Children leaving care in Gloucestershire are set to receive more support
The county is home to one of only 47 local authorities to receive the funding and charities are calling for the same support country-wide
Gloucestershire is home to one of 47 local authorities to receive funding to support children leaving the care system.
The funding has been welcomed but charities say more help is needed earlier otherwise “thousands more” children will end up in care.
More local authorities have been awarded funding to run an ongoing programme to help young people leaving care with accommodation, resources and practical and emotional support.
The £27 million handed to those councils to run the Staying Close programme will see the scheme expanded to a total of 47 local authorities nationally, worth £53 million overall, the Department for Education said.
But the NSPCC said the current approach is delaying reform and instead testing the strategy at just a handful of local authorities – something the charity said “will cost taxpayers billions over the long run and lead to thousands more children in care”.
Eavan McKay is the Senior Policy and Public Affairs Officer at the NSPCC.
"The vast majority of children will not see improvement that they need," she said, "the governments current approach to delaying this reform and testing it in this way is going to cost tax payers billions more pounds in the long run.
"By 2027/28, if we stay on this trajectory, over 10,000 more children will be in care."
The Government’s funding announcement comes a week after a report warned of councils in England being in a “worsening doom-spiral of unsustainable spending” when it comes to children’s social care.
The analysis commissioned by leading charities, including the NSPCC and The Children’s Society, said millions more has been spent on children’s services in recent years but much is going on costly late-stage intervention.
This means vulnerable children are being helped mainly in emergency situations rather than during earlier preventative work, the report by Pro Bono Economics said.
"We want support for care leavers and we welcome that but we also know, to get to the crux of problem, we need to look at prevention," Eavan said.
"To prevent children going into care we need whole scale reform of the children social care system to help children and families to make sure problems don’t spiral and to prevent the high numbers of children going into care.
"What we’re talking about here is things like family hubs, children centres, specialist targeted services for parents who need support with drug and alcohol misuse - those types of services."
The 27 areas which will get the funding are Croydon, Derby, Leeds, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire Children’s Trust, Cheshire East, Darlington, Derbyshire, Enfield, Essex, Knowsley, Nottinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Bolton, Devon, Doncaster, Gloucestershire, Hartlepool, Hertfordshire, Hillingdon, Leicester, Redcar and Cleveland, St Helens, Wirral, Wokingham, Wolverhampton and York.
"What we've seen in this announcement is them committing to testing some of these reforms in a number of different local areas – but we don’t need testing.
"We don’t need to delay or to evidence what we already know works and that’s what the government seems to be doing now – delaying."
The Government has also launched a consultation for feedback standards to improve advocacy provision for children in care and care leavers and to address gaps and barriers to services “to ensure all voices are heard”, the department said.
Children and families minister David Johnston said: “We are making significant strides in our ambition to transform children’s social care services for some of our most vulnerable children and young people across the country.
“At the heart of today’s developments are the needs of children in care and care leavers. Our work on advocacy standards will make sure they’re listened to and supported, while the fantastic Staying Close programme is helping give them the tools they need to thrive as young adults.”
The NSPCC has raised concerns that in the midst of an upcoming election, care services will be lost.
"In the context of the next election looming, we’re deeply concerned that children's social care will be lost," Eavan said.
"Children can’t afford for this to happen so all political parties in England should commit to implement the full rollout of the reforms for children’s social care."