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Rights! your say

A Children’s Views Report

Dr Roger Morgan OBEChildren’s Rights Director

September 2006

Placements,Decisions andReviews

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Contents

Page

About the Children’s Rights Director 3

About this report 4

Who decides what? 6

Involving children in decisions 9

Choosing placements 11

What can go wrong in a placement? 14

What can be done to stop things going wrong in a placement? 17

What would make changing placements better for young people? 19

How can social workers get placements right first time? 21

The best and worst of reviews 25

Having a say in your plans 29

Keeping to plan 30

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Dr Roger Morgan OBE, Children’s Rights DirectorDr Mike Lindsay, Head of AdviceJayne Noble, Head of ConsultationLilian Clay, Web and Information Systems OfficerAlison Roscoe, Consultation OfficerLeah Avery, Survey OfficerDomonique Ellis, Project Support OfficerEleni Georgiou, PA to Director

St Nicholas BuildingSt Nicholas StreetNewcastle upon Tyne NR1 1NBTelephone 0191 233 3502

All Children’s Views Reports can be found on our website:www.rights4me.org

The Office of the Children’s Rights Director

About the Children’sRights DirectorMy legal duties as Children’s RightsDirector for England are set out in theCommission for Social Care Inspection(Children’s Rights Director) Regulations2004. One of my main jobs, with my teamin the Office of the Children’s RightsDirector, is to ask children and youngpeople for their views about how they arelooked after when they are living awayfrom home, or being helped by localcouncils’ social care services.

I then tell the Government, as well as theCommission for Social Care Inspection(which does inspections to check on how children and young people are beinglooked after and supported) what those children and young people think, and aboutany concerns they have about the care or support they are getting. “Children’sViews” reports of what children and young people have told me are published foreveryone to read. You can find copies of all my Children’s Views reports on ourchildren’s rights website www.rights4me.org.

The children and young people I ask for their views are those living away from homein England (in children’s homes, boarding schools, residential special schools,residential further education colleges, foster care, adoption placements, orresidential family centres), those who are getting help of any sort from the children’ssocial care services of their local council, and care leavers.

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This report gives the views of children and young people who came to a series ofdiscussion groups with us, and others who filled in and returned question cards forus, together with some views sent in to us by our panel of young people who answerquestions for us by text on their mobile phones.

When we hold discussion groups to ask children and young people for their views,ideas and concerns to put in reports like this, these are new groups we bringtogether especially for that discussion. They are not groups of children or youngpeople who already meet together and who have already formed their views aboutthings, perhaps with the help of an advocate or other adult. We have invited themjust for the one time we meet them, and we choose at random which places we aregoing to invite children and young people from, so that the people we meet are asrepresentative as possible of children and young people who are getting children’ssocial care services or living away from home. We ask children and young people fortheir views without their own staff in the room with them.

This report gives the views of 86 children and young people. We met 65 children andyoung people personally for discussions about their experiences of being moved intoplacements to live, about how decisions were made about them, and about carereviews. We held 12 different discussion groups – some at a wildlife park in themidlands, some at The Deep aquarium in Hull, and one in a secure unit for youngpeople. We spoke to the children and young people ourselves, without their staff orcarers in the room. We also had views sent in to us on question cards about thesame subjects, from 21 more people. We have also added in the views onplacements, decisions and reviews that were given to us in two more groups we metto discuss different subjects, and some of the views that come up often when we arediscussing other things for other reports.

Like all our Children’s Views reports, this report says exactly what the children andyoung people told us. We have not added our own adult or professional views, andwe have not selected what we might ourselves agree with, nor left out what weourselves might disagree with. The messages are simply the ones we have mostoften received from children and young people in different services in different partsof the country.

About this report

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We have added together the views given to us by the children and young people, butwe have not identified who said what. Where someone said or wrote something wethought summed up well what many others said, or said something in a group thatthe others in the group strongly agreed with, we have put those words in the reportas a “quote”.

We have sent the messages in this report to the Government officials who are writingproposals for what should change in the future for children in care or getting socialcare help from their local councils. The report is being sent to Government Ministers,key people in Parliament, officials at the Department for Education and Skills, to keypeople in the Commission for Social Care Inspection, to each of the UK Children’sCommissioners, and to all children’s social care authorities in England.

Thank you to all the children and young people we met in so many different places,who gave us their views and ideas for this report, and to all the staff and carers whomade it possible for them to come to our discussion groups or for us to visit childrenand young people in their homes, schools or colleges.

