Message to Westminster from care-experienced young people

Better mental health support has emerged as the top ask from care-experienced young people responding to a consultation.

It comes from a consultation by A National Voice, the children in care council for England, hosted by children’s rights group Coram Voice.

The findings were based on 325 responses from care-experienced children and young people aged from four to 26 and over across 45 local authorities.

They were asked to identify the three areas they believe England’s children’s minister Janet Daby should focus on.

Nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) said they wanted to see better mental health support. The next most mentioned priority was ensuring professionals listen to them when making decisions about their lives (45 per cent). 

The third priority was ensuring support is available to help build better relationships.

Mental health

One respondent to the consultation said: “Your mental health impacts everything; everyday life, education, just getting up in the morning,”.

Their suggested “opt-out rather than opt-in” counselling and therapy and “more and better trauma training for staff, teachers and foster carers”. 

According to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, 45 per cent of children and young people looked after in England have emotional and mental health problems. This compares with ten per cent of five to 15-year-olds in the general population.

Children’s Barnardo’s Neglected Minds report highlights a similar figure. It also found that 65 per cent of young people identified as having mental health needs were not receiving any statutory service.

Speaking at Fatima Whitbread’s One Voice Summit in April, held to draw attention to the needs of care-experienced people, Daby acknowledged the problem.

She said that care-experienced young people “are overrepresented in homelessness and rough sleeping and are more likely to experience loneliness and poor emotional health”.

Listen to us when making decisions

Children in care have a right to be involved in decision about their lives but campaigners say this too often does not happening enough. 

One respondent to the consultation said: “The decisions made about our lives are often out of our control. It creates chaos and fear in young people which lasts a lifetime.” 

Support to build better relationships

One respondent to the consultation said: ““When I was first in care I didn't understand or know how to have good/friendly relationships. It would be good to have help learning this.”

Children in care will have already experienced breakdown in familial relationships and resultant trauma. According to Barnardo’s, 35 per cent of care leavers go on to live in a flat on their own, often away from friends and their community.

One in three care leavers becomes homeless within the first two years of leaving care. A recent inquest into the tragic death of autistic teenager Nonita Grabovskyte two weeks after her 18th birthday highlights the need to ensure care leavers are properly supported transitioning into adulthood.

The government’s Staying Close policy providing enhanced support for young people leaving care is being rolled out across local authorities to help address this.

England’s Independent Review of Children’s Social Care said it should be a mission to ensure that every young person leaves care with at least two loving relationships. 

Speaking at the recent One Voice conference, the review’s author Josh MacAlister said: “We need to rewire the care system to establish crowding in and keeping those lifelong loving relations for people leaving care.”

Winners of a creative writing competition for care-experienced young people will be announced at the end of May.

The Coram Voice competition includes poems, short stories and raps on the theme of ‘My voice’.