For Care Experienced History Month 2022 we are sharing the history of our Policy Forum’s campaign on reducing criminalisation of care-experienced young people.
With care-experienced young people being criminalised 15 times more than their peers it’s easy to see why this is such an important issue to take on.
Half of the children detained in Youth Offending Institutes are, or have been, in the care system. That’s despite the fact that children in care make up less than one percent of the child population. Research conducted by the Howard League for Penal Reform has found that unnecessary police call-outs and mental health difficulties are two of the main factors behind this statistic.
Prevention is better than the cure, and our Policy Forum’s criminalisation subgroup has mainly focused on how we can avoid children in care coming into contact with the criminal justice system in the first place. The group has worked extensively with the Metropolitan Police and the London Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime on ways to achieve this. Forcing carers, social workers and other agents to ask themselves the question ‘Would this be good enough for my child’, our young people helped to write a protocol, released in March this year, aimed at keeping police call-outs as a last resort.
You undergo many changes when transitioning from foster child to care leaver when you turn 18. Social workers turn into PAs (Personal Advisors). You are expected to rely on the welfare state if not in employment or student loans and grants if you are at university. You also grow up extremely quickly. By the age of 19, I had my own flat and was living alone.
It was shortly after moving in that I had my first mental health breakdown. Due to moving ‘out of borough’, the therapies that I had waited a year to access were stopped at my most vulnerable point. Since I was a new patient in that area, it meant that I had to join the back of the queue for help all over again
Following the national recognition for our Policy Forum’s work on ending the unnecessary criminalisation of children and young people in care by the Howard League for Penal Reform last year, the London protocol on reducing criminalisation has finally been published in March 2021. We’re also delighted to find that the Policy Forum’s suggestion of a bespoke summary document aimed are young people has been realised as well.
Last week, organisations across the UK took part in Children’s Mental Health Week: an initiative that has been running since 2015. Sadly, we know that children in care are particularly at risk of poor mental health. Almost half of children in care have a diagnosable mental health disorder (compared to 10% of the general child population) and two-thirds have …
Children’s mental health problems don’t disappear at 18, and nor should support. Read More »
Unfortunately, poor mental health is very common among the care-experienced population and can make life even more difficult for them. Things such as employment, personal care and wellbeing, or independent living are much harder to maintain when struggling with one’s mental health. There are already specialised services for care leavers such as housing officers and personal advisers, and it’s time we matched this provision with specialised mental health services too.
Currently, we are focusing on gaining more insight into the different experiences of care leavers and collecting their suggestions, ideas, and innovations to create a more comprehensive picture of what a well-functioning mental health service provision for care-experienced people would look like.
We’re here to make a difference in the lives of young care leavers. Wherever they’re coming from, we’re on a mission to help open doors and give them the skills, confidence and inspiration to make some momentum and realise their full potential.
