by Sophie Baker

This is the fourth installment in Sophie Baker’s ‘What I wish I had known…’ series, where she reflects on her approach to practice when she started out – and what she would tell her younger self now.

Watching Adolescence this month brought back many memories of my early career. I was struck by the powerful acting, especially in an intense scene between Jamie (played by Owen Cooper) and his psychologist, where he was shouting, swearing and knocking over furniture.

It reminded me of my experiences with Shauna, a ten-year-old girl who spent much of her childhood in and out of care and who was one of the first children I worked with.

Shauna’s mother, who had bipolar disorder, provided loving care when well. But during her low periods, she couldn’t get out of bed and struggled to meet her children’s needs. In her highs, she took risks, falling into debt and forming unsafe relationships.

During these times, Shauna experienced physical and emotional neglect in a home environment that was dysregulated, chaotic and volatile.

Each time their mother’s mental health declined, Shauna and her siblings were moved to a temporary foster home, waiting for the moment they could return to her care.

As a result of her experiences, Shauna was often oppositional, impulsive and confrontational. It also meant that it became harder and harder to find her a stable foster placement.

Looking back, the memory of one afternoon I shared with Shauna leaves me contemplating what I wish I had known during my work with her.

Children won’t always behave in a way you expect

Sophie Baker has over 20 years of experience working in children’s social care

Some of my most treasured memories of my early career were spent with Shauna. For the most part, our interactions had been positive.

However, this afternoon was different. We were sitting in my car when I broke the news that she would be moving to another carer.

Abandoned. Again.

She immediately started shouting and screaming, banging her fists against her head and the car dashboard. I could feel my heart beating in my chest as she moved her face close to mine. She glared at me and then spat on my cheek.

Shauna spent the next five minutes or so in what I can only describe as white rage.

She took out my CDs and snapped each one.  She bent my sunglasses out of shape and threw them out of the car window.

Lastly, she got out of the car and climbed on to its roof. As I tried to encourage her down, she jumped up and down, denting it in the process.

Children with trauma will struggle to regulate their emotions

I can still remember the emotional and physical responses I experienced during her outburst. Initially, I was shocked.

I had been told that Shauna got angry, but up until that point had never experienced it firsthand. I was frightened that she would not only hurt herself but also hurt me as she hurled herself around.

My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest, and I could feel my cheeks burning red. My hands were shaking and as I tried to calm her down, my voice was trembling. I felt helpless to calm the situation.

What I learnt over the first few years of my career was that children that have experienced trauma like Shauna often struggle to regulate their emotions and behaviours. They can have impulsive and intense reactions to stress.

If I were able to turn back time, I would tell myself that Shauna was communicating in the best way she knew how. My role in that moment was to listen and to reassure her that I would stay with her until she calmed down.

No judgement – just unconditional support.

Their anger probably feels as frightening for them as it does to you

I am not ashamed to say that I was petrified during those moments. What I wish I had known was that Shauna was probably very frightened too, struggling to recognise the huge feelings she was experiencing.

Even as an inexperienced social worker, I knew it was imperative that I stayed calm and did not get caught in any kind of power struggle with Shauna. She needed time and space to calm down.

I knew that I needed to validate her feelings and show her I could contain her (and myself!). I needed to remain a positive role model by handling my own feelings in a calm way and modelling a healthy response to stress.

That was easier said than done, but I took deep breaths and kept reminding myself that I needed to be a source of strength for her.

Work to help a traumatised child to feel safe

There are some techniques I have learnt along the way that I wish I had known then. These start with seeing beyond her immediate behaviours and asking myself, ‘What does Shauna need?’, rather than, ‘What is wrong with her?’.

Looking back, I now see I should have helped Shauna feel safe. Instead of immediately trying to calm her down, I wish I had started by reassuring her that she was safe.  She was safe with me as a trusted adult, and I wasn’t going to leave.

I also wish I had asked Shauna if there was anything I could do to help. Then and there. Did she need a hug?  To hold my hand? A drink of water? For me to put on some chilled-out music in the car? Letting her have a bit of choice and control over the situation may have helped her calm down a little easier.

In hindsight, I probably tried too hard to offer solutions to Shauna during her outburst.

I was trying to make her feel better, but offering solutions to problems in a time of absolute crisis was not helpful. Mentioning how a new foster placement could be great or that they had a dog (she loved dogs) was not an appropriate response for that moment.

Managing professional guilt

I remember the feeling of overwhelming sadness washing over me as I watched her. She was distraught.

The sensible part of me knew that it wasn’t my fault that Shauna needed to move to new carers, but I was wrought with guilt.

I felt like she had been failed by a ‘system’ that was unable to match her with foster carers who would offer her unconditional care; failed by the social workers who had come and gone over her short life; failed by me, who hadn’t been able to visit her as often as I would have liked.

I was devastated.

As I matured in my practice, I came to realise that there is a real danger for social workers to hold feelings of guilt. Much of our work relies on resources that are often lacking and can be hard to manage.

However, with good supervision, I got to a place where I felt I was practising in the best way I could and felt less guilt about the constraints of the resources available to me.

Is that good enough? Sometimes it has to be.

‘My Care Story’ is a new series dedicated to amplifying the stories of care-experienced individuals and providing social workers with vital insights to improve the support they offer.

Rebekah Pierre, deputy director at children’s rights charity Article 39, has dedicated her career to championing the rights of children in the social care system.

