Listen to Me

A National Children’s Advocacy Consortium Report

July 2012
Foreword

The National Children’s Advocacy Consortium has been in existence for over a decade. It has a strong track record of upholding and campaigning for the rights, wishes and feelings of some of the most vulnerable children and young people in our society. Evidence of this is seen in the revision of the Children Act 1989 Guidance and Regulations, the IRO handbook 2010 and the National Minimum Standards for fostering services, adoption agencies and children’s homes (2011) in which there is a consistent recognition of the value of advocacy in the child’s journey.

Despite improvements made by this and previous governments there continues to be too many gaps. A child’s experience of advocacy is far too dependent upon where they live and how the local authority which provides support to the child or is their corporate parent prioritises advocacy within the context of child centred, child focussed responsibilities. The systems and structures in place do not allow for a seamless advocacy experience for the children and young people who need it most.

This year we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the United Convention Rights of the Child. It is a reality that many children and young people continue to be unaware of their rights and how they can be heard when decisions are being made about them. It is a reality that one of the main issues children contact advocacy services about is a change of placement. This has not altered in over five years. It is a reality that children and young people continue to talk to advocates about abusive situations both present and historic.

NCAC call upon the government to commit to dedicated statutory guidance for the provision of advocacy within a regulatory framework so that all children and young people whether they are in need, cared for or adopted have equal access to effective advocacy services. This report we believe demonstrates why this needs to happen and happen soon.


Wendy Banks
Director of Policy, Voice /
Claire Hyde
Assistant CEO, NYAS

Andrew Radford
CEO, Voice /
Christine Renouf
CEO, NYAS

Content

Page

Executive summary1

Introduction2

What is Advocacy2

National Consistency5

Stability of Advocacy Provision5

Access to Advocacy6

Quality and Monitoring of Advocacy Provision6

Recommendations7

Appendix 1 - Legislation10

Appendix 2 - Case Study15

LISTEN TO ME

Executive Summary

The requirement to listen to the wishes and feelings of looked after children and young people has been established in our domestic legislation for over 20 years. Advocacy is now a recognised tool to supporting children and young people having their wishes and feelings heard. Advocacy acts as a safety net for many children and young people in care, who do not have the natural support network of family to represent them, to support them and make sure they are involvedin decisions and have their rights met.

The National Children’s Advocacy Consortium (NCAC) is increasingly concerned that the voices of many children and young people in care continue to go unheard and this is having a direct impact on their outcomes for the future.

NCAC believes the four main barriers to effective advocacy provision for children in England are:

  1. Lack of National Consistency. Children and young people face a post-code lottery as to the level and quality of advocacy provision they can access, dependent on a range of issues including; their local authority, their type of accommodation, and their care status.
  1. Stability of provision.With an increasing trend towards short term contracts, local advocacy provision is constantly changing, which directly impacts on the service that can provided for the child or young person.
  1. Accessibility:Children and young people must be better informed and supported to access advocacy.
  1. Quality and Monitoring: the National Advocacy Standards are now 10 years old and there is no regulatory framework for monitoring these.

NCAC have identified four key recommendations, that if implemented will ensure that the voice of children in care and care leavers can be heard effectively and act as a lever for improving outcomes.

These are:

  1. Revision of the advocacy standards
  2. Development of a regulatory framework to monitor advocacy
  3. Change to statutory guidance to ensure ALL children in care and care leavers have a right to advocacy for statutory reviews and child protection conferences
  4. Improved access to advocacy through greater awareness raising, local monitoring and evaluation and training of staff.

Introduction

The poor outcomes for children in care (children in need, looked after children) and care-leavers hasbeen well documented over the years: children in care andcare leavers are nearly four times less likely to be in education, training or employment; looked after children are six times less likely to go on to higher education, girls who have been in care are two and half times more likely to become pregnant than other teenagers, are just a few.

We welcome the work that both this and the previous Government have undertaken to reduce inequalities for this group of children and young people. However we are increasingly concerned that the voices of many children continue to go unheard.

What is Advocacy?

Advocacy is about speaking up for children and young people and ensuring their views and wishes are heard and acted upon by decision-makers.’(DFES, 2004).[1]

Advocacy plays a key role in supporting children and young people to have their voices heard, their rights and entitlements met, providing a more holistic and positive experience of the care system. This is different to the role of the social worker and other professionals who have a duty to make ‘best interest’ decisions for the child.

