Labour politician Ann Coffey MP, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on missing children, told other MPs during a debate about children in care last week that business agendas were being prioritised over the way children were experiencing care, with detrimental effects to their wellbeing.
Ms Coffey explained that a third of children were placed 20 miles or more from their home areas, and suggested that the problem was due to homes being set up in low-cost areas to suit business purposes, rather than what’s best for children. Ms Coffey also highlighted the fact that 79% of children’s homes were in the private or voluntary sector, and confirmed that there were concerns about larger private equity firms entering the market.
However, her findings were disputed by chief executive of the Independent Children’s Home Association, Jonathan Stanley, who claims that a study of the location of homes found there “is no correlation between cost of property and location”.
Clearly, the public disagree. Since posting this news item yesterday evening on Twitter, it has been shared over 100 times, and countless social media users have commented, including those who have experienced care, and those working in care homes who feel the services on offer are less than adequate, often as a result of underfunding. If the reaction to this news item is a measure of things to come, the Government can expect a great deal more of the same over the next twelve months.
Government figures tell us that the average cost of keeping a child in a “children’s home” is £2900 per week per child !! More than 3 times the cost of sending Prince Harry to Eton !!
The agencies that find Foster families and adoptive parents for Local Authorities are even more profitable ;One agency founded 15 years ago by two social workers was recently sold for £130 million+ as it was making more than 10 £million profit per year.
When will the public realise that the whole system is a scam quietly robbing the taxpayers under a veneerof respectability??
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The idea that we progress in our approach to child welfare especially those in public care is one of the great myths of recent UK history. Fortunately there are always exceptions. Some forty years ago now as a new Director of Social Services the Committee agreed to the closure of a residential nursery and the provision of suitable foster places for all the children. The department was able to do this over the course of a year until there was one child with disabilities left and finding a family prove very difficult. Not just the Committee but the Council agreed that we should keep the nursery appropriately staffed 24/7 for six months until foster parents were recruited and the placed was assessed as working. The Council also provide an appropriate same level salary position for every member of the staff involved.
In the same debate the need to for there to be an appropriate range of specialist residential facilities in every region was raised and it is worth noting that under the Children’s and Young Person Act 1969 every residential care providing authority and agency was required to participate in a Children’s Regional Planning Committee and where in several instances as in the North East the costs of placing in specialist establishments was pooled so that the cost did not deter a placement if it was in the interests of the child. The Committees and pooling system was short lived and the reasons for this were all not good something which I hope the Justice Goddard Committee will look at.
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Does not matter if a kid lives next door to the family or miles away most are not allowed contacts, and if they are allowed contacts just look at the costs involved for the the contact centre and payments for the contact to be supervised, and guess who owns most of the contact centres HAHAHAAHHA the private companies “In a child’s best interest” one only has to see TV programs such as Paul O’Grady and Battersea dogs home bloody hell animals have more love and comforts then kids in care, but then back to Governments they are there for the money and sod the kids they are only the plebs or better still use the kids bodies for the pleasures for the Paedophiles wow for the Paedophiles it must be like a day out shopping going to all of the known care homes and choosing a kid to abuse in the middle of no where, and the poor kids in care are the silent witnesses, and of course should they run away well they are locked up in a detention centre or sectioned under the mental health act, with the SS saying oh we cannot send them back to the care home they will run away again, and as Panarama showed on TV last night kids in detention centres are abused as well, THEN WE HAVE THWE CAFCASS WOMEN OF 30 YEARS TELLING ME ALL KIDS IN CARE TELL LIES AND NONE KNOW WHAT THEY WANT, no wonder the kids are screaming to be heard, so look further than the kids in care living near to their families and think of the money all being made and do remember many social workers have shares in property as did Jimmy Savile big money again, so let the likes of Anne Coffey keep getting paid to talk and talk and nothing gets done, just look at how many different set ups there are inside Governments and Anne Coffey is just another one all going no where,
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A global industry brought about by UN laws on ‘rights of the child’ which are easily abused by variations of interpretation. Misleading guidance for safeguarding means that perpetrators with financial interests have safeguards, while children and targeted parents have none.
In this compelling and disturbing book, Snow has launched an expose of Family Court in Connecticut, although his research and findings are echoed in courts across America; (the UK and increasingly, the rest of the world.)
His investigation reveals a seamy web of professionals—lawyers, judges, guardian ad litems, psychiatrists and supervised visitation companies—whose back room connections well serve their own financial interests at the expense of an abused child’s welfare. As Snow repeatedly demonstrates in multiple case histories, the protective parent’s resources are drained by these professionals, as she seeks to do whatever is financially necessary to protect her child.
The problem with Family Courts is that financial interests outweigh the judicial issues, and the entire legal system has been geared to support the financial plunder of clients. This is most evident by examination of the behavior of lawyers who take cases for both perpetrators of abuse and protective parents (not only, but usually, the mothers.
Subject: Book Review: The Worst Interest of the Child: The Trafficking of Children and Parents Through U.S. Family Courts — Society’s Child — Sott.net
http://www.sott.net/article/309990-Book-Review-The-Worst-Interest-of-the-Child-The-Trafficking-of-Children-and-Parents-Through-US-Family-Courts#.VpDQoyWNhkA.gmail
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Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
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Absolutely spot on – excellent article and much the same goes for many other now privatised, social services in Britain. I made this video in relation to G4S running child care services in UK; it is time these corporate-providers were called to task; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7jeqEjLlow
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