Formerly a professional officer for the British Association for Social Workers, she has consistently used her platform to challenge the use of unregulated accommodation for children in care and the language used by practitioners in children’s case notes.

This included sharing her own experience of reading her case files in a widely shared open letter to her former social worker. In it, she criticised the practitioner’s “cold and formal” language and multiple writing errors, including over 100 misspellings of her name.

In 2024, she published Free Loaves on Fridays, an anthology of letters, stories and poems from 100 individuals, aged 13 to 68, with experience in care – offering a powerful reflection on the system.

Rebekah’s advocacy is deeply rooted in her own time in care and, speaking to Community Care, she shed light on what she wished her social workers had done differently.

How would you describe your time in care? 

My experience of care (if one can even call it that) was incredibly unstable.

I was always fearful of settling after my first placement ended unexpectedly, when four days before Christmas, my foster carer left me a note on the kitchen table informing me that I had four days to find ‘somewhere else to live’.

It was completely out of the blue, and with no apparent reason, which led me to anticipate rejection wherever I went. From this point on, I bounced between sofa surfing, informal fostering arrangements and unregulated accommodation.

Whilst it would be clichéd to say this was character building – because I certainly could have done without these experiences at such a young age – I am full of gratitude for the few caring and committed adults who carried me through this time.

My experiences with social workers were mixed. While I received genuine care and dedication from a residential social worker, who believed in me far more than I believed in myself (and was a large part of the reason I applied to university), the same cannot be said for others.

I was ghosted by one, victim-blamed by another and cheerily told to return to an unsafe environment by two more.

But what applied across the board was that each social worker, regardless of their treatment toward me, appeared always to be in a rush. They were not fully present, and were always racing to the next call or appointment.

It’s why I feel so passionate about campaigning for more manageable workloads.

What is something that has stayed with you from your time in care? 

Without a shadow of a doubt, my tendency to use writing as a coping mechanism.

Between placement breakdowns and the revolving door of professionals, my diary was a rare constant in my life. It was a sounding board whereby I could pour my heart out without fear of being labelled or judged.

I published some extracts back in 2021 to demonstrate the harms associated with unregulated placements.

Keeping a diary fostered a love for language, which has stayed with me ever since and helped my editing process for Free Loaves on Fridays.

It felt wonderful to be able to pass on the baton to up-and-coming writers of all ages, given that the book featured dozens of care-experienced people who had never seen their names in print before, alongside seasoned authors such as Lemn Sissay and Kirsty Capes.

Can you give an example of a time you received good support from a care professional?

A wonderful woman named Debbie, my sixth-form pastoral worker, springs to mind.

While she technically wasn’t a ‘care professional’, she certainly cared. It was the combination of emotional and practical support that made her so effective.

Firstly, she had an open-door policy, which meant I could seek support no matter the mood I was in (or whatever lesson I had escaped from!).

It sounds so simple now, but she was one of the first people who ever really validated me – who told me that I didn’t deserve what I had gone through. The impact of this cannot be overstated.

This was coupled with what I like to call street smarts – the knowledge that no amount of emotional support alone could overcome poverty.

While I was living in unregulated placements and struggling to make ends meet, she made sure I had basics, such as a bus pass, free meals and train tickets to visit university open days.

Without these things, I would have needed to drop out of school.

Can you give an example of a time you received bad support from a care professional?

A few years ago, I wrote an ‘open letter to the social worker who wrote my case notes’, which went viral on the app X at the time.

The letter speaks to poor support, including a culture of disbelief, adultification and poor record-making.

What would you have wanted to be done differently?

Firstly, to have been believed.

As a child, it takes an incredible amount of courage to make a disclosure of any sort. To have made such a leap, only to be vilified and written about as if I was complicit in what had happened to me, was painful in the extreme.

Secondly, how professionals write about children holds up a mirror to the way in which they think, feel, speak and act toward them.

Therefore, my care records speak volumes about the lack of respect underscoring my social worker’s whole approach to me as a young person.

Reading them made me feel powerless and invisible – my voice was completely absent.

It’s why I advocate for children to contribute to their records in their own way (whether through words, pictures, art or even voice notes), rather than have their wishes and feelings being shoehorned in at the end of a report or assessment.

The key takeaway is to imagine how you would want to be written about, and to write accordingly.

What would you tell social workers today?

Use your voice to stand up for children in care at every opportunity, and don’t make the mistake of assuming that somebody else will.

Forget about any imagined hierarchies or pecking orders. There is no guarantee the other professionals in the room or your service have, or ever will have, access to the child’s world in the way that you do.

You’re in a unique position to do immeasurable good, which often involves challenging the status quo.

Oh, and get a copy of Free Loaves on Fridays.

My experience does not represent the masses and I can’t speak for anyone else past or present.  But in this book – proceeds of which go to Article 39 and fellow children’s charity The Together Trust – you’ll find 100 accounts from diverse backgrounds, written by care-experienced people aged 13 to 68!

Celebrate those who’ve inspired you

Photo by Daniel Laflor/peopleimages.com/ AdobeStock

Do you have a colleague, mentor, or social work figure you can’t help but gush about?

Our My Brilliant Colleague series invites you to celebrate anyone within social work who has inspired you – whether current or former colleagues, managers, students, lecturers, mentors or prominent past or present sector figures whom you have admired from afar.

