Members present:

Dr Hendron (Chairperson)
Mr Gallagher (Deputy Chairperson)
Mr Berry
Rev Robert Coulter
Mr Hamilton
Ms Ramsey

Witnesses:

Ms P Keenan )
Ms D Coyle ) First Key

The Chairperson: I welcome Ms Deirdre Coyle and Ms Paula Keenan from the First Key organisation, and I thank them for their helpful documentation. The Committee had a problem getting a quorum, and I apologise for the delay.

Ms Keenan: First Key is grateful for the opportunity to talk to the Committee about the Children (Leaving Care) Bill, as we are concerned about various issues.

You would be forgiven for thinking that First Key is an estate agent — it is not. It is the leaving care advisory service — a voluntary organisation that has worked in Northern Ireland for the past five years. It is totally independent of providers and focuses exclusively on care leavers. You may ask "Why does First Key focus exclusively on care leavers?" I do not want to bombard you with statistics, but one statistic that stayed with me relates to Fred and Rosemary West. You will remember all the stories in England about their reign of horror and terror there. Seven out of their 10 victims were care leavers, and that illustrates how vulnerable such young people are.

First Key is an advisory service. We do not provide direct services to care leavers. Instead, we work closely with care leavers. We train a pool of care leavers in research and evaluation skills, and those people then work alongside us as associates. We mostly work with the boards and trusts, and we advise them on how to develop their services. We provide training, evaluate aftercare services and help the boards and trusts to design their services. That is all based on thorough consultation with care leavers. First Key provides a central reference point for all leaving and aftercare services in Northern Ireland, and it is connected to all of them. One of our important roles is to get people talking to each other.

Over the last five years First Key has learnt that that social services alone cannot hope to address or meet all the needs of care leavers, and they should not be expected to. There are needs in relation to housing, education, training, employment benefits, emotional support and community support. The responsible agencies must work together to be effective. That happens through children’s- services planning at board level, but there is a big gap at regional level when looking at the whole of Northern Ireland. That is why First Key is engaged in developing a multi-agency aftercare regional consortium. The Department is supporting us, and all the key agencies have signed up to participate in the consortium. That is an important development.

First Key warmly and enthusiastically welcomes the Children (Leaving Care) Bill. It is very good draft legislation. Strengthening the duties of trusts, focusing on assessment and planning, and appointing advisers are very effective measures. They need to be effective because the situation of care leavers is pretty dire. Statistics show that 50% of care leavers in Northern Ireland leave care with no educational or vocational qualifications, compared to about 6% of their peers who are not in care. Some 50% have moved house at least once six months after leaving care, and 20% of young women leaving care are pregnant or have had a child within six months.

We have consulted widely on the proposals and on the draft legislation. We believe that many of the minor concerns raised with us during our consultations will be addressed in the Regulations and guidance, and we are confident in the Department’s approach to compiling the Regulations and guidance.

We have two major concerns. Unsurprisingly, the first is that additional resources will be necessary if this legislation is to be effectively implemented — you cannot give boards and trusts more responsibilities without giving them more resources. The second involves the financial arrangements for 16- and 17-year-old care leavers, as outlined in clause 6 of the Bill. This idea, as I understand it, came from the English legislation and was designed to address an English problem. In England there are huge problems with 16- and 17-year-old care leavers disappearing out of the system and losing contact with social services. We do not have that problem in Northern Ireland to anywhere near the same extent; it simply does not happen here to that level. The problem here is that 16- and 17-year-olds leaving care have difficulty accessing benefits. That can be addressed by amending social security legislation — not, as is proposed in the Bill, by taking those young people out of the system. Social security legislation should be amended to give young care leavers of 16 and 17 years of age entitlement to income support. I believe that that is feasible and can be done.

The main messages are coming from the young people themselves. They are saying that they do not want to be stigmatised by being taken out of the system that everybody else belongs to. Also, the boards and trusts are saying that the way that they work with young people will be totally skewed if the legislation makes the boards and trusts responsible for deciding how much basic income support young care leavers should get. The danger is that these services in Northern Ireland are voluntary, with young people signing up to engage and get this support. The legislation would introduce a compulsory element if it were to say that young people’s involvement in aftercare services is tied in to their basic living money and rent. Boards and trusts are alarmed at the possibility of that happening.

