wrans/answers2025-03-21 conversation_113
Source: hansard.parliament.uk (2025-03-21)

UK Parliament Hansard data: wrans/answers2025-03-21 conversation_113

Damien Egan:To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of therapy services for children in care. \p Janet Daby: Children in care and care leavers are significantly more likely to have poor mental health. The latest data shows that two thirds of children become looked after due to abuse or neglect and the department knows that care experienced adults are at four to five times greater risk of attempting suicide than their peers. With consideration for the significant trauma that many of these children and young people have experienced and its lasting impact, providing effective support is crucial.

Since July 2023, the department and NHS England have jointly led a Task and Finish Group to consider how to improve the way system partners work together to support and improve outcomes for children and young people who are deprived of their liberty and who are in the most complex situations.

The department has recently commissioned independent research on how the system works, its current impacts, and how we could do things differently to achieve better outcomes for children and young people. We plan to publish this research in summer 2025 and will draw on these reports to support the development and testing of evidence-based models of safe, therapeutic care that delivers integrated, consistent and collaborative practices for these children and young people.

Drawing on the best evidence, including the voices of children, input from professionals and commissioned research, the department will, in collaboration with NHS England, test a new, community-based approach to pathways and provision, providing treatment and care and bringing in professionals from children’s social care, health, justice and education. This will enable the system to deliver specialist care and accommodation for children who have complex needs.

Given our significant concerns for the health and wellbeing of children in care and care leavers, the department and the Department of Health and Social Care are reviewing and updating current statutory guidance on promoting the health and wellbeing of looked-after children. This guidance sets expectations on local authorities, Directors of Public Health, commissioners of health services for children, the NHS in England, and others, for the promotion of physical, emotional and mental health.

Regulations require an assessment of physical, emotional and mental health needs for every child when they enter care, and a plan to be developed to address their needs.

As part of our statutory guidance review, the department will consider what changes are needed to further ensure that children in care and care leavers receive the support they need for their physical and mental health and wellbeing, including access to any needed treatment or therapy.

Additionally, looked after children attract Pupil Premium Plus funding of £2,570 per year. This is managed by the local authority’s virtual school head and can be used to facilitate a wide range of educational support, including additional mentoring, tuition and therapeutic services.