Nominate your colleague or social work inspiration by filling in our nominations form with a few paragraphs (100-250 words) explaining how and why the person has inspired you.

*Please note that, despite the need to provide your name and role, you or the nominee can be anonymous in the published entry*

If you have any questions, email our community journalist, Anastasia Koutsounia, at anastasia.koutsounia@markallengroup.com

Government departments and public bodies are to be placed under a duty to promote life chances for children in care and care leavers in England, the Department for Education (DfE) has revealed.

They would be placed under a “corporate parenting duty”, through government amendments to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, ministers’ legislative vehicle for reforming children’s social care.

What corporate parenting duty involves

The duty, tabled by education secretary Bridget Phillipson, would require agencies, when exercising their functions, to

• be alert to matters which adversely affect, or might adversely  affect, the wellbeing of looked-after children and care leavers (aged up to 25);
• assess what services or support they provide are or may be available for looked-after children and care leavers;
• seek to provide opportunities for looked-after children and care leavers to participate in activities designed to promote their wellbeing or enhance their employment prospects;
• take such action as they consider appropriate to help looked-after children and care leavers make use of services and access support, that they provide and access opportunities to promote their wellbeing or enhance their employment prospects.

Scope of duty

The duty would apply to all government departments, generally in relation to their functions in England, Ofsted, English schools and colleges, NHS bodies in England, the Youth Justice Board and the Care Quality Commission.

The relevant departments and agencies would be required to co-operate with each other, and with local authorities, in exercising the duty where they considered that doing so would safeguard or promote the wellbeing of looked-after children or care leavers.

They would also have to have regard to any guidance published by the DfE on the corporate parenting duty, while the department would have to publish a report every three years on its own exercise of the duty.

The provision would not apply to the government’s immigration and asylum functions, while departments and agencies would only have to exercise the duty to the extent that it was consistent with the proper exercise of its functions and was reasonably practicable.

The amendments will be debated when the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill returns to the House of Commons next week, but are certain to be passed because of the government’s large majority.

Existing council corporate parenting responsibilities

The new duty would complement the existing corporate parenting duty on councils, under section 1 of the Children and Social Work Act 2017. This requires them, in the exercise of their functions in relation to looked-after children and care leavers, to have regard to the need:

• to act in their best interests, and promote their physical and mental health and wellbeing;
• to encourage them to express their views, wishes and feelings;
• to take into account their views, wishes and feelings;
• to help them gain access to, and make the best use of, services provided by authorities and their relevant partners;
• to promote high aspirations, and seek to secure the best outcomes, for the children and young people;
• for children and young people to be safe, and for stability in their home lives, relationships and education or work;
• to prepare those children and young people for adulthood and independent living.

The plan to introduce the duty was referenced in a children’s social care policy paper, published in November 2024, but not included in the original text of the bill.

This prompted criticism from organisations including the Association of Directors of Children’s Services and children’s charity Become.

Support for children in care ‘can’t end with local authority’

Become welcomed the proposed duty, with chief executive Katharine Sacks-Jones saying: “For children in care to thrive support can’t end with their local authority.

“Health, welfare, education and other services play a huge role in their lives and can shape their futures. We welcome this much needed step to ensure more public bodies take responsibility for supporting young people to live happy and healthy lives.”

However, the charity said it would be studying the proposals to see how they could be strengthened.

By Ann Horne, kinship care consultant, CoramBAAF

There are an estimated 132,800 children living in kinship care in England (Kinship and Centre for Care, 2025).

In many such cases, family members step in to care for a child without the involvement of social workers.

However, a growing proportion of children in care – 16% in 2024, up from 13% in 2018 – are living with kinship foster carers and almost 4,000 children left care on special guardianship orders in each of the past six years, more than the numbers adopted.

When the local authority takes a child into care, it has a duty to consider whether a relative, friend or connected person can look after the child and then assess their suitability, before considering a placement in unrelated foster care (section 22C, Children Act 1989).

CoramBAAF believes children should be supported to live within their family network when it is safe to do so, and receive the support needed to thrive.

A new kinship care assessment

We have recently completed a two-year project to comprehensively review and update our assessment form for prospective kinship carers.

Previously called Form C (assessment of connected persons and family and friends), the name change to Form K was simple to do but reflects the complex policy and reform agenda and current language used.

Published in 2025, the new Kinship Care Assessment (Form K) enables robust and comprehensive assessment to inform decision making about a child’s future.

Reflecting the unique context of kinship care

We consulted with kinship carers to inform the design and development of Form K, and kinship carers were part of the project working party.

We know kinship carers often experience the assessment process as intrusive, and in our focus groups they told us they felt misunderstood and mistrusted. Some also told us though how they valued their relationship with their social worker, who had supported them through the bewildering process of becoming a kinship carer, often with little planning and preparation, as the child needed care at a time of family crisis.

Unlike foster carers or adopters, who often have months or years to make the life-changing decision to care for or adopt a child, many kinship carers are propelled into a system of fostering regulations and statutory guidance not designed for them, at a time of uncertainty, stress and anxiety.

The updated assessment form reflects the unique context of a kinship care assessment and we hope this will support practitioners to improve the assessment experience for kinship carers.

Amplifying the voice of the child

We know kinship care is a positive experience for many children as they often already know, love and trust their prospective carer.

