The Victoria Climbie Foundation UK
BRIEFING ON CHILDREN’S WELLBEING AND SCHOOLS BILL
The Victoria Climbié Foundation UK was founded 25 years ago on behalf of Victoria’s parents to guard against other children being failed as Victoria was. For decades The Foundation has reminded those in power that the problem is not that children are ‘hidden’ but that children known to the system are not helped. Once again, the tragedy of Sara Sharif was that she was not protected by a system she was known to.
Instead of addressing these failures this Bill instead casts a wider net – indeed every child in the country – and grants extraordinary powers for the state to store and distribute confidential information about all children. Given that Victoria’s name is routinely invoked to justify widespread information ‘sharing’ we must remind Peers that the information not communicated about Victoria concerned serious incidents. That such information be shared is critical, but it is an entirely different proposition to sharing circumstantial and confidential information without consent as per this legislation. As an organisation dedicated to the greater protection of children, we warn that such measures will harm not help children.
Support is vital for breaking this cycle and this Bill does not help
The increase of monitoring families without any increase in support continues a vicious cycle of cruelty, inflicted by a state negligent of its duties to support. We ask that Peers interrogate the reality of what these measures will mean.
Austerity driven policies continue to swell the numbers of children and families who are struggling and at the same time reducing the services and support available to help. Changes to child protection policies and procedures have made struggling – or ‘neglect’ – a matter of child abuse to be investigated, an intrusive and traumatising experience. Ever rising numbers of children are separated from families. Disabled children are a group who are significantly harmed in this shift and instead of receiving help parents are investigated, viewed at higher risk by children’s services. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill adds fuel to this fire. The support it includes is minimal – while more widely the government intends further cuts to disabilities benefits which will harm the most vulnerable – instead increasing the harmful surveillance, monitoring of and intrusion into families.
CLAUSE 3 MULTI-AGENCY SAFEGUARDING TEAMS
We ask why these are being rolled out given the lack of evidence to support them? The British Association of Social Workers submitted evidence that: “mandating multi-agency teams risks undermining social work’s role and safeguarding principles, with little or no evidence to support this as an effective model”. A deep dive by Bilson into an exemplar multi-agency safeguarding hub showed that instead of helping earlier and keeping families together there were more investigations but no reduction in the numbers of children harmed. We concur with these.
CLAUSE 4: CONSISTENT IDENTIFIER AND DUTY TO SHARE INFORMATION & CHILDREN NOT IN SCHOOL POWERS
ARTICLE 12: RIGHT TO BE HEARD
A guiding aim of VCF is to ensure that the children are listened to, that their voices are heard. This legislation silences them. We call for a national conversation and meaningful engagement with children about what information should be shared and when.
The proposals remove children’s and their families’ right to consent – or not – to information being shared about them well below any threshold of cause for concern.
The duty to share information inevitably prioritises the viewpoint of professionals rather than that of the child or of the parent. What means will children have for having their voices heard? What avenues will there be if the information about them is inaccurate? We know that it is distressing and difficult, if not impossible, to have information removed. There are frequently disagreements between professionals and families. These measures increase the current imbalance of power over children and families.
Neither children nor their families have been given any opportunity to have their say about these measures – there has been no public consultation.
The decision about whether and when to share information without consent can be a difficult one but that is because the stakes of doing so are so high. Broad information sharing without consent does not resolve this difficulty and is dangerous, particularly so for those vulnerable children we would most want to reach.
We know it puts children immediately at risk – by deterring families from accessing services and because concerns around trust prevent children from talking to professionals who could help them – should be enough to stop these proposals.
Sharing more information routinely between services – including with the police – will inevitably lead to more instances of policing responses justified as ‘safeguarding’.
Disabled children are increasingly being dealt with by children’s services under child abuse powers rather than being given the help that they need. Families where child or parent is neurodivergent are particularly at risk with multiple reports detailing the lack of professional understanding and systemic parent blame. We join the Parents, Families and Allies Network in calling for greater protection of children’s information.
We are seeing increases in investigations of home educating families, and reports of GPs and others adding ‘at risk’ flags to files. As well as the concern about pushing families away from getting the help children need, more families will be subjected to social services investigations, evidenced as traumatic and harmful. We are particularly concerned at the negative impact of this Bill on children with ‘special educational needs and disabilities’ who are often home educated due to lack of appropriate support and approach in mainstream schools. These children are at high risk of investigation due to the evidenced lack of professional understanding – particularly around neurodivergence – and at risk from being forced into unsuitable provision.
As an organisation dedicated to the protection of children, we are alarmed that the Children Not in School powers will increase the prevalence of fines and imprisonment of parents and carers, and at the same time increase the severity of both. Such measures inevitably harm the wellbeing of children within the family and cannot be justified as being in the best interests of children. The growing numbers of families who home educate because of the extreme distress caused by the mainstream school will be put in an impossible position. It is a grave injustice to force such a choice on parents, between prison and doing what one believes is best for one’s child.
The Victoria Climbie Foundation UK would welcome speaking further on this matter and can be contacted via VCF@rightsforchildren.uk We have also submitted a joint briefing as part of Reclaim Rights for Children, of which we are secretariat.