Read on Twitter
1/ I've been watching the argument on Twitter about the #SocialCareReview with enormous sadness - people at each other's throats when we should all be coming together to do right by children and families. I will go into it with the hope that @JoshMacAlister will do his very best.
2/ I will also formally submit my own ideas for consideration, based on my experience as a victim of abuse and now as a practitioner in the frontline of supporting children and young people. Here is an overview of what I want to see...
3/ Universal Best Start Offer: every family in the UK needs to have the offer of a universal social care support service. The Sure Start cuts need to be reversed and the original scheme expanded enormously so NO family is left behind.
4/ Unaccompanied Minors: we need to reinstate the Dubs Amendment and step up our responsibility to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who reach the UK via Europe.
5/ Children's Placements: we need to completely remove the profit motive from agencies who charge local authorities through the nose for unregulated placements. Nationalisation should be an option.
6/ CAMHS: the whole service needs to be restructured to better support children and funding needs to be ramped up enormously.
7/ No Recourse to Public Funds: families where a parent has NRPF are unacceptably mistreated and the basic support for their wellbeing has to be put in place. For example, support in cases of domestic abuse.
8/ Equality Act 2010: 'care experienced' and 'recipient of benefits' both need to be added as protected characteristics to the EA2010.
9/ Youth Justice: there are well-documented abuses in the youth justice system, as well as a tendency to allocate blame to criminally or sexually exploited children. This must end now.
10/ Children Act 2022: existing legislation and newly proposed legislation needs to be incorporated into a new Children's Act that is as much a landmark for society today as the '89 Act was over 30 years ago.
11/ These are just a few suggestions (there are many more) and I really hope this can be a moment for change. @HackneyChild @IDickson258 @AshcroftBen @JohnRadoux @sophiassocials
