Agenda item

The Policy and Participation Manager from Become Charity will be in attendance to provide a presentation in relation to the stigma and perceptions faced by care experienced children and young people.

S Turner, Policy and Participation Manager from Become Charity, was in attendance at the meeting to advise the Panel about the work undertaken by Become, particularly in relation to tackling the stigma and negative perceptions faced by care experienced children and young people.

 

The Panel heard that Become was the National Charity for children in care and young care leavers in England, with one of its strategic aims being to change attitudes towards care experienced young people in society.  The Charity provided advice and support through the National Care Advice Line; One to one support and life coaching; weekly link-ups; Propel website and training for professionals.  The services provided were youth-led, holistic and trauma-informed and ongoing follow up support was provided to meet the practical and emotional needs of children in care and young care leavers.  The Charity was independent from statutory services ensuring that young people felt safe to share their feelings and challenges knowing that they would be listened to without being judged and that action would be taken to make sure they received the right support.

 

In addition, Become helped to improve the care system by ensuring young people’s voices were heard to shape the policies and services that were there to help them.  This included working with Government, Parliament, professionals within the care system and others to promote good policy-making and practice, responding to consultations, providing briefings, running campaigns and awareness-raising with the media.  Part of the Policy and Participation Manager’s role was to involve care experienced young people across these areas in a way that was both safe for them and meaningful.

 

It was highlighted that Become was formerly known as ‘Who Cares Trust’, founded by a Social Worker in Westminster who created a magazine that was circulated to children in care.

 

Stigma and Perceptions

 

The Policy and Participation Manager shared the most commonly heard quotes from young people around stigma and perceptions.  There were many assumptions and stereotypes often made about children in care and their families which had an impact on their wellbeing and sense of identity.  For example, regular local media coverage of children’s homes and concerns around ownership often quoted falsehoods and unfounded negative comments about the types of children in the care system.

 

Sometimes stigma was less easy to identify and could be explained as ignorance and lack of education around the care system.  The real facts about how a children’s home actually operated and how it looked went a long way to combatting some of the perceptions.  The Policy and Participation Manager stated that when speaking to members of the public, many people were surprised to learn that a children’s home was usually a three or four bedroomed house designed to feel like a family home.

 

When speaking to young people, many felt that other people’s (peers and professionals) perceptions of the reasons why they were in care, included that it was the young person’s fault that they were in care, that they were trouble-makers, or it was due to anti-social behaviour.  This was not the case.

 

Young people often felt that they were deemed to fail, fuelled by low aspirations of professionals and those that thrived felt they were bucking the trend.  Those young people that had encountered the Police for the first time often felt that they were treated like criminals when they had done nothing wrong and that incorrect assumptions were made in relation to anti-social behaviour or drug taking for example.

 

Often, the idea of feeling sorry for them or that they were more fragile than other young people and labelling the young person as being in care could be problematic.  This happened often in school, often around additional tuition or meetings they may be required to attend.  Feedback from those young people was that they wanted to be treated the same as any other child in school.  They wanted to be children first and children in care second.  They sometimes worried about what their friends thought of them and worried that they were only friends with them to ‘be nice’ to them because they were in care.

 

On the other hand, in a recent discussion with young adults around what being a care leaver was, they spoke about social intelligence and ‘sussing’ people out and the ability to navigate bureaucracy well.  The use of the word resilient was often used to describe children in care and care leavers and resilience was often celebrated.  Some young people felt uncomfortable around the use of the term as they never wanted to be resilient.  It was not a choice, it was something that they had to be.

 

The Panel was informed that in 2017 Become undertook some specific research to explore with children in care how they felt they were perceived by others, such as teachers, social workers and peers and the impact this had on them.  A link to the document ‘Perceptions of Care’ had been circulated to the Panel and this work was based on a series of focus groups and a survey.  The key statistics that resulted from the work were highlighted as follows:-

 

·        50% of children in care and 51% of care leavers agreed that “People think it is the children’s fault that they are in care.”

·        39% of children in care and 43% of care leavers disagreed with the statement “Other children’s parents do not treat children in care differently to other children.”

·        30% of children in care and 42% of care leavers agreed with the statement that “Where I live, people would not like it if someone opened a children’s home.”

 

The Policy and Participation Manager stated that consistently, care leavers appeared more aware than children in care, in relation to some of the differences of how they were portrayed compared to their peers.

 

The 2017 study was followed up in 2018 with ‘Teachers who Care’ which looked at teacher training and supporting children in care in schools.  The study included a series of questions around knowledge, attitude and stigma and were answered by more than 450 teachers. The aim of the study was to find out whether teachers had heard similar views to those expressed by children in care.  Unfortunately, for the most part this was borne out and demonstrated some of the negative stereotypes and low aspirations held by some professionals working with children and young people.