I do not want to take up too much of your time. You have a copy of our paper, which gives more detail about what we are proposing, and I now welcome the opportunity to address your specific concerns and any questions. If we cannot answer them today, I will supply you with a written answer as soon as possible.

Mr Hamilton: In your presentation you mentioned resources — in fact, you seemed to place a very heavy emphasis on that particular point. Bearing that in mind, do you consider that the money available is enough to make the Bill work? If not, what areas would need additional resources?

Ms Keenan: The money currently available for leaving and aftercare services throughout Northern Ireland is not enough. My basis for saying that is that we have visited every trust and board, and we have evaluated services. Boards and trusts, with the best will in the world, are not resourced to meet all the needs that exist. Some young people in Northern Ireland do not get any aftercare service. Therefore, the present money is already inadequate.

This Bill increases the duties on trusts. It is saying that trusts have to take a range of measures in relation to supporting young people, contacting young people and giving financial support for young people in further education. That increases their responsibilities and costs, and, therefore, I believe that extra resources need to be made available.

The Children (Leaving Care) Act in England has been operation since October last year, and additional resources, made available through the ‘Quality Protects’ initiative, accompanied it. I recently visited some projects in England, and those involved said that if it were not for the extra money from the ‘Quality Protects’ initiative, which we do not have as yet, they would not be able to manage.

Ms Ramsey: Thank you for your presentation and the papers that you sent to the Committee. The Committee received a copy of the responses that the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety received during the consultation period. Various issues were raised about the Bill. I take on board the fact that First Key broadly welcomes most aspects of the Bill; in my view the Bill has been a long time coming. Although some respondents welcome the employment of young persons’ advisers, others are concerned that it might be too intrusive. If the young person lives in Derry when his or her adviser is appointed, does the adviser follow that young person if he or she decides to move to Belfast? That could create problems. I raised that concern with the Department last week. The Department is going to get back to the Committee on that.

You mentioned funding and the benefits based on the English model. I have heard reports that the benefit arrangements are not working in England. I understand where you are coming from, but can you point out where you see problems arising? As I understand it, and I may be wrong, rather than 16-and 17-year-olds applying for benefits from the Social Security Agency, they would apply for them from trusts.

You said that that was a key issue and that young people could be stigmatised. Please outline the process and explain why you see that as a problem. If young people apply to the trusts for benefits, surely they are the only people who will know. In case we have to change any part of the Bill, I would like to understand clearly why you feel that there is a problem. I am not suggesting that a problem does not exist.

Ms Keenan: The Bill states that personal advisers will be appointed for young people. First Key anticipates that those advisers will mostly be social services staff and aftercare workers. Young people already engage with aftercare workers, and the majority of young people are appreciative of the support that they get from those workers. I know of aftercare workers who call on young people at midnight to ask how they are feeling or to help them to move furniture. They do an enormous range of work.

The proposed legislation allows for a young person to choose somebody else to be his or her aftercare adviser. It may be a youth worker that they are close to, a teacher or a member of their extended family — [Interruption].

Ms Ramsey: Sorry to interrupt, but the presentation that the Committee received last week from the Department stated that the Bill would not provide for choice. That is recorded in the transcript of last week’s meeting.

Ms Keenan: I am surprised about that.

Ms Coyle: Aftercare provision has to be based on partnership. As Ms Keenan pointed out, it is a voluntary service. These are young people that most need provision, and, if we make the arrangements compulsory and do not provide choice, the service will neither embrace young people nor meet their needs.

My understanding, based on my experience and practice in aftercare, is that choice is a key element in ensuring that young people engage with the workers who are there to support them. Under existing practice, I know of service providers that try to give young people that choice. There are constraints and limits, but the service providers try to accommodate choice as a means of staying in touch with the young people. The Bill states that we should take steps to stay in touch with young people. Therefore, to make the service work, we should make it as user-friendly and flexible as possible.

