Happy New Year 2010

The start of a new year is traditionally a time for reflection on the year past and making resolutions for the one to come.

Who Cares? Scotland had a particularly busy year in 2009. The central office moved to more suitable premises - at the same address in Oswald Street, Glasgow. We introduced the Reaching Higher strategy to signal our high aspirations for children and young people in care, and we demonstrated our confidence in our young people by taking 21 of them trekking in Nepal. We learned a lot about fund-raising. We reviewed our governance and introduced new young and adult Board members, following a rigorous selection process. Finally, in association with the Scottish Government and other supporters, we launched a campaign to tackle the stigma associated with being in care.

We expect 2010 to be equally busy year. Watch out for more public evidence of the anti-stigma campaign. We will develop the Reaching Higher campaign in a variety of ways, including trying to capitalise on the enthusiasm for hillwalking resulting from the training for Nepal. Our links with Nepal and Community Action Nepal will be formalised, crucially through the plans to support the school at Chite Tilahar.

Edinburgh Castle

Meanwhile, we thank all our supporters for their tremendous work in the past year and wish you all a very happy and successful 2010.

Young people make presentation at the launch of the National Residential Child Care Initiative

The National Residential Child Care Initiative was launched in Edinburgh yesterday (2 December). One of the highlights of the event was a drama presentation by young people and staff from Who Cares? Scotland which predicted how fulfilled the young people’s lives would be in 2014 if the recommendations of the review were taken up fully.

Congratulations to the ‘actors’: David, Zoe, Adele, Jordan, Kirsten and Jennifer who were great ambassadors for Who Cares? Scotland. Their confidence in carrying off the drama in front of an audience of Minister for Children and Young People, Adam Ingram, civil servants and professionals was impressive.

Read the news release about the NRCCI here. The four reports launched today are available to download from the SIRCC website here. You can also read the Scottish Government’s response here.

Speaking at the launch event, Scotland’s Children’s Commissioner, Tam Baillie, called for much greater effort to improve the health of looked after children. He noted that there were now 45 looked after children’s nurses working in Scotland but suggested this was about half the number required to meet the needs. He also suggested that each time an official source refers to partnership between Scottish Government and local authorities in addressing the health needs of looked after children, there should also be an similar reference to the requirement for collaboration on the part of NHS Scotland and local health boards.

The Herald [Glasgow] newspaper ran a front-page exclusive by Stephen Naysmith on Friday 4 December covering two of the recommendations: ending the presumption that foster care is the best placement for children aged under 12 with the consequent implcation that more special residential services will be needed; and the proposal that the qualification requirement for working in residential child care should be pitched at degree level. The paper also gave the reports prominence in the leader page.

The report from the Scottish Institute for Residential Child Care provides welcome new thinking on joint working between residential child care staff and the community-based based social work, education and health services. In particular, the idea that families could obtain help on a residential basis could provide better long-term outcomes if it enabled children to remain with their parents and be cared for adequately…

The recommendation for degree-level qualifications for registration by 2014 is long overdue. Residential care is not cheap, and highly-trained staff will increase the cost. That is the main barrier to implementing the specialist provision the report recommends and which is so desperately needed.

However, the basis of the report, that provision of care needs to be better managed and more appropriate, does offer the potential for long-term savings. Unless the damage they have suffered is repaired, these children become adults with mental health and physical problems or offenders at a high cost to the taxpayer.

 

Low expectations to high achievement

Recently, The Herald newspaper previewed yesterday’s Life After Care conference, hosted by the Debate Project. The Herald piece includes several case studies that really bring the issue of ‘reaching higher’ to life. For example:

Nicola McDade entered the care system when she was six months old. She went in and out of care until she was six, before being placed in foster care. She graduated with honours in economic and social history with film studies from Glasgow University and now works for Reuters in New York.

She says low expectations of young people in care can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and talks of the experiences that burned a sense of “difference” into her. “I recall one instance from my early childhood,” she says. “A grandparent of one of my school friends gave me a watch – but on being handed it I realised it was broken. Even as a child I was aware of the significance of this gesture.”

And this from Cynele Smith:

“Looking back, oh my God, what a screwed-up, angry, dislikable girl I was,” the 17-year-old says now.

She spent time in care when she was still just a baby, then lived with her mother sporadically but without a true home, also staying with relatives or in hostels. A stay with respite carers on a farm was a turning point, and then she moved into a children’s unit. She is now planning to move back to the farm while she attends college and works towards joining the police.

“I don’t think anything can prepare you,” she says of living in a children’s home. “Group living with 11 other children and young people and 20-odd staff working shifts. You just get used to it. I could be the most obnoxious, rebellious, angry young person you could meet and if I had continued in that vein I would probably have been locked up.” [...]

However, her key worker and a teacher wouldn’t give up on her. “Like a dog with a bone, my guidance teacher hounded me: ‘Listen, girl, you have got potential’. She believed in me. She inspired me.”

Cynele is one of our participants on the trek in Nepal. You can read about her experiences right here on the Reaching Higher blog.