 

The study highlighted that 87% of respondents had heard at least one colleague express a negative generalisation about children in care and that 37% of respondents had heard such views often.

 

The Chair queried whether there was any data in relation to how many times the respondents had challenged those negative comments about children in care expressed by their colleagues and that it would be interesting to see whether those views were being challenged.  The Policy and Participation Manager agreed that this would be interesting and may be a piece of possible follow up work in the future.

 

The Teachers Who Care 2018 report made nine recommendations to schools, training providers, Government and Local Authorities, including a call for the introduction of mandatory training on working with children in care in all schools for all teachers both before and after they qualified.

 

The findings of the report were developed into a resource, “I Wish You Knew”, highlighting the six key things children in care wished their teachers to know about their experience.

 

Links to positive work undertaken by other organisations, such as Coram and Life Changers Trust Scotland, had also been circulated to Panel Members.

 

The Policy and Participation Manager stated that in terms of challenging some of the perceptions and making care a more comfortable thing to think about, the following could be considered:-

 

·        Media reporting and representation of care experienced people.  For Example, Who cares Scotland had a media club that supported challenging some of the typical tv and film tropes around care experience which was crucial when so much of young people’s awareness of the care system came from films, books, media and tv shows, such as Tracy Beaker.

 

·        Language.  Dialogue around the care system was amplified by people’s responses.  For example, ‘myth-busting’ often had the opposite effect in practice, either reinforcing stereotypes that people already had or introducing people who were unaware of stereotypes to new ones.

 

·        Frameworks.  This was written in the Scottish context but had a number of parallels and learning that was relevant in England.  This looked at trying to change the way people thought and spoke about care experience to dispel some of the stigma.  It set out some analysis of typical framings of care experienced children and young people.  The study looked at reframing issues so that there was a shift in public attitudes towards care experienced young people to address and end stigma and create systematic change. 

 

·        Training.  In the context of ‘Teachers Who Care’, Become had pushed for training in relation to children in care to form a part of all initial teacher training courses and for relevant training for all frontline staff in health care settings and Police.  Become had delivered training with Personal Advisers, teachers, social workers, Ofsted inspectors as well as other organisations.

 

·        Proactively embedding care experienced children within their local community.  Engaging children in care in community activities and events, alongside their peers, such as sports and leisure clubs and other services and allowing communities to speak with and listen to children in care would prevent some of the fear that crept into some people’s perceptions.  Children in care often reported feeling very disconnected from their local community, especially those that had moved around a lot or were living out of area.

 

·        APPG.  Become provided secretariat support for the All Party Parliamentary Group for children looked after and care leavers.  This was a cross-parliamentary group of MPs and Peers that had an interest in improving the care system and promoting good quality government policy-making.  Become had recently launched a spotlight inquiry particularly exploring themes around care and community around the country.  This included holding a series of evidence gathering sessions and reaching out to young people to find out how they had been supported to feel part of their local or wider communities and how local communities had been supported to respect and better understand the care experienced members.  A North East session would be held in the coming months and it was hoped that the Scrutiny Panel may be able to contribute in some way.

 

The Panel was provided with the opportunity to ask questions and the following issues were raised:-

 

·        A Member referred to the ‘Teachers Who Care’ report and noted that 80% of teachers stated that they had received no training in relation to looked after and 75% who had qualified after 2010 stated they had received no training.  The Member fully supported the Become’s recommendation that training should be provided during all initial teacher training programmes and suggested that the Scrutiny Panel make a recommendation, and action as soon as possible, engagement with all schools in Middlesbrough to ensure appropriate training for teachers be provided as soon as possible, in collaboration with Social Workers, the Virtual School and other agencies, including more sharing of information and resources.  The Executive Director considered that this needed to be done in conjunction with the Children and Young People’s Learning Scrutiny Panel.

 

·        In response to a query as to whether Become provided individual advocacy, it was explained that Become was not a formal advocacy service in the way that was normally commissioned from a local authority, but people usually contacted them through the Care Advice line when they had been through an advocate but this had not resolved their query or where they were not at the point where they wanted to involve an advocate but were interested in the options available to them in relation to advocacy or making a formal complaint or even a legal challenge.  Whilst Become was not a formal advocacy service, it challenged decisions with local authorities directly where it had permission from the young person to do so.

