Age of leaving care

Speech delivered on Wed 25th Jun 2008

The Parliament occasionally rises to the occasion. Members have made some really inspiring and insightful speeches tonight, for which I thank them. My thanks go not least to Karen Whitefield for instigating the debate. Behind it lies the children's commissioner's excellent report, which will prove to be a seminal report of some long-term significance.

Let us not beat about the bush: young care leavers are among the most vulnerable groups in our society. They have inevitably not had the sort of start in life that we would want for our children; most have had to endure horrendous circumstances. All the statistics show that their life chances are greatly reduced and that their chances of becoming homeless, being unemployed, lacking key social and employment skills, or suffering from mental health problems or problems of addiction are all higher.

I have obtained from Glasgow City Council some useful information that I will share with members. The council supports 351 young people who have left care, 33 per cent of whom have been homeless at some point. It also identifies a number of people whom it had looked after and accommodated, but who returned home just before the school-leaving age and are, therefore, ineligible for much of the usual support for young care leavers; the children's commissioner rightly identified that issue in her report. The council has a substantial provision of supported accommodation for young care leavers, but it also has a waiting list. Only 485 care leavers out of 619 were receiving, or in touch with, council services of any sort. The council identified staffing and resource issues, as well as legislative deficiency, as being among the obstacles to doing more for ex-looked-after children.

That underlies the main issue in the motion, which is the need for on-going support up to 18. I would go further and suggest that there should be a framework of support from corporate parents up to 25. We know from the children's commissioner's report that eight times as many young people leave care at 16 as at 18. We know what constitutes the ability to live independently-I take Cathy Jamieson's point about that phrase-and that most young people generally do not and often cannot live independently at 16. We also know that there is a transition process to independent living, but we must provide for repeat failure even after that: if a care leaver loses his job, falls out with his girlfriend or gets into scrapes of various kinds-financial, legal or social-he must be able to come back to a place of refuge in emergency and have a shoulder to cry on.

The ability of organisations to deal with such matters can be bedevilled, as the minister will probably reflect, by different departments, budgets, authorities and councils. The overlap between them is an important aspect of that.

I ask three things of the minister when he responds to the debate. First, I ask that he consider the issue holistically and from the point of view of what we would want for our own children-one or two members have already made that point. I ask him to give the issue the priority that it is due, knowing that successful transition to independent arrangements will pay dividends for the young people concerned and for the state. Secondly, I ask the minister to consider the supply of supported and semi-independent living units for care leavers across Scotland, and to conduct an assessment of the gap between need and supply. I was somewhat surprised to discover from a recent answer to a parliamentary question that no such assessment is in place at the moment. I ask the minister to work to put in place resources to fill that gap. Thirdly, I urge him to be cognisant of the need to change the culture that Kathleen Marshall identified, which pushes young people out of homes at the immature and worryingly young age of 16. For most people, that is not practical.

The old Scots legal word for leaving home and becoming independent was forisfamiliation. It will be familiar to one or two people in the chamber. Support for care leavers-or for people leaving home, I should really say-should continue until people are fully forisfamiliated.

I am grateful to Karen Whitefield for allowing us this opportunity to debate and emphasise this important area of social provision.

Related Link:

Age of Leaving Care.