The revised statutory guidance (2010 and 2011) following implementation of the Children and Young People’s Act 2008 and incorporating recent good practice, highlighted the importance of advocacy for children in the care planning and review process and for care leavers in making transition to independent living.( See appendix 1 for review of legislative framework)

Access to advocacy also formed part of the revised National Minimum Standards[2] for fostering services, adoption and children’s homes, with Standard 1 in each stating

‘Children know their rights to advocacy, how to access an advocate and how to contact the Children’s Rights Director’.

The impact of advocacy on children and young people

Appropriate and timely advocacy can have an immediate positive impact for children. Advocacy is an effective safety net and advocates routinely respond to reportable safeguarding issues that children and young people tell them about. This includes suicidal despair about unwanted placement moves. (See Appendix 2 for case-study). Changes of placement and lack of constructive contact with their social workers continue to be a prominent issue for children and young people accessing independent advocacy services.

Dealing with these significantissues quickly and effectivelywill not only ensure children are safe, but will have a significant impact on the health and well-being of children in care, which impacts ontheir ability to engage in education, family life and the community.

Advocacy can also ensure that children are actively involved in complex matters and events that have a significant impact on their lives, such as child protection conferences.

“Children’s views are taken into account fully in child protection conferences through the funding of independent advocates to support all children over the age of nine years. Positive feedback has been provided by children who value this service.” (p1, Ofsted 2011)[3]

Evaluations undertaken by advocacy organisations as part of their quality assurance also evidence the benefit of advocacy for the child. An internal evaluation of Voice Advocacy Service 2010, reported that 85% of children and young people interviewed felt more listened to by care professionals after they have used an advocacy service.

‘Having an advocate helped me to be confident and not to give up on my case. I felt like having an advocate really boosted up my case. My advocate knew how to handle my case because of his experience with other young people.” (Sara, 18 years old)

This is supported by Thomas Coram research in 2006 (London)[4]that concluded that the overwhelming majority of young people felt that the process of having an advocate had been very valuable.

Impact on local authorities

The importance of advocacy has been recognised by some local authorities, including Hackney, who in their service specification for advocacy (2011) stated;

‘Advocacy services have an important role to play in the development of a listening culture. It is widely acknowledged that proactive talking to and listening to children and young people, assists in service planning and delivery. It can prevent the continuation of poor and inadequate services, if not the active abuse of children and young people.

The Government is clear that Local Authorities must improve the nature and level of their consultation with young people.’ [5]

Independent advocacy can often result in complaints and issues being resolved more quickly and at a lower level. This is in the interest of not only the child but also the local authority, with staff being able to use their time to do their job and learning from what children are saying rather than dealing with complaints which can potentially impact upon the relationship between the child and the corporate parent. Advocacy can also reduce levels of compensation awarded to children and their families (Brady, 2011)[6].

The stability of young people’s pathways through the care system, which can result from advocacy intervention, will also have an impact on the overall costs to the local authority, with an unstable journeybeing considerably more expensive than a stable one.(Hannon,Bazalgette,Wood 2010).[7] As stated above, advocacy can play a key role in ensuring children have a more stable journey through the care system.

Advocacy Provision Across England.

Access to advocacy is still very much a post code lotteryprovided by specialist advocacy organisations; (e.g. NYAS and Voice), national providers of a range of children services (Action for Children, Barnardo’s, NSPCC), smaller advocacy organisations and in-house providers.

Research undertaken for the Office of the Children’s Commissioner 2011), found:

‘The majority of the 152 local authorities with responsibilities for looked after children commission advocacy from independent advocacy providers. 95 local authorities (62.5%) commission advocacy from national independent providers and 10 from local independent providers. 40 local authorities (26%) have in-house children’s rights services, spot purchasing agreements or a register of advocates.’ (Brady, 2011)[8]

The variation in the level of independence of the services from the local authority, does pose concern, with local authorities being able to provide advocacy in-house. This could lead to a conflict of interest, with staff employed by the local authority having a duty to support children to voice their concerns and make complaints to that local authority.

Barriers to Effective Advocacy Provision

The National Children’s Advocacy Consortium (NCAC) has identified 4 main barriers to effective advocacy provision for children in England:

  1. National Consistency

Local authorities do not have the same service specifications for provision of advocacy, in particular what cohorts of children will meet the criteria to receive advocacy. Some restrict this to statutory provision only, while others will include all children in care for all issues, care leavers, disabled children, children involved in Child Protection Conferences and Family Group Conferences. Young people who are supported by Youth Offending Teams are not included in advocacy service specifications by local authorities.

There are particular issues for children and young people placed outside the local authority andin residential care. Children placed significant distances from the local authority sometimes may not be able to access advocacy as the provider is likely to also be located in their home local authority area.

