DUGDALE: DON’T LEAVE CHILDREN BEHIND
THE Scottish Government should be commended for the ground-breaking legislation they passed in 2014 to support care experienced young people.
I said that at the time and I’ll say it again. At the heart of that law was an understanding that we are the parents of children in care. That’s you and me as the taxpayer.
Our taxes pay for their care and to pick up the pieces when things go wrong.
Think of your own kids, or those of people you know.
Did they walk out the door aged 16 and never look back? Or did they return home with dirty washing, or requests for cash? Did they need you when a relationship broke down or their landlord turfed them out? When they were sick or just needed a cuddle from someone who loved them?
If your answer to any of that is yes, then think for a moment what life is like if you don’t have that family structure, or those relationships, or that love.
That’s why giving young people the right to remain in care – or return to it when things go wrong – is so important.
I’ve spent the last 12 months researching what happens to young people when they leave care – and the results are deeply disappointing.
Too many young people don’t know their rights and too many councils don’t know their duties.
Other councils say they simply don’t have enough money to provide the support needed, while others have spent the cash on competing priorities.
It all boils down to the reality that just six per cent of young people entitled to help are actually getting it.
That ground-breaking legislation exists in a dusty folder in Government offices – it’s not living and breathing on the streets and estates where it’s needed.
Who Cares? Scotland, the leading charity for care experienced young
HAPPY birthday to The Beano.
For 80 years from its Dundee home, it’s been making children laugh and encouraging a spot of harmless mischief.
It’s also punctured the egos of a few pompous politicians in its time, including Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Here’s to another 80 years of menacing by Dennis, Gnasher, Minnie, the Bash Street Kids, Roger and all their pals.
people, have told us that you are 20 times more likely to die before your 25th birthday if you’ve been in care than if you’ve not. Twenty times.
Why is that not a national scandal? Why are we only beginning to talk about it now? Because we don’t count them. It’s that simple. And because we don’t count them, their lives don’t count to public policy-makers.
Resources tend to follow the need – if you don’t identify that, then you miss out. Well, this report I have published, Falling Through The Cracks, identifies the need.
It states very clearly what we need to do to be better parents for these kids. Our kids. There’s a moral duty to act, and you might expect a soft leftie like me to say that.
But there’s an economic imperative to act too. When these lives fail, when things go wrong and there’s no mum or dad to come home to, we see the consequences in police cells, prisons and A&E wards. We see people sleeping rough or in abusive relationships.
We see addictions rise and health fall through the floor. We pay for it in so many ways.
I hope this research is taken seriously but I hope, above all else, we all start to demand that our Government become better parents for the young people who so desperately need a chance denied to them throughout their lives.