Ms Keenan: Many concerns were raised during our consultation, and I doubt whether we have heard anything different from what the Committee has heard. The devil is in the detail, and many of those concerns can be addressed through the guidance and Regulations. Our agency will certainly be involved, as will Barnardo’s and a range of other agencies. That is where the detailed work will be done. We will not necessarily adopt the English guidance and Regulations wholesale. We, and the Department, intend to ensure that they pertain to our situation in Northern Ireland.

At present, 16- and 17-year-olds are often unable to access benefits. They are very vulnerable. The majority of young people who enter care do so for their own protection because they have been abused or neglected. Often, when they reach the point of leaving care, a great many emotional issues start to surface. Those young people have not had the experience of being raised — as, I hope, our children have — in a loving family environment, and they have never had anyone there for them. They have experienced changes of staff, and different people have dipped in and out of their lives. Suddenly they find that they are 16. They want to leave care, and they never want to see a social worker again in their lives. They must, therefore, have some method of income support.

Care leavers have great difficulty in signing up for a training course and receiving the related benefits — something that you would expect ordinary 16- and 17-year-olds to do. They cannot necessarily cope with getting up at 9 am, and they may not have the discipline to turn up, do the work and deal with everything that it entails. At 16 they are coping with emotional turmoil and an enormous transition — with the consequence that they lose out on benefits. It is very difficult for them to work their way through the maze of benefits and ensure that they get the money that they need.

One solution is to say that they can get the money from social services, but I feel that that is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The easiest way to ensure that those young people get a basic income and are able to access housing benefit is to recognise them as extremely vulnerable and change the social security legislation accordingly. Their situation is dire, and we must grant them the same automatic entitlement to income support as applies for young single parents. That will work and be clear to everyone. We need not remove the young people from the system or burden the social services with an additional role that they were not set up to perform.

Mr Berry: Thank you for your presentation. In relation to your last point, should we not seek to improve young people’s chances of employment instead of having them depend solely on benefits? Some form of employment might help them to get through their problems. Is that not the best way forward? Can you see a better way forward? It would mean that they would not simply be dependent on benefits. They have experienced difficult times, and they will continue to experience them, but the way forward might lie in training them to enter full-time employment so that they are not dependent on benefits for the rest of their lives. Given that they are 16, there are potentially a couple of years available for such training.

Ms Keenan: You are absolutely right; the best thing is for social services, working in partnership with the Training and Employment Agency (T&EA), to devise schemes to get those young people into the workforce. Social services are directing their efforts towards that. However, we must ensure that there is a safety net for those young people who need additional support. They might be 18 before they reach the point where they can cope, so we advocate a safety net. I do not want to see young people on benefits — nobody wants that — but let us have a benefits safety net available. Young people are currently falling through the net.

Our agency is committed to getting the Housing Executive, the T&EA, the education and library boards and the Social Security Agency round a table together, representing all of Northern Ireland and working to establish protocols and schemes to really support those young people.

Ms Coyle: I take your point about our expectation that young people leave care to be dependent on benefits. I strongly agree with you that other measures can be taken. There is earlier intervention in relation to the in-care experiences of those young people, and what can be done in respect of educational outcomes for young people at age 16. I know that educational audits of young people’s experiences while in care are taking place. A forthcoming piece of research in England exclusively looks at that.

The years between 16 and 18 are almost like a transitional period. Young people in care seem to need an extended period of adolescence and young adulthood. Because their starting points are so disadvantaged, they need that extended time to work, ideally, towards employment. That will impact on the whole quality and standard of their lives and their expectations for themselves.

The Chairperson: Can you explain how the English system treats 16- to 17-year-olds differently?

Ms Keenan: It is not so much that the social services system is different but that society is different. There are differences between England and Northern Ireland. One aspect relating to vulnerable young people leaving care in England is the attraction of London. We do not have that to nearly the same extent. London is a Mecca for young people. They think that they all they have to do is leave their small towns and go to London, but when they get there they are swallowed up and lose contact with social services. Belfast does not have quite the same attraction as London as a Mecca for young people. Communities are also tighter in Northern Ireland, and people notice more.

Social services teams and trusts are smaller. Northern Ireland is the same size as one local authority in England. Social workers have smaller areas to deal with, which, coupled with closer relationships and tighter communities, means that the same problem does not arise here.

The Chairperson: Thank you very much for answering our questions. Thank you too for your presentation and helpful documentation.