A new scheme for young people leaving care

Liam Mackle of the Children’s Law Centre welcomes the Children (Leaving Care) Regulations (NI) which provide much needed support and preparation for young people leaving care in Northern Ireland, while expressing concerns that some may still be at risk of falling through the gaps in the safety net.

The 1st of September 2005 saw the introduction of a new regime for young people leaving the care of social services in Northern Ireland. The Children (Leaving Care) Act (NI) 2002 was one of those Acts passed by the Northern Ireland Assembly before it was suspended. The Act and the regulations which followed in 2005, the Children (Leaving Care) Regulations (NI), closely mirror the changes introduced in England and Wales in 2001. This should hopefully mean those charged with administering the new scheme have learnt from the experience in Britain and are fully prepared for the radical changes the new scheme introduces.

In October 2000, the Social Services Inspectorate published a report entitled Promoting Independence: a Review of Leaving and after Care Services. The main findings were that young people leaving care, experience a range of disadvantages in terms of education, employment, housing and family support, for example, in 2001/02 more than half of all care leavers (53%) left care with no formal qualifications. The report highlighted widespread concern that many young people were leaving care without being properly prepared for independent living and without the type of support mechanisms they required. Although the Children (NI) Order 1995 had made provision for care leavers, it was felt that these provisions were inadequate in respect of care leavers. Many children’s organisations including the Children’s Law Centre had expressed their concerns that the provisions in Article 35 of the Order were too discretionary and the notional duty to advise, assist and befriend did not meet the needs of this group of young people.

There was support for a new approach which would provide for the individual needs of the individual child when that child was leaving care. Individual assessment and individual plans would be used to meet the assessed needs of the young person coupled with ongoing review and support to implement properly funded plans. The new programme certainly has the potential to provide the type of preparation for leaving care that for too long young people have been denied. It is vital that the resources are in place to allow this potential to be realised.

The new scheme

On the face of it, the new scheme promises much for care leavers and addresses many of the concerns highlighted by the Social Services Inspectorate and children’s organisations. The four main aims are spelt out in new Departmental guidance:

1. to ensure that young people do not leave care until they are ready to do so;
2. to improve the assessment, preparation and planning for young people leaving care;
3. to provide better personal support for young people after they leave care;
4. to improve the financial support available to care leavers.

The new Act amends the Children (NI) Order, inserting a number of new articles into that order outlining the new responsibilities of the various trusts and introducing a whole new vocabulary for those working in this area. The Act inserts Articles 34A to 34F into the Children (NI) Order which introduces three new groups of children who may be entitled to some level of service from the trusts.

The first group are ‘eligible children’. These are children who have reached the age of sixteen, have been looked after for at least thirteen weeks since their fourteenth birthday and are still being looked after. A looked after child is defined in Article 25 of the Children (NI) Order as a child who is either in the care of a trust or provided with accommodation by the trust. Eligible children have a new entitlement to a needs assessment to determine what advice, assistance and support it would be appropriate for the authority to provide them while it is still looking after them and when it ceases to look after them. Based on this assessment, the trust will prepare a pathway plan and will also appoint a personal adviser. The pathway plan and the personal adviser are two new initiatives introduced by the new legislation. They are crucial to the success of the new scheme and will be considered later.

The second group of children entitled to services are ‘relevant children’. A relevant child is a young person aged sixteen or seventeen who has ceased to be looked after and prior to this was an eligible child. A ‘relevant child’ will have been assessed while an eligible child and is entitled to a pathway plan based on that assessment and a personal adviser. In addition to this the ‘relevant child’ is entitled, under a new Article 34C(8), to be maintained and suitably accommodated by the trust and to be assisted to meet assessed needs as outlined in the pathway plan in relation to education, training or employment.

The third group of children entitled to services under the new system are ‘former relevant children’. A ‘former relevant child’ is a young person who is aged between eighteen and 21 and who has been either a ‘relevant child’ or an ‘eligible child’ or both. The trust must continue to maintain a pathway plan, provide a personal adviser for the young person and take reasonable steps to keep in touch with the young person and assist with expenses in respect of employment, education or training.

One of the major changes the new regime brings in is the removal of the group of children now called ‘relevant children’ from the social security and Housing Benefit schemes. This group of children will now be completely reliant on their health and social services trust for their maintenance and their accommodation. This was the change which caused most concern for children’s organisations when the original Bill was going through the Assembly. The exclusion from benefit in respect of this group of young people is absolute and therefore if the relationship between the trust and a young person breaks down there is no alternative source of financial support for the young person. The dangers for the young person in this are obvious and it highlights the important role of the personal adviser in maintaining the relationship between the trust and the young person as well as ensuring the pathway plan meets the needs of the young people and is adequately resourced and properly implemented.

The pathway plan and the personal adviser

The relevant trust must carry out an assessment of needs for each eligible child and relevant child within three months of the looked after child becoming either eligible or relevant. Only in exceptional circumstances should a young person not have her/his needs assessed and her/his pathway plan completed before he or she leaves care. As the reason for the plan is to map out the young person’s needs on leaving care including maintenance and accommodation, it is obviously vital that this mapping is done prior to the young person leaving care. Regulations and guidance have indicated the things which should be considered as part of the assessment. These are health and development, educational, training or employment needs, support available from family and friends, financial needs, skills for independent living and the young person’s care, support and accommodation needs. Other individual young people may need their assessment to take account of things such as disability, parenting skills or self esteem and confidence. The trust must set out in writing how it is going to carry out the assessment and make it available to the young person. The trust must ‘seek and have regard to the views of the child or young person'{footnote}Reg 5. The Children (Leaving Care) Regulations (NI) 2005{/footnote} and ensure that the young person is able to participate in discussions about the assessment and have the finished document explained to her/him.

The pathway plan must be prepared as soon as possible after the assessment and, as Justice Munby stated in a recent English case,{footnote}R on the application of J (by his friend MW) v Caerphilly County Borough Council [2005] EWHC 586.{/footnote} ‘must clearly identify the child’s needs and what is to be done about them, by whom and by when’. The pathway plan must be explicit and must be the route map to independent living for the young person. The English courts have already expressed their view that they will not tolerate the ‘depressing inadequacy’ all too often seen in care plans. Hopefully, those charged with preparing pathway plans in this jurisdiction will have taken note. Pathway plans are fluid and may be subject to many changes, they should be reviewed at least every six months or at the request of the young person or her/his personal adviser.

The personal adviser has an integral role to play. If, as seems the case at least initially, the majority of personal advisers are recruited from existing trust staff, it is imperative that any ambiguity or conflicts in their duality of roles does not impact adversely on the young person. The personal adviser is, as Justice Munby describes, the ‘advocate or representative’ of the young person in the course of the young person’s dealings with the trust. It is improper for such a person to be the author of the assessment or the pathway plan. The proper role of the personal adviser lies in ensuring that any plans drawn up are realistic, capable of meeting the young person’s needs and deliverable and that effective communication takes place between the young person and the responsible trust. It is the responsibility of the personal adviser to record progress, to ensure that all agencies identified in the pathway plan are providing the services the plan has identified as required by the young person and to assist the young person to avail of those services.

The new regime for care leavers addresses one serious gap in the provision of services to young people. Those young people who are entitled to services will hopefully be able to take advantage of a range of properly funded services, to receive comprehensive support in establishing themselves in suitable accommodation, well equipped for independent living. Those sixteen and seventeen year olds who do not qualify for this level of services but who are in need of services due to, for example, homelessness, must not be forgotten about. If the new regime is the success all those who work with young people hope that it is, then it should provide a model for service provision to other vulnerable young people.