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Who decides what?Over half the 21 children and young people who wrote for us about decisions told usthat they made all their own decisions about things like their social life, food andbedtimes. 4 of the 22 who wrote their views for us said they made their owndecisions about everything for themselves (some young people were care leavers).Only 2 said they made their own decisions about their education, and 2 that theymade their own decision about where they had been placed to live. Only 1 said theyhad made their own decisions about contact with their birth family.

We heard that decisions about changing placements, moving from one place to livesomewhere else, are some of the most important decisions ever made in youngpeople’s lives. There was a lot of difference in how much say children and youngpeople had in these decisions about where they were to live.

Amongst the 21 children and young people who wrote about theirexperience for us, nearly a third said that decisions about theplacement they were to live in were made by other people, though 3said they had made a placement decision for themselves. One youngperson did give as an example of a decision they had made themselves– “me moving”. Another told us “I decided to go into a children’s homemyself”, and another that they had made the decision about “making afoster placement permanent”. A quarter said they had not been ableto give their views about where they wanted to live, but another

quarter said they had been asked for their views and what they said had made adifference to the decision that was made. One example was that one person hadsaid “what foster placement I would like to go into, eg family with children”, and thatwas found for them.

One point made in our discussion groups was that sometimes young people foundthat after someone else had made an important decision for them, like a change ofschool or a change of placement, without involving them in it, huge changes to theirlives happened suddenly without much warning or preparation. One child told ushow they were picked up from school one day to be moved to foster parents, and hadno choice of foster carer and no time to say goodbye to their Mum. Another told us“when I first went into foster care, I came home one time and was told I was goingand I felt really upset”.

Overall, 2 out of 3 of the people who wrote their views for us told us that they didhave some say in the important decisions in their lives. One discussion group toldus “people decide their own futures”. Someone else told us that they felt in control oftheir own lives; “how I spend money, what to do about my life, what to study atcollege, and my career”. Sometimes, people felt they didn’t have much say indecisions now, but that there were some important decisions coming up when theyknew they would have a say, like “about where I live when turn 16”.

“I decided to go

into a children’s

home myself”

Some people in discussion groups described how they were asked about importantdecisions which were then made by social workers after listening properly andcarefully to what they thought. One young person was surprised at how somethinghad changed because of what they had said; they had not got on with a new socialworker, had explained this (and why they didn’t get on) to their foster carer, and theirfoster carer had got them a new social worker.

Opinions differed on how much difference their views had actually made, though.Some thought their views had made a big difference to the final decision. “I wasalways involved and was willing to be involved”, “I’m involved with any decisionsmade”. Others thought they had been asked but not really listened to and whatthey had said had not really been counted into the final decision. “You get askedwhen you move in to another home, but it doesn’t really make a difference”; “I had asay at a home that I didn’t like. I didn’t get listened to but eventually got out.” “Youcan request things that you want, like more contacts, but that doesn’t change”.

Sometimes, a young person was asked their view, but told by their social worker“I’m not willing to support you in this”, without always knowing why. It was alsohard if the young person was given a reason, but disagreed with it. We heard fromthe young people in one family that their social worker had moved them fromLondon to a city hundreds of miles away and told them this was solely in order toget them away from other young people they were mixing with. The young peoplethought there were other less disruptive ways of keeping people out of a problemgroup of friends than sending them hundreds of miles away, and to a differentschool, but had not been able to change the decision even though they thought itwas a bad decision for them.

Some of our discussion groups reminded us that although sometimes a decisionhad been made by other people without the child or young person having muchsay, that didn’t necessarily mean the decision was the wrong one. They thoughtthis was not the right way to make decisions, but still the right decision could comeout in the end. As one person put it, they had no say in it when they came into care,but believed that “it’s in your best interest”.

We did hear examples of where children had taken things into their own handswhen they did not feel they were listened to about big decisions affecting them.One young person had decided they wanted to stay in one particular foster home,but they were moved on. They said they “started playing my face up” in every newfoster placement so that they were moved out, until social services agreed to returnthem to their original foster carers, where they then behaved well again.

The point was made in our discussions that sometimes children do find it hard tomake difficult decisions for themselves, or to be clear about what they want tohappen. People thought they should still always be asked, but not forced to give aclear view if they really couldn’t work one out. As an example, one young person toldus that social services had wanted them to say whether or not they wanted to have

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contact with their Mum, but they had found it impossible to say yes or no to that sortof question.

