Event Details

Key Speakers

	Mark Burrows, Team Manager, Care Planning, Department for Education
	Enver Solomon, Assistant Director of Policy, Barnardo's
	Mary Sainsbury, Senior Practice Development Manager, Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE)

Overview

Over the last decade the number of children in care has risen dramatically, with around 60,000 children now residing in the care system at any one time. Despite substantial reform and investment, outcomes for looked-after children continue to lag detrimentally behind those for other children, with children in care dependent on a postcode lottery of support that prevents many from accessing the services they need.

The majority of children enter the care system as a result of terrible abuse or neglect and are subsequently disproportionately vulnerable to high levels of mental health problems. Current instability of placements and limited service support often further deteriorates a child’s mental health, increasing poor educational attainment and contact with the criminal justice system.

In order to improve stability and security for looked-after children, the supply and time-span of placements must be increased through incentivising more people to become foster parents, increasing support for those who do foster and acting to prevent placements from breaking down. Looked-after children should also be involved in decisions regarding their future. Seeking to minimise unnecessary harm to children, Barnardo’s recently urged family courts to reverse existing unprecedented delays for determining whether a child can stay with their parents.

As the coalition Government sets out its road-map for change, this symposium offers a timely opportunity for social service practitioners, education and health practitioners, local authorities and other key stakeholders to consider the next steps in improving outcomes for looked-after children.

Delegates will:

• Explore how to work with children to improve their experience of care and increase local authority accountability
• Discuss how to incentivise foster and kinship carers through greater support, training and financial assistance
• Examine how to address looked-after children’s complex mental health needs and safeguard them from falling into a cycle of crime
• Consider how to prioritise and improve children’s access to good education and health services
• Debate, network and share best practice with colleagues

Programme

Who Should Attend?

• Directors of Children and Young People’s Services
• Children's Services & Families Services Officers
• Looked-After Children Team Managers
• Fostering Team Managers and Agencies
• Corporate Parenting Managers
• Heads of Children’s Strategy
• Residential Children's Home Managers
• Supported Housing Teams
• Sure Start
• Children's Trusts & Children's Centres
• Social Workers & Social Services Officers
• Early Years & Childcare Practitioners
• Child Protection and Safeguarding Teams
• Children's Health Service Professionals
• Child & Adolescent Mental Health Practitioners
• Designated Nurses and Health Advisors for Children in Care
• Teachers & Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators
• Local Education Authorities
• Participation/Engagement Teams
• Social Inclusion Officers
• Asylum and Immigration Officers
• Education and Welfare Officers
• Teenage Pregnancy Teams
• Education Providers
• Sports & Recreation Providers
• Extended Schools Advisors
• Children & Youth Organisations
• Community Development Managers
• Social Exclusion & Neighbourhood Renewal Teams
• Youth Workers & Youth Offending Teams
• Community Safety Teams
• Police Service
• Welfare Rights Organisations
• Training Organisations
• Local Councillors
• DfE, DWP, DoH and other Central Government Agencies
• Equality & Diversity Practitioners
• Third Sector Practitioners
• Academics & Researchers
• Trade Unions

“It is only justifiable if we are able to reassure parents that their child, when in care, will have stability and personalised attention rather than a life ruled by uncertainty and bureaucracy, will have access to all the health and therapeutic care that they need to enjoy life and develop into independent adults, will be protected from rather than exposed to risk of offending, and will not feel abandoned by children’s services when they reach 16, or 18, or if they go into custody. There are some children in care who have all of this, and many more who have some of it, thanks to dedicated, compassionate carers and diligent local authorities… how can we make sure that all looked-after children get all that they are entitled to expect from their time in care?”
— ‘Looked-after Children’, House of Commons Children, Schools and Families Committee, March 2009