Independent advocacy in residential settings varies significantly. Some providers of children’s homes will commission an advocacy service whilst others simply make a phone number available. Some local authorities will ask their own advocacy provider to provide assistance for specific children. This leads potentially to inconsistency of advocacy provision for children within the same home.

Children and young people looked after who are admitted into hospitals due to their mental health often need advocates for both their mental health issues and because they are not receiving the support that they are entitled to from their local authority social worker. Specialist children’s advocates play an important role for them.

  1. Stability of Advocacy Provision

There are inherent risks with changes of advocacy providers at too great a frequency.

Contracts for advocacy commissioned by local authorities can range from 1 to 3 years. It is the experience of members of the advocacy consortium that there is a disturbing trend towards shorter term contracts.

It takes time for any service to establish itself particularly when the service is based upon respect and trust. Children and young people who use advocacy promote the service to their peers by word of mouth. They get to know who the advocates are and in this current climate it is notable that there are very low turnover rates of advocates. This is critical for children and young people who are often mistrustful and who experience numerous placements and changes of social worker. Commitment demonstrated by advocates to date may be eroded by ‘tendering exhaustion’.

NCAC is further concerned about the ways in which services are commissioned. An extreme example recently has been that of a local authority seeking to secure its advocacy provision through an e- auction.

  1. Access to Advocacy

Children and young people in care need to understand what advocacy is and they need to have this explained and articulated in ways that they understand.They need to know how they can get the support of an advocate. Advocacy providers utilise a range of ways in which to do this i.e. symbols, ICT, phone calls, referrals by professionals.

Recent research by Ofsted (2008)[9] asked 1,113 children if they knew how to get hold of an advocate; 14% did not know how they could do this. However, of those that had used an advocate 90% felt that advocate had made a difference to them. NCAC is concerned that children and young people are being prevented by local authorities from accessing advocates. This could be due to lack of awareness by social workers, or by a lack of appropriate advocacy provision, or both.

The Children’s Society report Someone onour side: Advocacy for disabled children and young people (2011)[10] stated that disabled children are still facing significant barriersin accessing advocacy. There is little to suggest that advocacy services for disabled children have developed over the last 5 years, even with an increased emphasis inpolicy and guidance. Reasons included; some advocacy services not having the skills and resources to provide this specialist service, overly restrictive pre-defined parameters set by local authorities as part of service specification – meaning disabled children were not part of the cohort and services not being available for children that live away from home. Disabled children are not excluded from the care system.

  1. Quality and monitoring of advocacyprovision

Every child in care and every care leaverhas the right to expect effective, professional, independent advocacy. The current National Advocacy Standards[11]were producedin 2002 and have not been revised since. These standards are purely a set of principles which in reality are not specific or measurable, compared with the National Minimum Standards for fostering services or for children’s homes, which are part of a regulatory framework and externally inspected by Ofsted.

Currently, monitoringof advocacy provision is by individual advocacy providers for internal and/or contractual purposes. Information collated is therefore dependent on the service specification and requirements of the local authority or purchaser/funder. The majority of independent advocacyprovidersundertake user satisfaction surveys and are committed to using this feedback to both improve their practice and, wherever possible, the local policy and practice of the commissioning local authority.

Mandatory requirements for relevant professional advocacytraining are inconsistent. NYAS, VOICE and CROA provide externally accredited training whilst others do not.

The issues of quality are impeded by the following:

  • Restrictions on funding as a result of spending cuts.
  • Lack of consistent inspection mechanisms on the part of the local authority inspection frameworks.

Recommendations

The following recommendations have been developed by NCAC. We call upon the Government to take action to ensure these recommendations are effectively implemented so that the voices of children in care and care leavers can be heard effectively and act as a lever for improving outcomes.

1)Revision of the National Advocacy Standards and Guidance on Advocacy Provision

  • We recommend that the National Advocacy Standards are revised and guidance is published for local authorities that will support and promote effective use of the Standards. The guidance should be developed in partnership with the ADCS and NCAC, with endorsement from DfE.
  • The Standards would address key issues identified as barriers, including:
  1. Independence
  2. Training of advocates
  3. Ensuring accessibility of provision – in particular more vulnerable groups such as disabled children,those whose first language is not Englishand very young children i.e. under the age of 5.
  • NYAS and Voice are preparedto commit to revising the Standards, working in partnership with NCAC,children and young people with care experience and the DfE.
  • NCAC can play a key role training and supporting local authorities to use the guidance and share good practice.

2)Development of Regulatory Framework and Monitoring System.