It is essential therefore that the child’s voice is amplified and their wishes and feelings are central to the assessment of their prospective carer. Form K puts the voice of the child at the very start of the assessment, and requires the social worker to articulate the meaning of their relationship with their prospective kinship carer, to ensure this is a golden thread that runs throughout the assessment.

How is Form K different?

Form K encourages analysis of strengths and vulnerabilities, but crucially also asks what support might be needed for the child and prospective kinship carer to mitigate any assessed risks and vulnerabilities and includes an integral support plan.

It encourages relevant and proportionate assessment, and focuses on the analysis that will inform decision making.

Tested in practice and improved

From June to October 2024, we piloted Form K in ten local authorities, and sought feedback from social workers, managers, agency decision-makers, panel members as well as kinship carers themselves.

The practitioners and managers from the pilot local authorities met with us monthly and their questions and comments were invaluable in shaping the final version.

One agency decision maker described Form K as “succinct, clear, jargon-free and well-organised”. The local authorities told us Cafcass children’s guardians were positive about Form K assessments they had read, saying they were helpful and comprehensive.

A kinship family, who were assessed using Form K after a negative initial assessment that they challenged in court, stated: “We appreciate the time and effort our social worker has taken to get to know our family, and learn and understand our culture and traditions …..this is a big part of us that belongs in the assessment report.”

Form K – a lever for change

The 2023 national kinship care strategy states that assessment should be “reasonable, proportionate and treat family members with trust while prioritising the safety of the child”. Of course, an assessment form is only as good as the social worker completing it, and therefore the form can only be one of the levers needed to influence social work practice with kinship families.

We hope that Form K will enable a relationship-based and reflective assessment process that will support kinship carers at the start of their journey to feel supported and understood, and to receive the support needed for themselves and their child, so that the whole kinship family can thrive.

To find out more about Form K and the work of CoramBAAF please go to the CoramBAAF website.

The support of supervising social workers is critical to foster carer retention, amid deepening shortages of capacity in the sector, research has shown.

All but one of 114 UK fostering services surveyed in 2024 for the Fostering Network’s latest State of the Nations’ Foster Care report said there was a shortage of carers to meet local needs, down from all but six at the time of the charity’s last such report, in 2021.

Four in ten of the services had seen a decrease in their number of approved mainstream (non-kinship) carers in the previous year, with just 19% reporting an increase, in line with year-on-year declines in the number of approved households in England recorded in official data.

Lack of service support key factor behind resignations

At the same time, six in ten of 2,883 current foster carers questioned for the study said they had considered resigning (46%) or were currently considering doing so (14%).

Among this group, the most common reasons were a lack of support from their fostering service and a lack of respect from other professionals in the team around the child (54%).

Among a separate group of 169 former foster carers surveyed, a lack of support from the fostering service was the most common reason they had left the role, being cited by 41%.

However, the Fostering Network found significant differences between former and current foster carers’ views of their supervising social workers.

Differing perceptions of supervising practitioners

While 74% of current foster carers rated the support of their supervising social workers as good or excellent, this was true of 47% of former carers.

Similarly, 51% of former foster carers said they always or usually felt treated as equal and valued by supervising social workers, compared with 76% of current foster carers.

Having positive relationships with social workers was cited as the one thing working well in fostering by 21% of current carers, the most popular of all answers.

However, while 96% had an allocated supervising practitioner, less than half (44%) had had a consistent social worker over the previous two years, with carers having an average of 2.2 over this time.

Views of children’s social workers

Foster carers were less positive about children’s social workers, with 53% saying that they always or usually felt treated as equal and valued by them, down from 57% in the Fostering Network’s 2021 survey.

There was a similar fall – from 45% to 41% – in the proportion who felt that the support they received from children’s social workers was good or excellent.

One specific issue around this relationship related to foster carers’ authority to make decisions about children, with just 31% saying that social workers were always clear about which decisions carers were able to make.

In cases where they had not been given authority, less than half of carers – 48%, down from 55% in 2021 – felt social workers always or usually responded to requests for decisions in a timely fashion.

Celebrate those who’ve inspired you

Photo by Daniel Laflor/peopleimages.com/ AdobeStock

Do you have a colleague, mentor, or social work figure you can’t help but gush about?

Our My Brilliant Colleague series invites you to celebrate anyone within social work who has inspired you – whether current or former colleagues, managers, students, lecturers, mentors or prominent past or present sector figures whom you have admired from afar.

Nominate your colleague or social work inspiration by filling in our nominations form with a few paragraphs (100-250 words) explaining how and why the person has inspired you.

*Please note that, despite the need to provide your name and role, you or the nominee can be anonymous in the published entry*

If you have any questions, email our community journalist, Anastasia Koutsounia, at anastasia.koutsounia@markallengroup.com

Levels of burnout

Behind lack of support and respect from practitioners, burnout or poor wellbeing related to fostering was cited as the next most common reason why current carers had, or were, considering resigning, with 53% reporting this.

Overall, 58% of current – and 73% of former – carers had experienced burnout or poor wellbeing, with this group of current carers being seven times as likely to have considered resigning than other respondents.

The network also found that just 48% of carers felt able to ask for support for their wellbeing when they needed it, without fear of negative consequences for them or the children they were looking after.

Carers struggling more financially

The charity also found that carers were increasingly struggling financially, with a third saying their fostering allowance and any expenses they could claim met the full costs of looking
after the children they foster, down significantly from the 56% recorded in 2021.

