Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #keepcaringto18
Most recents (11)
🧵Our charity's name comes from Article 39 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This entitles all children to recover from abuse and other serious rights violations in environments which nurture their health, self-respect and dignity.
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The Home Secretary's pledge (on behalf of whole government) to strengthen reporting duties in respect of child sexual abuse and exploitation must be backed by significant resources and comprehensive arrangements to help children to *recover*.
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The risks of child sexual abuse and exploitation have consistently been part of our warnings about supported accommodation for children in care aged 16 & 17.
Children in these properties have no caregivers or consistent adult supervision.
Perpetrators know this.
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Children in these properties have no caregivers or consistent adult supervision.
Perpetrators know this.
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Under normal circumstances, I do my best to ignore the 20th Dec. Its the anniversary of when, as a 16-year-old in care, I was kicked out by my foster carer via a note on the kitchen table. I never really got over it. But in the wake of yesterday's shocking judgement depriving
Children aged 16/17 of the right to care in the "care system" (putting them at risk of being dumped in caravans/bedsits), I cannot help but reflect. Words cannot express how vulnerable & terrified I felt on that day. And how terribly ill-equipped I was to
article39.org.uk/2022/12/19/per…
article39.org.uk/2022/12/19/per…
Live a hostel with adults fresh out of prison, which is where I ended up shortly after. Like many children who suddenly find themselves without a home, I was traumatised. Navigating that, with no guarantee of daily meals, electricity or the ability to sleep due to nightly raves
Shame on all who contributed to the toxic narrative that it is OK to abandon children in care in hostels & caravan parks in one of the world's wealthiest countries. Your name is all over this. We shall not forget interim reports, gloating twitter statuses or your craven silence.
As the year comes to a close, there could've been so much to celebrate in the wake a 'once in a generation review' into the care system. Instead, there are now 7,000+ children are in hostels, caravans or tents without care. Easy prey for gangs & predators. What victory is that?
Survivors have shared unshareable in the hope something would change. That someone at the top would listen. The silence has been deafening. My childhood diaries also fell on deaf ears. No one in senior decision-making positions responded even once: tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…
Before Twitter gets taken over with Christmas-spam, let it be known that if a child in Year 11 with a Sept-Nov birthday goes into care tonight, there’s now a 50/50 chance they’ll end up in unregulated accommodation. That’s because according to this gov, 16 & 17 year olds don’t
Deserve loving, caring homes the same way a child 15 & under does. Instead - to placate private providers who are making £££s off this dangerous loophole - they can be sent off to caravans, adult hostels & even tents with no adult supervision. Ask any social worker and they will
Tell you that these settings are magnets for gangs and predators, who prey on vulnerable children and subject them to criminal/sexual exploitation. Over the past 5 years, 29 children in these settings have died. That’s a whole class full of children. This is an emergency. I know
This news won’t make Back to School headlines today, but it ought to be everywhere: Under this gov, a child born on 5th September 2006 can, if taken into care tonight, be placed in a hostel, caravan/barge with no guaranteed adult supervision. And their 15-year classmate, who is
Settled in foster care, could face the same fate on their 16th birthday. All because the government has taken the requirement to ‘care’ out of the ‘care system’ for children aged 16/17. How can it be right that on the first day of being PM, @trussliz will return home to a place
Where food, heating & security measures are guaranteed, yet a child in Year 11 may have no one to prepare a meal, pay the bills or protect them from harm? The gov is keeping quiet about this. Most people don’t know - which is why it’s crucial we keep talking about #KeepCaringto18
11 years ago today I was a care-leaver receiving my A level results, having spent almost 2 years in unregulated accommodation. No additional marks were given for having written coursework with no electricity, having done exams on 3 hrs sleep given the raves, police incidents &...
