The Bill would reform the statutory framework for the care system, to ensure that children and young people receive high quality care and support and to drive improvements in the delivery of services focussed on the needs of the child.
Enabling those who enter the care system to achieve the aspirations parents have for their own children and reducing the gap in outcomes between children in care and their peers;
Improving placement stability and ensuring more consistency for children in care; and
Improving the experience children in care have at school and increasing their educational attainment.
Giving pilot local authorities the power to test a different model of organising social care by commissioning services from 'Social Work Practices' and enabling regulation of these practices;
Increasing the focus on the transparency and quality of care planning and ensuring that the child's voice is heard when important decisions that affect their future are taken;
Increasing schools' capacity to address the needs of children in care, including placing the role of the designated teacher on a statutory footing and ensuring that children in care do not move schools in Year 10 and 11 except in exceptional circumstances;
Ensuring that young people are not forced out of care before they are ready, by giving them a greater say over moves to independent living and ensuring they retain support and guidance as long as they need it; and
Improving the quality and stability of placements for children in care, securing higher placement standards, ensuring that children in care and custody are visited regularly.
