Care Matters

Noel Arnold, Solicitor, Fisher Meredith. The recent Department for Education and Services (DfES) paper Care Matters: Transforming the Lives of Children and Young People in Care (Cm 6932) claims to make radical proposals for transforming the care system by identifying the problems faced by children in care and recommending actions to address these difficulties and improve the prospects of all children in care in a uniform way. This article reviews the proposals in depth and considers some elements that Care Matters did not address.

The average length of a child's stay in care is increasing. Irrespective of the length of period a child spends in care, the author's plea is that the period in care should make some form of positive difference to the child's life. However, given the fact that children in care are typically at a far greater disadvantage than children who are not, can the Care Matters proposals improve their prospects significantly, sewing positive seams into the torn fabric of these children's lives?

For the full article see July [2007] Fam Law.

Read the full article here.