Last night, we passed an important motion to strengthen our commitment to children’s safety and wellbeing.
Cllr Jane Scullion’s piece in the Halifax Courier sets out exactly why this matters and what we’re doing to make it happen.
Read the full story below:
I’m a parent to over 300 children. No really – how does she keep her figure, they ask! That is how many children there are in in the care of Calderdale Council at any one time.
Children whose parents become ill and can’t care for them, children whose family is unsuitable or whose parents are not fit to look after them because of drug and alcohol problems or where the parents are in prison. In addition, post-Covid, we are seeing family breakdowns with teenagers suffering from mental health difficulties. We try and help families to stay together but it isn’t always possible.
Here in Calderdale we prioritise keeping our kids safe, no matter what. That means that each and every councillor has the responsibility of being what is called a ‘corporate parent’, which is a fancy way of saying that we have to make all the arrangements to house and feed them when they come into our care and raise them in the best way we can.
We find foster parents, we run our own children’s homes (given good and excellent ratings by external inspectors) and we find specialist external placements. We also work hard to arrange ‘kinship’ carers, aunts and uncles who might be able to help a child in the family. And sometimes we have to do it urgently: one Saturday morning recently social workers were rushing about looking for emergency care for a two-month-old whose parents had been arrested and taken to custody and a 14 year old because of family breakdown, who was a severe risk of harming themselves.
As well as keeping children safe there is all the stuff that comes with raising a child that council workers and others have to do; check they get to school, to the after-school club, the dentist, do their homework, learn to read, buy shoes and clothes that fit when they are growing, sit their exams and plan their futures.
The bad old days (and they were often very bad) when children in care were moved from pillar to post with their belongings in a black rubbish sack, didn’t own a single book and had no photographs of their years of growing up and were pushed out at 16 are long gone and rightly so. Just like any child, you want the council’s looked after children to have the best chance for a fulfilling adult life whatever they choose to do.
And as a parent you want to help your own teenagers to work out how they finally fly the nest, and you try to do your best for them. We are trying to do that here in Calderdale for our children leaving care. An Ofsted inspection in 2024 rated those services as ‘good’.
We offer a package of help including pathway advisors, job applications support, help to find housing, help to access benefits and finance, college places, apprenticeships and even university. And we also agreed in 2023 to treat experience of the care system as a ‘protected characteristic’, so that their unique experiences are taken into account when designing services and support. This is because many children leaving care experience stigma and discrimination.
Parenting over 300 children is an honour and a responsibility; the most important thing we do as a council.