Allowances reported by carers largely fell short of the Fostering Network’s recommended rates.

This led to children missing out on activities, holidays, birthday and Christmas celebrations, clothing and education costs, while most foster carers (72%) said they used other personal income to cover deficits.

This included foster care fees, which fostering services are not required to pay, unlike allowances, and are designed to recognise carers’ time, skills and experience. Over half (56%) of carers received a fee, though only a quarter of foster carers said it was sufficient to cover their essential living costs.

National recruitment drive

Across the UK, less than half (48%) of foster carers said they would recommend fostering to others who may be considering it, down from 54% in 2021, with 17% saying they would not, up from 12%.

The report comes with the UK government striving to recruit more carers in England by funding regional fostering hubs, which are designed to provide a single point of contact for people interested in fostering and support them through the process from initial enquiry to application.

Recommendations for reform

On the back of its study, the Fostering Network urged governments across the UK to:

• Address sufficiency issues within children and families social work teams, prioritising and financing targeted social work recruitment and regulation of caseloads.
• Increase allowances to meet the charity’s recommended rates and introduce and fund a national minimum fee framework, with fees paid 52 weeks a year, and a national pension scheme for foster carers.
• Develop a register of foster carers to increase foster carers’ status, support matching of children with foster carers and take responsibility for decisions about removing carers.
• Introduce, by law, maximum delegated authority for foster carers to make day-to-day decisions on behalf of the children and young people.
• Invest in the creation, implementation and monitoring of a standardised framework for pre- and post-approval training for foster carers.

In a 2018 survey of young people in care, one in eight said adults had done things that made them feel “embarrassed about being in care”.

The finding came in research for Bright Spots, charity Coram Voice’s ongoing programme to highlight care-experienced young people’s views, in order to influence local authority practice.

Since then, various literary works, campaigns to make ‘care experience’ a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 and qualitative research have highlighted the effects of stigma on care-experienced people.

Lemn Sissay’s views on stigma in the care system

But where does the stigma around being in care stem from?

In an interview with Community Care, renowned poet and care leaver Lemn Sissay said that the idea of ‘something being wrong’ with children in care originated from those directly supporting them.

“[In my experience,] the most institutionalised people were those who worked in the care system,” he said.

“It’s very easy to have a blanket opinion of a person who’s obviously traumatised but quite demanding.”

A Community Care poll with 530 votes found that social workers largely agreed with him.

Over half (56%) said that the stigma surrounding care-experienced people originated, to a large extent, from within the care system itself, with a further 28% saying this was “somewhat” the case.

Only 16% believed felt this was “not very much” or “not at all” true.

What are your thoughts about the stigma children in care face within the care system?

Legislation to eliminate profit from the provision of care to looked-after children in Wales has been approved by the Senedd and so will become law.

Under the Health and Social Care (Wales) Bill, new placements in for-profit children’s homes, secure accommodation or foster placements, by Welsh or English councils, will be banned – other than in exceptional circumstances – in April 2030.

This is three years later than Welsh ministers’ original target for eliminating profit, but they have lengthened their planned timetable in response to significant concerns about the potential disruption to children’s care from their original plan.

Currently, the private sector provides 87% of children’s home and 35% of fostering placements in Wales.

Young people ‘don’t want profit made from care’

Introducing its final debate in the Senedd last week, the Labour government’s minister for children and social care, Dawn Bowden, said the legislation was a response to young people saying that “they did not want to be the means of someone making a profit out of the challenges that they and their families faced”.

She said in delaying implementation, the government was “mindful of minimising the risk of disruption to children”.

However, she added: “But I want to be very, very clear that the 2030 date for the ending of new placements by Welsh local authorities in existing for-profit services is not a target date, it is the absolute end date.

“And I expect substantial progress to be made before then in ending placements of existing for-profit children’s homes and fostering services prior to 2030 in areas that have sufficiency for that not-for-profit provision, and I will be making sure that we get to that place as quickly as we possibly can.”

Councils’ concerns over impact on care system

However, the Welsh Local Government Association, while voicing support for the bill’s ambitions, raised concerns about its impact on the care system.

“Councils continue to fully support the ambition of removing profit from the care of children that the Health and Social Care Bill aims to deliver,” said Charlie McCoubrey, the WLGA’s spokesperson for health and social services.

“It’s an important step towards making sure vulnerable children and young people get the right support, with their needs prioritised over financial gain.

“That said, we’re still concerned about the potential impact on a system that’s already under pressure, with a need for appropriate levels of funding to make this work. Councils are already stretched, and without proper, long-term investment, there’s a real risk of putting even more pressure on the services children rely on.

“We’re keen to keep working closely with the Welsh Government to help deliver these changes in a way that supports local authorities, doesn’t destabilise existing placements, and makes a real difference to children’s lives.”

Welsh Government ‘has significantly underestimated costs’

From a provider perspective, the Children’s Home Association said there was “no evidence” that many children’s homes providers would be able to transition to a not-for-profit model, meaning councils would have to replace them.

However, it warned that the Welsh Government had “significantly underestimated the cost of replacing the providers who have provided specialist care to society’s most vulnerable for decades”.

The CHA cited figures produced by the Welsh Government itself showing that the average weekly cost of looking after a child in a standard four-bed independent home was £3,811, 38% below the equivalent for a local authority home (£5,625).

