Yes, well we certainly have been looking at how Baby and Me has developed, and we would like to see Baby and Me repeated throughout Wales because we think it is such an outstanding example. So, we're certainly aware of its success, and in our plans moving…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Well, I know that Project Unity plays a really valuable part in promoting emotional and practical help to care-experienced mothers, and I'm really pleased that the Welsh Government has been able to provide annual funding of £340,000 for that programme until…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Yes, thank you very much for that very important question, and I acknowledge that violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence can have a huge impact on children and young people and, of course, can be a factor in them coming into care because…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Thank you very much for the invitation to come here today. We're very pleased to come to answer your questions. And this is a matter of concern that there is such a huge variation, because you've probably been told the differing numbers in different local…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Services for care experienced children: exploring radical reform—evidence session 14
Thank you very much for the invitation.
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services
Thank you very much. It's awful that you have to highlight those dreadful things that have happened to Kaylea, and once again I want to express my deepest sadness that this has happened. But I think the response from the Government should be that we should…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services
Well, I can't tell you, Gareth, how seriously we are taking all these cases, and that of course we are doing all we possibly can to prevent such things happening, but the issue of whether there should be a review of children's services in Wales was debated…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services
I thank Gareth Davies for that question, and obviously I want to express my deep sadness about what has happened to Kaylea, and I think that we've all followed the description of what led to her death, and we obviously will have great and deepest sympathy. A…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services
As I said in response to Mike Hedges, eventually, we hope that all two-year-olds will have access to Flying Start, but of course this has to be done in a phased way. So, each local authority is putting in its plans for the expansion of Flying Start, so…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services
I thank Mike Hedges for his question and for his enthusiasm for Flying Start. The Flying Start areas have been identified using the Wales index of multiple deprivation data from the Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue and Customs, and are broken…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services
Flying Start is delivering a phased expansion of early years provision to all two-year-olds. Phase 1 is nearing completion with services offered to over 2,500 additional children. Phase 2 begins in April and, over the next two years, will support over 9,500…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services
I thank Altaf Hussain for that very important question. It is, of course, vital that people needing to access end-of-life services are not put in the position where they are desperately trying to get information, particularly over a weekend. I’m aware of…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services
I thank the Member for that question. I'd like to emphasise how closely the Minister and I have been working to bring health and social care together. We have fortnightly meetings—the care action committee—where we drive developments that are jointly between…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services
Effective working across health and social care is essential in managing hospital discharges effectively. Working in partnership has been a real feature of our approach to the challenges the system is facing this winter and has resulted in an additional 595…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24—evidence session 2
Yes, I agree with you that we do need that focused funding, but I hope we've described today some of the focused funding that already exists, and that is the way that we are working in health and social services. Children and young people are a priority for…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24—evidence session 2
I'm sure there will be an action plan, but, obviously, at the moment, we need to work on the strategy, which, as I say, will be coming out this year. But I think, as I said before, there are really two elements of this. There's the immediate response of just…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24—evidence session 2
Thank you very much. Well, the Minister for Social Justice has given a commitment to refresh our child poverty strategy this year, so that it reflects the very challenging circumstances that we're in at the moment, and that that will set out a renewed…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24—evidence session 2
Well, thank you very much. Obviously, I think it's a matter of rejoicing that we are expanding Flying Start, basically, and this is a process. We are in very difficult straitened times. You heard from the Minister at the beginning that we had to look at all…