When we talked to the young people in a secure unit about decisions, they told usthat in a secure unit there is very little that a young person can regularly decidefor themselves. “They always tell you what to do unless you are asleep”. Youngpeople in secure care told us they would like more scope to make some decisions forthemselves in secure units, which they didn’t think would harm security or bring anyparticular risks. They gave us some examples of decisions they thought they couldsafely take: activities to do, what time to get out of bed at the weekend, what timefood is served, and to decide when you want to be alone in your room to think andhave time for yourself away from others.

In our discussion groups we heard many examples of the sort of everyday decisionsthat were made by carers rather than children themselves – such as how children inthe placement should be kept safe, whether they are or are not allowed to smoke,and the sort of healthy or non-healthy food that is given to children in the placement.

We also heard that children and young people often made their own decisions aboutwhat hobbies and activities to do, although it always depended on what there wasto choose from. In different discussion groups we heard the example of learningdancing as something young people had decided to do for themselves. 1 in 7 of thechildren and young people who wrote views to us said their opinions had made adifference to decisions about their social life and hobbies.

Sometimes very clear decisions children had thought they had been allowed tomake didn’t stay made. One young person told us they had been asked what colourthey wanted their bedroom, had chosen their colour, and then it had been decorateda totally different colour after all. Another person told us they had been asked whatactivities they wanted to do. Everyone had agreed with staff on a particular activity.Then a totally different activity happened instead, without any explanation.

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Involving children in decisionsWe asked children and young people to tell us the best way to ask young people fortheir views when making important decisions in their lives. By far the most usualanswer was that adults and professionals should simply ask children what theythink and feel, and really listen to what they say. Over half of the people whowrote their views in to us said this.

No-one said there needed to be any special way of going about this. “You basically talkto them in a mature manner”. “Talk like an adult, with respect but don’t use big words”.“Just ask what they think”. Sometimes it helps to talk “one on one”, not in a group, andnot only to the few children that usually get asked things or who are particularly good atgiving their views all the time. It is important, we heard, that a young person feelscomfortable talking to the person asking them for their views; having a choice of whoto talk to is helpful, and the personalities of the young person and adult do matter a lot.

Some made the important point that children and young peopleshould be asked for their views before a decision is made, so thattheir views can make a difference, and not just be asked what theythink about a decision that has already been made. One youngperson told us they were often asked something like “do you thinkthat you will be happy here” when they arrived at their newplacement, when it was too late to say much and the decision hadobviously been made. It is hard to shift a decision once someoneelse in authority has made their minds up about it.

We were told in our discussion groups for this report, as we havebeen in discussions on other subjects for other reports, that children will onlyshare personal views and concerns when they feel safe to do so. We were toldthat staff and social workers are not as confidential as they should be about whatchildren say to them. Children told us they had stopped telling staff what they wereconcerned about, or what their views were, when they found that what they had saidto one member of staff in private became known and talked about by all the otherstaff. If children are to feel safe giving their personal views and concerns aboutdecisions, they need to be more sure than they are now that what they say will notbe passed on to anyone who doesn’t definitely need to know it.

Some young people had some ideas about how they could feed what they thoughtinto the people who made decisions. In a children’s home or a school, it was alwayspossible to hold a meeting about something that many young people wanted totalk about, and this was good although it was important that what was said wasthen followed through. Meetings were not really possible like this if you lived awayfrom other people in care, for example in a foster family.

“Talk like an adult,with respect butdon’t use bigwords”

Some said that very young children might prefer to draw pictures, but older onesmight want to write their own report for people to read. That might be easier thanhaving to speak up to people like social workers, or in front of other people atmeetings or reviews. One person said they had managed to sort out what their viewswere by keeping a diary, and then putting the important things they had written intoa report. Some children told us it would be easier for them to give their views byphone, or in a letter, rather than speaking them. Texting their views might bethought about, but would not be very safe for a really important message. Oneperson though told us they had a good system for texting their social worker: “I textmy social worker in the car, I email and text to ask her things”.

Having a say in decisions affecting them is one of the top messages we havereceived from children and young people of all ages, throughout our consultations onmany subjects. They tell us that this involves asking children what they want,asking children what they feel (without having to argue about their feelings,because feelings “just are like they are”), explaining things in words they canunderstand, keeping children informed of what is happening (even at times whennothing much is happening) so that they don’t fear the worst or think they havebeen forgotten, genuinely taking what children say into account before decidinganything, and feeding back what has been decided – and why – even if it is notwhat the child or young person wanted. It is not, as one person put it, enough forstaff just to say “we’ll look into it” and the young person not hearing anything more.