The association also accused the Welsh Government of rejecting efforts from the sector to devise a “viable solution”, for example, by permitting models of care that restrict profit. It said that children would increasingly be placed in unregulated settings due to a lack of placements.

‘The right thing to do, but concerns must be addressed’

Giving the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) Cymru’s response to the bill, national director Sam Baron said: “This is a progressive and ambitious piece of legislation which, is simply the right thing to do.

“Whilst full implementation will take several years, this move will rightly return public money into the public care system, increasing available resources and, by implication, release public money to address the issues of quality variations and low salaries.

“However, frontline voices and concerns must be listened to and addressed, by ensuring an already stretched public system receives the desperate investment it already needs to avoid even greater pressures being felt further down the line.”

Profit ‘not inherently at odds with excellent care’

The bill, which will also introduce direct payments for people receiving NHS continuing healthcare, was passed comfortably, with only the Conservatives voting against.

The party’s shadow cabinet secretary for health and social care, James Evans, said private sector providers played “a critical role in ensuring that children have somewhere safe to live and receive the care and support they need” and that it was “wrong to assume that  making profit is inherently at odds with delivering excellent care”.

Under the government’s plans, the policy to eliminate profit will proceed in three phases:

1. From 1 April 2026, no new for-profit providers of children’s home, fostering or secure accommodation services will be allowed to register in Wales.
2. From 1 April 2027, existing for-profit providers will not be able to add additional beds or foster carers to their services.
3. From 1 April 2030, councils will not be able to make new placements in existing for-profit providers of children’s home, fostering or secure accommodation services without ministerial approval, in the case of Welsh authorities, or in exceptional circumstances specified in regulations, in the case of English authorities.

Who can provide care to children?

The bill permits local authorities and four types of organisation to provide care to children: charitable companies limited by guarantee without share capital; charitable incorporated organisations; charitable registered societies or community interest companies.

Under all four models, there are no dividends paid to shareholders or members and surpluses must be reinvested in services. These organisations would also have to have as their primary purpose the welfare of children or another public good determined by the Welsh Government.

By Katharine Sacks-Jones, chief executive, Become

As social workers, playing a leading role in the lives of care-experienced young people, you know more than anyone the immense pressure the system is under.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, introduced in December, clearly intends to improve children’s social care, through measures including better oversight and regulation about where children live and increased support for care leavers.

However, further scrutiny shows there are places where it could be strengthened, to significantly improve opportunities and experiences for care-experienced young people.

Last month, I gave evidence to the parliamentary committee looking at the bill, setting out what we welcome, and where it needs to go further for young people. After all, it’s only if their needs are being met that we know the system is working.

Strengthening Staying Close support

Statutory homelessness rates for care leavers aged 18-20 have increased by 54% in the past five years.

This has to change, which is why our End The Care Cliff campaign has been calling for the Staying Put and Staying Close schemes to be fully funded legal entitlements for all care leavers up to 25, unless they opt out.

It’s good news then that the bill says that local authorities must assess whether care leavers aged under 25 require Staying Close support and would then be under a duty to provide it to those in need.

But, as the criteria for assessment is not set out, we’re concerned this could lead to a rationing of support or a postcode lottery. We also want to see young people’s wishes and preferences taken into account in determining what support they might benefit from.

Going further on tackling care leaver homelessness

No young person should be facing homelessness, so it was especially welcome to see the government taking up a key ask of End the Care Cliff, by proposing an amendment to prevent care leavers from being found intentionally homeless. Now we’d like them to go further.

Currently, care leavers aged 18-20 are automatically assessed as being in ‘priority need’, which means local authorities are required to provide them with accommodation.

We think the bill should extend this to care leavers up to the age of 25, giving them a much-needed safety net.

The importance of financial support to care leavers

The bill will require local authorities to publish information about how they are supporting care leavers, particularly around housing, which we think is a positive move.

We frequently hear from young people on our Care Advice Line who are in acute financial crisis, so would like to see an additional focus on what financial support is available to young people leaving care.

Extending corporate parenting duties beyond councils

We’re disappointed that government proposals to extend corporate parenting duties to other public bodies are not currently included in the legislation, and hope they will reconsider bringing forward this important measure.

Preventing distant placements by regional commissioners

The bill gives the government new powers to direct neighbouring local authorities to commission care jointly, with the aim of improving their assessments of need and strategies for ensuring sufficient placements.

We want to make sure that these regional co-operation arrangements don’t lead to more children being moved far from their local area, even if it’s still within the region.

Our Gone Too Far campaign highlights the negative impact of moving children far from families, friends and schools. Far too many young people tell us how this is disrupting their education, affecting their mental health, breaking their connections and leaving them isolated.

This is why we’d like a safeguard in the bill to prevent distant moves when it’s not in children’s best interests.

Requiring a national sufficiency plan

Local authorities are required to offer sufficient, suitable accommodation for children in their care. Underfunding and an increase in the number of children in care have made this challenging.

This has created huge instability for children and led to an increasing number of children living far away.

Whilst the bill introduces a number of welcome measures, including better financial oversight and powers to bring in profit caps for private providers, it doesn’t mention how it will boost capacity.

There needs to be a national strategy to understand how many children in care are living in places that don’t meet their needs, what’s needed to address this and how government will support local authorities to deliver.

Being ambitious for care-experienced young people

We know from the work we do with professionals like you that only so much can be done with the resources available, which is why we need to see funding commitments flowing from this legislation too.