 

·        The Executive Director queried how Become was feeding into the National Review on Children’s Social Care and how much scope there was to push some of the organisation’s ideas forward into the review.  The Policy and Participation Manager responded that the scope of the review had morphed from its original commitment in 2019 to review the care system.  It had been expected that the review would focus on those that were formally looked after but it had evolved into a review of children’s social care in its entirety – from the point of first referral.  Become was very interested in the review’s potential to deliver change that young people had told them that they wanted to see.  Become’s work so far had been to try and understand how the review was communicating with young people and trying to share learning on how to consult with children and young people in a way that was safe for young people so that they would not be re-traumatised and also to value their lived experience and expertise.  Through the APPG, Become was providing a lot of the administrative work and co-ordination for the inquiry and hoped to feed that into the review with a series of recommendations.  It was suggested that it would be beneficial for the Panel to receive a short briefing on the Care Review, for information.

 

·        A Member referred to the quotes from young people in relation stigma and perceptions and wondered how many more young people held similar opinions and asked what avenues were available to invite people to express their views and feelings.  The Policy and Participation Manager responded that there were a few different ways in which Become tried to listen and respond to young people and to create safe spaces where they could work with Become to challenge on a national level.  Become worked closely with structures that were already in place, such as Children in Care Councils as well as creating groups to campaign on particular issues.  Local structures included Children in Care Councils, Advocacy Forums, participation groups, Corporate Parenting Boards.  Nationally, organisations such as Become needed to engage young people that wanted to share their views.

 

·        A Panel Member commented that the young peoples’ comments in relation to stigma and perceptions were two-sided and that it appeared that their views were not only around how they felt others had poor perceptions of children in care but also that they felt some people over-compensated for them being in care and tried to be ‘too nice’ to them because they felt sorry for them.

 

·        A Member of the Panel commented that he had was aware of children who were not in care but were receiving help that had experienced negative views towards them and that they were made to feel different and believed that schools needed to be more involved in eradicating stigma and that all teachers should receive training.

 

·        It was noted that of the five direct quotes from young people, two referred to the Police, one of the local authority’s partners in relation to safeguarding, and it was queried whether this was a proportionate representation.  The Policy and Participation Manager stated that it was not necessarily reflective of what young people had to say in relation to perceptions and stigma generally, but the quotes had been included from a specific piece of exploratory work undertaken with young people.  The Harvard League had produced a piece of work in relation to the criminalisation of children in care, mainly in residential settings, and why young people in care often became involved in the Youth Justice system. 

 

·        A Panel Member stated that it was not the fault of the child that they were in care and queried whether some children felt ashamed to be in care because they had been made to feel that they were the problem and also believed that training for everyone would be beneficial to eradicate the stigma of being in care and to raise understanding of the care system and queried what steps the Panel could take to assist.  Reference was also made to Tracy Beaker and how it had impacted on people’s perceptions of care.

 

·        In response, it was acknowledged that Tracy Beaker had almost become a symbol of the care system to a lot of young people and how it framed public awareness and discourse around the care system.  The importance of good quality life-story work and explaining to young people the reasons why they had come into care was key to dispelling stigma and perceptions around care.  Some young people in a recent session had expressed the view that whilst it was not their fault that they were in care, this ended up shifting blame and stigma onto parents and families which young people felt uncomfortable about because they could see that their parents and families were not getting the help that they needed from the care system.  In terms of how the Panel could help, it was suggested that sharing the Charity’s contact details with young people:-

 

-        who were interested in getting involved in campaigning and policy work at a national level

-        to access the advice and support services offered by Become

-        to access signposting services

-        to access community-building programmes such as on-line meetings to chat and play games in a safe space. 

-        The Panel could also challenge stigma when it happened and look at language choices within the local authority.

 

·          A Panel Member commented that links could be made with Middlesbrough’s Children in Care Council and Youth Council in relation to changing perceptions and use of language.  The Policy and Participation Manager stated that some young people were proud to be care leavers and wanted to celebrate that as part of their identity, whilst other young people who were care experienced wanted to share their views and expertise but not in a way that was as visible.  This could be recognised through CiCCs and also that their expertise did not necessarily need to link to care as they had unique views on many other issues such as health and education.

 

·          In relation to the use of language, the Chair highlighted that many terms currently in use had replaced other terms deemed unsuitable, perhaps 20 years ago and that it was important to strive to be pace-setters and to learn why particular terms should or should not be used.

 

·          A Member suggested that the Corporate Parenting Board could engage with the  Children in Care Council and Youth Parliament to involve them in policy and campaigning initiatives and to possibly interview each other and other people involved concerned with these issues.  It was queried whether, as Councillors, there was any way of linking into the APPG for looked after children and care leavers.  The Policy and Participation Manager advised that the first opportunity to become involved would be to link into the first online North East evidence gathering session and that details of this could be forwarded to Members.

 

The Chair thanked the Policy and Participation Manager for his attendance and the information provided.

 

AGREED that the information provided be noted in the context of the Panel’s current scrutiny review of Sufficiency and Permanency (Perceptions of Children in Care).