We have also been told in our consultations that involving children and young peoplein decisions involves two more things. Firstly, deciding when a child or youngperson understands enough to decide some things for themselves, taking intoaccount how much they understand when considering what they say. Children havetold us very firmly that this is not just to do with age, but to do with understandingwhat is being proposed, the reasons for it, the choices that there are and what eachof those choices would mean, weighing those choices against each other, and beingable to keep to one opinion rather than repeating what someone else has said orchanging your mind too often.

Secondly, we have heard that involving children and young people also meanstaking proper account of what even very young children, or children who are notable fully to understand what is happening, want and feel – they may notunderstand enough to decide something, but how they feel should be asked andtaken into account.

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Choosing placementsAs well as knowing how much say children and young people actually had indeciding where they were going to live, we wanted to know who exactly had decidedon the placement each child or young person was living in now.

Amongst those who wrote in to us, just under half said that social services hadmade the decision that they should live where they were living now. Apart fromthe 3 who had already told us they had decided this for themselves, 3 more said thatthe decision had been made by their own families alongside themselves, and 2 saidthe decision had been made by a court. Some others said the decision had beenmade by two people – themselves and somebody else. One said the other persondeciding things with them was their social worker, another that it was their leavingcare worker, and another that they and their foster carers had together decided ontheir foster placement. One person told us that when their presentplacement was chosen by social services, the “top boss persondecided, don’t know his name.”

We asked children and young people the straight question – didthey get a choice about the placement they were now living in?Their answers were nearly half “yes” and half “no” – with getting achoice just winning over not getting any choice at all. Just over halftold us they had a choice when their present placement was beingdecided on, but just under half said that there had been no otherchoice at the time, and their present placement had been the onlyone on offer.

If there had been a choice, or the young person had been involved in the decisionon whether to move into their present placement, we wanted to know exactly howthey had been able to say what they thought about the placement before thedecision to move there was made. About half the people who wrote in to us saidthat they had talked it over with their social worker. Some, in a discussion group,told us they were able to put their ideas on a form. It was very interesting that onlyone young person out of the 21 told us that they had been able to get their viewsacross about the placement during a review.

Given how many children and young people said they had not had a clear say in thedecision about where they were to live, we thought it was important to knowwhether or not they thought the right decision had actually been made for them. Weasked them to give their present placement a score out of 5 for whether theythought it was the right placement for them now (a score of 5 out of 5 meant yes, itdefinitely was the right placement).

Altogether 38 children and young people gave us scores for the placements they

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“top boss persondecided, don’tknow his name”

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were in now. These included those who wrote in to us, and those we met atdiscussion groups. Just over half told us they thought their present placementwas definitely the right one for them, giving it a score of 5 out of 5. Another sixgave their placement a score of 4 out of 5. Four people gave their placement a

score of 3, another three people gave it a score of 2, and two peoplegave their placement a score of only 1 out of 5. Overall, then, mostchildren and young people we spoke to thought their placements wereOK for them, but a small number (the five people who scored theirplacements as worse than 3 out of 5) thought they weren’t.

We have heard in many of our consultations that children and youngpeople believe that choosing the right placement of course meansthere must be a choice of more than one possible placement. “Givekids more of a chance and a choice”. Many have told us that all toooften they were placed somewhere when there was no choice at all –

their social worker had told them they had found them “a placement”, not a choice ofplacements. A very common message from children is that when they’re beingmoved, there should be a choice of at least two alternative suitable placementsand the child should have a real say in the choice between them, once they move,their social worker should keep checking that the placement is working out, andthere should be a backup placement ready in case the first one doesn’t work out.As some pointed out to us, all this means that children’s social care services need tohave a big enough range of possible placements to give real choices and havebackup placements for each child.

Social workers keeping in very close touch with people who have just moved into anew placement was seen by many children and young people as an important wayof making sure that people were settling in and problems didn’t become big enoughto make a placement break down. One person said how they had felt when this didn’thappen for them; “they’ve taken their eye off my situation”.

A point made in one of our discussion groups was thatsometimes it can take a very long time to find a newplacement, and that meant that you could be stayingsomewhere you didn’t get on, or where you were notreally wanted, for a long time even if you and everyoneelse wanted you to live somewhere else. We heardfrom some that it can often take six months to find anew placement, even when everyone agrees youneed it. Living in the wrong place for that long canhave a bad effect on you.

Some children and young people are placed a long way away fromthe council that is placing them. Most young people told us they

“give kids more of

a chance and a

choice”

“they’ve takentheir eye off mysituation”

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thought it was best to have a placement near to your home and family if that waspossible, but that there were times when that was not the right thing, and youeither needed special help that you had to go a long way to get, or you really neededto be out of reach of someone in your family. You might need to get as far away asyou could from that environment. So it all depends on what is right for each child.