It’s time to be ambitious and deliver the changes care-experienced young people need.

Become supports children in care and young care leavers 

“Flawed statistics” are undermining councils’ understanding of outcomes for children in care, meaning they are unable to judge whether they are securing the right kinds of provision.

That was the message from the South East Regional Care Co-operative (RCC) – one of two bodies set up to test the region-wide commissioning of placements – in a briefing paper on the data context for children in care services.

Like its counterpart in Greater Manchester, the South East RCC has been tasked by the Department for Education (DfE) with analysing care needs across the region and commissioning provision – including by establishing its own – to meet gaps, in the context of a nationwide shortages of placements.

In the briefing paper, the RCC, which is working on behalf of 18 authorities across the region, said existing statistics on the care system, produced by the DfE, did not enable it to answer key questions about the care that should be provided.

‘Flawed statistics’

For example, while DfE data showed the proportion of children placed outside their home authority, it did not cover the proportion of placements that were outside the region.

Data on children’s educational attainment or their self-reported mental health did not provide information on what they thought of the care they were receiving or about what their lives were like, the RCC added.

“From our placement statistics we don’t know how often we’re securing the kind of placement we ideally wanted to secure,” the briefing paper said.

“When we try to dig into the detail of any particular question, we find that our detailed statistics are flawed, because they look at such small numbers of children as to make changes statistically insignificant.”

Echoes of CMA report on sector

The findings echo those of the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) 2022 report on provision for looked-after children, which concluded that available data was insufficient to answer questions such as whether there was sufficient supply of specialised provision to meet a particular type of need in a particular location.

“One particular shortcoming is the lack of consistent data on whether the right type of placement in the right location was available or whether a placement was a second-best option,” said the CMA.

“We understand this information is collected within local authorities’ procurement tools but often not in a structured way that would allow analysis. This information would be vital for understanding how well local authorities are meeting their [duty to take steps to secure sufficient accommodation locally for children in their care].”

The RCCs in the South East and Greater Manchester are due to take responsibility for placements in their region from their member local authorities later this year.

Plan to roll out regional care co-operatives

Meanwhile, the government – through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill – is legislating to enable it to require two or more local authorities to set up RCCs, to take responsibility for functions including:

• Assessing current and future requirements for the accommodation of looked-after children.
• Producing strategies for meeting those requirements.
• Commissioning placements to meet the needs of looked-after children.
• Recruiting and supporting local authority foster carers.
• Developing, or facilitating the development of, new provision to accommodate looked-after children.

Moments into our conversation, Lemn Sissay kindly grounds me with a sobering truth.

Before our meeting, I’d spent most of the previous year conducting interviews that reflected on social work over the past five decades – including the progress the profession had made – for Community Care’s 50^th anniversary.

But when I ask Sissay – renowned poet, author, broadcaster and former child in care- what progress he has seen, he politely shuts the question down.

“There is no child in care right now who’ll ever find themselves feeling better by thinking whether it’s better now than it was 10-15 years ago,” he says instead.

Should ‘success stories’ be highlighted?

A prominent activist for improving the care system, Sissay has spent decades delivering talks, writing books and plays, and making documentaries about the challenges of the care experience. And he seldom fails to command attention with his work.

His 2012 TED Talk, A child of the state, at the Houses of Parliament, has garnered over a million views, his autobiography was a number one Sunday Times bestseller, and his 2018 documentary, Superkids, where he helped seven children in care put their experiences into words, was nominated for a BAFTA award.

“I’m reporting back to you to say quite simply that you can define how strong a democracy is by how its government treats the child of the state,” he said, when concluding his 2012 talk.

All this may explain why he’s averse to sector organisations highlighting positive experiences of care. Doing that would be missing the point, he tells me.

“The [core] of the care system is that it gives care. So, why would I spend all my time talking about the success stories, when that is why the care system exists?

“A child is in distress in a familial situation and finds themselves in care to be cared for. All of them should be success stories. All I am saying is that if one person is being ill-served then that person is the one we need to pay attention to,” he says.

He pauses, laughs, then attempts to clarify further.

“If somebody falls out of a window and breaks their leg on the pavement, I don’t say, ‘Look, there are lots of people who haven’t broken their legs.’”

The scars of a childhood in care

His voice drips with ardency whenever he speaks about children in care, which, as you can imagine, is often.

You can spot it in every interview, talk or documentary. He approaches the topic with generosity, passion and openness despite the indelible mark of pain behind each experience he shares.

Because, for Sissay, this has always been personal. He is well aware of what it means to be failed by the care system.

At two months old, he was plucked away from his Ethiopian mother, renamed Norman and placed with a long-term foster family.

At the age of 12, the family rejected him and he was sent back to social services. He spent the next six years in various children’s homes, the only black boy in most cases.

In his long career, Sissay has frequently detailed the abuse he faced in the children’s homes – whether emotional, physical or racial. He was attacked with profanities and racial slurs, kicked at and spat at. Within 12 months, he became suicidal.

“The most common thing that I learned from 18 years in the care system was that everyone will leave you when you love them – which would play out more in my adult life,” he says.

‘I was in an emotionally desolate place’

Sissay’s emotional state at the time he left care was mirrored in the flat he was placed in. It was empty – no furniture, no bed. No monetary help had been allowed him either – a specific request by the then head of social services at Wigan, he tells me.

