By Clive Coleman, a barrister and the presenter of Radio 4's Law In Action (THE TIMES, 27/03/06):
THIS ISN'T The Moral Maze, and I'm not Michael Buerk — but here’s a question. You’re a lone social worker in the office on a Friday afternoon and you get two calls.
The first is from a concerned neighbour. He’s seen a two-year-old girl next door crawling around, soiled and uncared for, while her two crack addict parents lie around licking rocks. The other is from a voluntary organisation advising you that a troublesome 16-year-old has been thrown out of her house and has nowhere to stay for the weekend. You can deal only with one. What are you going to do? It’s a no-brainer. You ensure the two-year-old’s safety. You’ve done the right thing, the only thing. Phew! But on Monday you find out that the 16-year-old spent her weekend out on the streets, was sought out by drug dealers, refused to do their bidding, and was raped and beaten as a result.
Since the appalling events that led to the death of Victoria Climbié, and the inquiry and Children Act that followed, this country can claim to have some of the most powerful and comprehensive childcare legislation in the world. What a perverse irony it is, then, that many of those involved acknowledge that there is now a systemic failure on the part of local authorities to meet their legal obligations to support and care for some of the country’s most vulnerable children. The problem is especially acute among teenagers. Lawyers are routinely having to threaten local authorities with court action in order to get them to comply with their legal duties to this group. No local authority wants to be seen as the next “Climbié” authority. Hence my example. Few, however, seem as concerned about failing older children.
So, what’s going wrong? Well, resources are clearly stretched, and teenagers are expensive. In fact, since the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000, they are a lot more expensive than they used to be. Under that Act, the local authority has to look after certain categories of children from 16 to 21 (and in some cases 25), and support them through the crucial period from adolescence into independent adulthood. A child is defined in law as anyone under the age of 18, so these additional years are a considerable cost burden.
What is being alleged by leading lawyers and other professionals is that local authorities are failing this group for two different reasons. Cock-up and conspiracy. Either they don’t know and understand what their legal obligations are, or they are doing the bare minimum while being fully aware that these young people will be sucked into the criminal justice system, at which point they cease to be the financial responsibility of the local authority. One ruse is to accommodate them under the Housing Act, probably in a bed and breakfast or hostel; that way an authority can avoid its obligations to care and support. It amounts to a de facto policy of neglect.
And who are these children? You know them well. They are the nightmare scourge of our society; the violent hoodies on the bus, the street robbers and drug burglars. Well, if you leave them uncared for through the early teens, that’s certainly who they become. But many of these children have suffered catastrophic levels of physical, sexual and psychological abuse. The people who care for them say that if you let them slip the net in their teens, sure as drugs are drugs, they will become the crime and mental health statistics of tomorrow.
I recently spent time at Kid’s Company, one of the voluntary organisations providing care for these forgotten teenagers. I’d gone there to record an interview with Camila Batmanghelidjh, the extraordinary woman who runs it.
The kids are exceptionally challenging, sometimes scarily violent. While I was there, a troubled 18-year-old girl lost it. She attacked another child and then turned on me and my producer, kicking, punching and smashing some of our recording equipment. While we were driven away for our own safety, Camilla spent 20 minutes on the phone to the girl. Through a mix of varied and subtle cajoling, empowering, loving and disciplining, she managed to talk her out of further violence, stop her from going to buy alcohol, and persuade her to take her medication. There aren’t many happy endings for these children. They don’t have a year’s care and then qualify as chartered accountants, but there are improvements and some real success stories.
No one knows the number of teenagers being failed, though the Children’s Commissioner for England is carrying out research to try to find out. There are 400,000 children classed as “in need” and 40,000 more are classed as “at risk”. However, any number of demoralised social workers will tell you that we are creating a social time bomb.
It’s unfashionable to think of violent teenagers as victims. We look at the damage they cause, not the damage they have suffered. The moment that they commit a criminal offence, society’s sympathy for them evaporates. There is an instantaneous status change, from abuse victim to criminal. But can you stick an ASBO on a hundred thousand sociopaths? None of this is to excuse criminality, but it is to understand the notion of care and support for teenagers in a society that desperately wants to feel safe. The message from those I’ve spoken to is clear: when the biological parent fails, the corporate parent in the form of the local authority must understand its legal obligations and honour them.