Coronavirus puts vulnerable UK children at greater risk, campaigners warn
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Version 0 of 1. School closures remove vital safety net. But Covid-19 means there will be even fewer foster carers to pick up the pieces Care-leavers across the country are already repeatedly failed by the state. This pandemic will only make their situation more precarious, campaigners warn. It’s not just those who have left care. What will happen to the more than 78,000 “looked-after” children if already-scarce foster carers become ill and cannot cope with the needs of the traumatised or disabled children they’ve taken into their homes? Or if residential care home staff at children’s homes are not able to work in the numbers required for those settings to operate safely? Government guidance published last week means that pupils with safeguarding and welfare needs may be able to attend school, providing a safe place to be, but teachers will struggle to provide the necessary support with skeleton staffing levels. Children’s commissioner for England Anne Longfield estimates that up to 2.3 million children in England are at significant risk, on the very edge of coming to social services’ attention – but not currently getting help. “These children are in families that are already unstable, and this crisis is going to put them under even more pressure,” says Longfield. “For these children, school tends to provide one, and often two, hot meals a day; it provides structure and support from peers and teachers, and gives professionals direct line of sight to children, with a well-established escalation procedure. All this is lost if a child isn’t in school, and, even with the government’s announcement, most won’t be.” With many children’s centres, nurseries, libraries and youth services closed down or cut, “there will be the best part of 1 million children who have needed a social worker in the past three years now becoming invisible to professionals, just as their families come under unprecedented strain”, adds Longfield. Even for those children who are in care, stability cannot be guaranteed. Foster carers are increasingly anxious about the capacity of the system to support them when social workers – already a scarce resource – fall ill or self-isolate. “There will be [foster] placement breakdowns because of this situation,” says Jane Collins, director of the Independent Foster Carers Alliance. If payments to fostering agencies and individual foster carers don’t take place smoothly, once council finance departments are operating remotely from home, it won’t be long before the fostering system is in dire straits, warns Andy Elvin, chief executive of the Tact Fostering and Adoption charity. A foster carer’s allowance pays for the children’s food, household bills, clothes and activities. “It’s the money for foster carers to be able to look after the children,” says Elvin. There has been “radio silence”, he says, from all but three of the 60-odd local authorities he has contacted about this issue: those three have confirmed their systems will cope. Foster carers also worry about how to reconcile government calls for social distancing for court-ordered contact with birth families, which could put everyone at further risk. This family time, crucial to maintaining children’s relationships with parents and siblings, often has to be monitored by “contact supervisors” in council offices. Emily Boardman, a partner at Boardman, Hawkins and Osborne solicitors who represents parents in care proceedings, says it is unclear what will happen if contact centres shut. “My clients are very anxious about what plans can be put in place to ensure that contact doesn’t stop altogether for a long time,” Boardman explains. “Imagine being a parent away from their child at this time, not seeing them and not being able to be with them if they get ill.” She urges councils to be “ imaginative and open to ensuring contact continues, if at all possible”. Martin Barrow, a foster carer and campaigner, says some foster carers are already battling to maintain this contact digitally, with a number of councils insisting that it happens in person, despite the obvious health risks. Others are stopping contact altogether, in breach of the law. According to Cathy Ashley, chief executive of Family Rights Group, which advises parents with children in need, in some cases contact has been summarily stopped on a social worker’s say-so. “Local authorities need to bring a nuanced approach to this issue,” she says. One of the most hidden groups of vulnerable children is the estimated 200,000 under-18s who would probably be in care but for a “kinship carer” having stepped in. As many are grandparents, and therefore more likely to have underlying health conditions, if they get ill or die then what happens, asks Lucy Peake, chief executive of the charity Grandparents Plus, which supports all kinship carers. Many of these carers, a large proportion of whom bring up children while living in poverty, are already at breaking point, she says, and this could “tip them over the edge”. “If you’re over 70 or in a vulnerable group, you need to be preparing yourself to self-isolate,” she says, “but how, if you’re looking after children who need to be fed so you need to go shopping?” As these children are not in care, they are not classed as “vulnerable”, so school closures mean they will be at home, potentially infecting their older carer. “We’ve heard from a grandmother with emphysema who’s looking after four children: what is the local authority going to do if she gets ill?” asks Peake. “I’m really worried that there is no capacity in the foster care system to deal with that situation either short- or long-term.” Local authorities are acutely aware of the problem. Rachel Dickinson, president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS), says that, given that the number of placements for children in care is already overstretched, “we are working closely with all relevant stakeholders, including providers of care to ensure children have somewhere safe to stay and that their needs are met”. Senior directors at two local authorities confirm that they are working flat out on contingency planning. And Dickinson says that the ADCS is working with the Department for Education in an attempt to ensure “that the government’s advice becomes more tailored over time” to the needs of children coping with various types and levels of risk at home. But with a £3.1bn funding shortfall by 2025 just to keep up with existing demand, children’s services need a massive cash injection to plug that gap and cope with the extra demand for support caused by the effects of Covid-19, campaigners warn. Without it, many vulnerable young people will suffer. “At a time of heightened stress and tension, already-traumatised children’s behaviour is likely to deteriorate,” says Collinson. Councils need to take action now, she says, “because in a few months time there could be a lot less foster carers”. |