“It was so desolate,” he says now. “I think it as a metaphor [because] I too was in an emotionally desolate place in the aftershock of an explosion that happened around me and inside me throughout my time in care.”

He’d go on to spend his career trying to articulate that feeling, and the lifelong consequences of an adolescence devoid of care, through his work.

“I can’t have what I wasn’t given. And all I’ve ever tried to do is articulate what it’s like not to have it. Because then, that might show people how big what was taken away from me is, how all-consuming. I search for metaphors like “an emotional Hiroshima” that can give somebody an idea as to what the experience of nothingness might be.”

Seeking accountability from the care system

Through his work, it seems to me, he has continuously asked for accountability – from the system that was supposed to be his guardian and the government that failed to recognise the importance of supporting children’s social care.

In 2015, when he received his files after years of inquiring, he sought financial accountability from the state.

“Upon seeing my files, I saw in writing that a lot of the decisions that impacted me as a child were financial,” he says. “It wasn’t social workers who were mediating, it was insurance companies.

“So I wanted the government to be answerable on its own merits. That’s how you dealt with me during my childhood, so that’s how I should ask for you to be answerable.”

Six months later, he received an offer of £2,000, 11 times less than the amount he had requested.

“They said to me, ‘We have to treat you like we’d treat everybody else, so we’ve got £2,000.’ And I thought, ‘No, you have to treat me like me. You have to treat every child in care like an individual.’”

And so began a three-year legal battle that was finally settled out of court in 2018. Sissay used the money to buy a house – something concrete and permanent to mark years of instability.

‘People need to see the care system for what it is’

Throughout the years of telling his story, Sissay has also sought accountability from the public.

In 2017, he put on a one-night-only show at the Royal Court in London, where he had Julie Hesmondhalgh, formerly of Coronation Street, read out to him the psychologist’s report from his case against Wigan council.

It would be the first time the audience and Sissay would hear of its contents.

“I wanted to show them that what happened in my childhood has affected me in my adult life. It affects lots of people in care – they end up in prisons, mental institutions, or committing suicide,” he says.

“I wanted to show the depth of that – I think that’s been part of my purpose, whatever that means.”

He maintains that his work has always been primarily aimed at the general public. Politicians, he argues, are driven by the need to secure votes, often through leveraging the public’s prejudices but also by prioritising the matters it deems most pressing. Currently, the care system is low on that list.

“[People] need to see the care system for what is and what it isn’t. And I think it’s the most important government department. I don’t know why we don’t see this other than [because of] society’s prejudice against children in care and social workers.”

He attributes this to what he calls ‘familial hypocrisy’ – families’ conviction that they don’t need to concern themselves with the care system unless they come to need it.

“The stigma is based on the simple fact that a child in care is living, walking proof that things can fall apart, and all families are about proving the opposite. A child in care is therefore seen as a physical, walking threat to an idea families are trying to uphold,” he says.

“This is why social workers are incredible; they see the truth, that families are a mess but also beautiful. And, actually, social workers do more work to keep families together and not apart.”

Celebrate those who’ve inspired you

Photo by Daniel Laflor/peopleimages.com/ AdobeStock

Do you have a colleague, mentor, or social work figure you can’t help but gush about?

Our My Brilliant Colleague series invites you to celebrate anyone within social work who has inspired you – whether current or former colleagues, managers, students, lecturers, mentors or prominent past or present sector figures whom you have admired from afar.

Nominate your colleague or social work inspiration by filling in our nominations form with a few paragraphs (100-250 words) explaining how and why the person has inspired you.

*Please note that, despite the need to provide your name and role, you or the nominee can be anonymous in the published entry*

If you have any questions, email our community journalist, Anastasia Koutsounia, at anastasia.koutsounia@markallengroup.com

‘Social workers need to feel valued by society’

Addressing that stigma and establishing the care system as an urgent public concern are how it will find a place in politicians’ priority list, he continues.

“I see too much evidence of children who are in care who have suffered at the hands of inadequate foster parents or the budgetary constraints of our local councils. Children being moved around for no other reason than [financial ones],” he says.

“It’s got nothing to do with their wellbeing. And I’m also sorry that social workers have to watch this happening. It’s on their watch and they need our support.”

As a spokesperson for children’s social care, he has experienced, seen, read and heard about the issues plaguing the social work workforce.

He was a big supporter of Josh MacAlister’s 2021-22 Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, which stated that its recommendations depended “upon well-supported, confident and trusted practitioners who have the knowledge and skills to meet the needs of children and families”.

Sissay adds: “Social workers need and deserve to be the highest paid civil servants in local government. They’re dealing with the most important asset of our society – children in care.

“They should have the highest regard [and so] there needs to be a massive year-long PR campaign about social workers. When they come to work, they need to feel that they are valued by society.”

The stigma within the system

However, he warns, social care also needs to take a deep look inward, because some of its cracks are self-inflicted. Prejudice plays its ugly part here too.

When I ask him about the stigma of being a child in care, Sissay admits that the idea of “something being wrong with a child in care or them being overdemanding” is born within the system that cares for them.

“It’s very easy to have a blanket opinion of a person who’s obviously traumatised but quite demanding. All children are challenging – it’s the nature of childhood. But a child in care, by nature of them being in care, has to be challenging.”

And so he leaves me with one final reminder – something always insinuated but never clearly stated when discussing children’s social care.

“The word ‘love’ should be right at the heart of the care system. And love is an action – an active verb.”