Noise until all hours in the morning, or for simply having got through the school day despite knowing I'd be going 'home' to a hostel with grown men who were known to police. Whilst friends had parents call UCAS/clearing operators for advice when grades weren't as expected,
I had to navigate the system alone, despite having no context as a 1st gen applicant. But I managed to find a place in the end, relieved it had worked out. After saving up my McDonald's wages all summer just to afford the transport, I arrived with £20 to spare. But the rent...
THREAD: Received care files from my local authority today - wasn’t sure what to expect, but didn’t expect this. If you write records for children, please take note: To begin, my first name isn’t even spelt correctly. Just take a second to check. And yes, it matters.
Next, please don’t put allegations in inverted commas. It is cruel and unnecessary - our experiences, whether or not you believe them, do not need to be subject to what comes across as sarcastic/undermining punctuation. That stuff hurts.
Ditch jargon. Saying a child’s basic needs are met & they have appropriate clothing might be normal parlance in your team, but probably means nothing to the person reading it. Ask yourself whether the info has value and if it does, how to say it simply & with meaning.
For those new to @CareReviewWatch, we are an alliance of care experienced, practitioners, campaigners and academics. We started CRWA in January 2021 to follow and offer independent scrutiny of the Care Review. So far we have: 1/R
Issued a press release following publication today carereviewwatchalliance.com/press-release-…
Presented findings at Social Work Action Network @SWANsocialwork annual conference at @LiverpoolHopeUK socialworkfuture.org/conference/
Are 16 and 17 year old children being unlawfully denied care in unregulated accommodation?
Today and tomorrow I'm live tweeting from the High Court in @article_39 v Secretary of State for Education.
Follow this thread 🧵 for Day 1 of my live #OpenJustice reporting.
Today and tomorrow I'm live tweeting from the High Court in @article_39 v Secretary of State for Education.
Follow this thread 🧵 for Day 1 of my live #OpenJustice reporting.
A little background first - After years of campaigning against unregulated accommodation for children in care by #KeepCaringTo18, @BBCNewsnight, charities & care-experienced people, the UK Government decided to ban the use of that type of accommodation for under 16s in Sept 2020.
The decision to only protect under 16s from the harms of unregulated accommodation left thousands of 16-17 year olds unprotected. The suggestion was that children in care who are under 16 always need care, whilst children in care who are aged 16-17 do not necessarily need care.
Thread time again. 🧵
New annual DfE stats are out on children in care and care leavers today from the SSDA903 collection. I haven’t been on Twitter much recently, but folks seemed to find this helpful last year so…
…e-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistic…
New annual DfE stats are out on children in care and care leavers today from the SSDA903 collection. I haven’t been on Twitter much recently, but folks seemed to find this helpful last year so…
…e-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistic…
The big message: there was a pandemic and turns out it had a significant impact on national trends in children’s social care.
Almost everything for the year ending 31 March 2021 needs a ‘Covid lens’ so we don’t draw too many year-on-year conclusions which won’t be maintained.
Almost everything for the year ending 31 March 2021 needs a ‘Covid lens’ so we don’t draw too many year-on-year conclusions which won’t be maintained.
Overall, the numbers of children in care have grown again, albeit slightly less than in recent years.
There are now 80,850 children in care in England – an all-time high – and continuing a pattern of year-on-year growth since 2008.
There are now 80,850 children in care in England – an all-time high – and continuing a pattern of year-on-year growth since 2008.
1/ This thread is a shorter version of a much longer guest blog I have written about the #KeepCaringTo18 campaign on @SWConcern's blog page here: socialwhatnow.medium.com/guest-blog-by-…
2/ The campaign’s fighting to get the Government to guarantee care for all under 18-year olds in state care in England. Under Government proposals to regulate currently unregulated accommodation, 16- and 17-year-olds will have no right to receive care.
3/ This is despite the state’s responsibilities to promote the welfare of children in care. The Government’s proposals will create a legal nonsense that some 16- and 17-year-olds in state ‘care’ will not be entitled to receive day-to-day care.
