Family recollection (Scottish Review 2001)
Come on, my lads and lasses, there’s so much work to do and we must all work even harder.
Orr addressing his staff in Washington, where he was director-general of the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation after the second world war
For the few readers who don’t know which mainland local authorities have no railway stations, they are: Midlothian and Scottish Borders.
The world of the children 1
Kenneth Roy
The world of the children 2
Angus Skinner and others
The world of the children 3
Maggie Mellon
The world of the children 4
Bob Smith
Kenneth Roy writes (4 October) that the Bonhill girls were no longer ‘in the care system’, a phrase that has become more frequently used in recent years but which I have never understood.
The relationship between a child who has been taken into state care and the state, represented by the local authority, is governed by significant legislation: the Children’s Act Scotland 1995 and related regulation. This places onerous responsibilities on local authorities, on behalf of the state (that is all of us), for the young people in their care, and that includes care beyond the age of 16. The overarching principles are well set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to which the UK is a signatory. All local authorities were asked for their agreement and gave it, accepting responsibility. The governing principle of the Children’s Act Scotland 1995 is that all public bodies must make their decisions in the best interests of the child.
As I understand it, the young women who killed themselves out of self-loathing and a profound sense of hopelessness had been in the care of the state – us. They had been released from care, or may have felt so – free to live their lives. Lonely, dejected and desperate for life, perhaps adventure, more likely love; tragically, probably love.
At what point, in what ways, were the decisions taken that these young people were no longer in state care? What part did protecting staff interests play in that decision? How, if at all, was the statutory responsibility to make all decisions in the best interests of the child compromised? At what point, and why, were these youngsters given up on by their local authorities? At what point, and in what way, given the requirement on all local and public bodies, was the decision made that these young people should no longer be in care?
Angus Skinner
Former chief social work inspector for Scotland
Having read Kenneth Roy’s article I felt I had to get in touch. His earlier articles about the young women who jumped from the Erskine Bridge had me in tears as they clearly showed how much we as a society are letting down our young people.
Young people who have been corporately parented are let down time after time by the systems we have in place. I know what I am talking about as I am part of a supported lodgings scheme for young people who are in the transition from care into independent living. These schemes seem to work well for the young people as they are living in a family environment and learning skills to move onto independent living. The problem with the scheme is that in the local authority I work with the normal weekly allowance is £175 per week. This is to cover everything the young person requires other than clothes and personal requirements. This is all meals, heating, lighting, laundry, etc, and 24×7 support.
If you compare this with foster care which I recently read pays just under £2,000 per month to the carer and over £800 per month as an allowance for the child’s needs, you can see why our support carers’ group is reducing in numbers, despite being extremely successful at supporting our young people. I would like to say at this point that I am still a support carer because of the dedication of our co-ordinator and the team who are excellent at their jobs and really care for the young people they support.
I cannot get my head round the fact that an excellent model of support is so badly funded and unsupported when the alternatives, as we have seen from Kenneth Roy’s reports, are so horrendous – suicide and wasted lives. The new legislation for children and young people will extend the age limit of social work support from 21 to 25, but how the hell is that going to work when the systems in place generally ‘drop them of a cliff’ at 16 to sink or swim?
Carolynn Cruickshank-Gray
I was so angry when I read Kenneth Roy’s piece about those poor lassies and then, shortly after, the Scottish Government’s dreadful National Parenting Strategy. The contrast was stark. And it would have been bad enough had it just been two – but there have been far too many of these sad suicides. I am fizzing with anger and frustration at my inability to do anything to prevent the next one. Yet those who could and should merely talk.
The National Parenting Strategy encompasses all sorts of statist nonsense such as GIRFEC and eCare, both of which have consumed and will go on consuming vast amounts of public money out of all proportion to any benefits they will ever bring. Where were the people on the GIRFEC boad when these poor girls needed them, when the other lost young folk needed them? They were sitting in at meetings, drawing pie-charts and Venn diagrams and tables and graphs and flow-charts and of course writing many weighty reports. Surely all the money being wasted on the bureaucrats and their overweening schemes to control us all would be better spent in preventing young people killing themselves by improving – really improving – their care and welfare?
David Grant
Re Kenneth Roy’s piece, it strikes me that one of the most meaningless expressions of concern is the phrase ‘Our thoughts are with the family at this sad time’. I have become convinced that it forms part of a standard press release kept on file by the police, military authorities, local councils, etc, to be trundled out whenever tragedies occur with a simple update to incorporate the name of the latest victim. Or am I being too cynical?
Iain Hutchison
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