Last year’s VFCC Summit, held in Cardiff. (Image provided by VFCC)
Youth activists in Wales say they’ll be keeping an eye on how the Welsh government delivers the radical reforms it has promised to overhaul the nation’s care system services in the face of a steep increase in the number of children in care.
A report by a Welsh parliament committee at the end of last month found there had been a 23 per cent rise in the number of children in care, at the same time as a shortage in the number of qualified social workers.
The devolved government has committed to reducing the number of children and young people in care and to putting children first in a joint declaration signed with care-experienced children and young people earlier last month.
The joint declaration followed an unprecedented summit in which 40 young leaders with care experience from the youth-led charity Voices from Care Cymru met Welsh ministers to explore reforms to the current care services, which were launched in December.
The declaration pledges to put the voices of children and young people with experience of care at the centre of changes to the current care system. The commitments include providing more mental health support and increasing the number of foster families. The goal is to keep children and families together through early help and support services when needed.
Brendan Roberts, a member of the youth advisory group at Voices from Care Cymru who co-chaired the Radical Reform Summit, said he appreciates the efforts the Welsh government is making. This includes the introduction of a pilot basic income scheme for young people leaving care at age 18.
But Roberts added that more needed to be done to address a lack in mental health support. “People have traumatising experiences that need to be resolved, but find it hard to access the right support,” he said.
In a 2017 report, the UK’s largest children’s charity Barnardo’s, found that nearly 50 per cent of children in care had mental health needs, with 65 per cent of them not receiving any statutory support.
Mental health provision is one of the areas Roberts will be monitoring in the coming months before a Follow Up Summit is held to review progress on the implementation of reform measures.
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