The same was true about keeping brothers and sisters together if possible. Almosteveryone told us that it was very very important to keep brothers and sisterstogether whenever possible, and not to break families up. But again, it all dependson the circumstances, and sometimes brothers and sisters may need differentplacements because they have very different needs.

We heard that another important thing about choosing the right placement is beingallowed to keep your own beliefs and religion. That includes being allowed to stay thatway if you don’t have a religion or particular beliefs, even if the new placement does.

Children told us that along with choosing somewhere to live,choosing a school is important when changing placement. As wellas getting the right school, having to keep changing schoolsbecause you have to keep changing placements also spoils youreducation and means that you don’t do as well at school or inexams as you would have done if you didn’t keep moving around.As one person told us, having 18 placement changes just mucksyour education up. One person told us “I’ve been to as manyschools as a supply teacher”. Most told us it was a good idea to beable to stay at the same school when you changed placement, ifthis was possible.

As with a lot of decisions about placements though, we heard too that it alldepends on what is best for each child – sometimes it was a good thing tochange schools if you are not getting on in the school you are in, or if there arefamily problems that mean it is best to change schools as well as placements; “ifyou’ve fallen out badly with your Mum, you wouldn’t then want to go to school nearwhere she is”.

“I’ve been to asmany schools as asupply teacher”

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What can go wrong in aplacement?To get an idea of what children and young people think are the most common thingsthat go wrong for them in placements, we asked everyone who wrote in to us to tellus three things that might go wrong in a placement and mean having to move. Themost usual things they told us go wrong with placements are listed in the box (withthe number of young people who wrote each one given in brackets):

The message from children and young people is that the most likelything to go wrong with a placement, and lead to it breaking down sothey have to move on, is having arguments. People in our discussiongroups said the same as those who wrote in to us about this.Arguments could break out about all sorts of things, but some of theexamples people gave to us were arguments about money, argumentsabout school and school work, and arguments about rules and rulebreaking; “disagreement in rules, arguments about money, andargument in education choices”.

It is important to note what the equal third and fourth things are that can cause aplacement to break down. One is the child or young person themselves hurting thefeelings of other people where they are placed, and the other is the child or youngperson being unhappy, sometimes so much that they try to commit suicide. “You

Arguments (13)

Getting into fights and violence (7)

The child or young person hurting the feelings of other people (4)

Being unhappy or depressed, or sometimes suicidal (4)

Breaking the law (3)

Not getting on with carers (or their family) (3)

Running away (3)

“You don’t like

them, or they don’t

like you”

don’t like them, or they don’t like you”; “falling out with fostercarers”.

Stealing things was the main example given to us by the 3 peoplewho said that breaking the law was likely to cause placements tobreak down.

In our discussion groups, we heard that often there is a mixture ofreasons for a placement going wrong, not just one major thing.“Arguments, not feeling happy, family issues”; “you may not likethe way your carer is, you may not like the room in the house, youmay not like the other people in the house”; “doing something wrong, doingrunners, trying to commit suicide”.

Also in our discussions, we heard that the more you are moved from oneplacement to another, the less likely you are to settle in to a new placement, themore likely people are to expect things to go wrong, and the more likely you areto expect another move soon. “When they change your placement things can goone way or the other”.

Being separated from your brothers and sisters could lead you to either not settlingdown in a new placement, or even trying to get out of a placement that was actuallyOK for you, in order to try to be with your brothers and sisters somewhere else. “Ifyou get separated from your brothers and sisters you could pretend you don’t likeit, so you could be with your brothers and sisters.”

Another important message is that usually adultsassume that when a placement breaks down, it is thechild’s fault, and that they are “difficult to place” – butit is not always the child’s fault. Often it is nobody’sfault: many placements were not likely to work outanyway. “Sometimes you might have to move and itmight not be your fault – it might have nothing to dowith your behaviour, it could be that you are too old forthe carers”.

It is worth us telling those reading this that only onechild who wrote in to us about this question said that bullying was something thatoften went wrong enough in a placement to cause it to break down.

As well as the list of things that can go wrong with a placement that came from theyoung people who wrote in to us, it is worth listing things that we heard had eachled to problems in just one child’s placement. These were:

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“When theychange yourplacement thingscan go one way orthe other"

“Sometimes youmight have tomove and it mightnot be your fault"

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• If the people there are being unkind to you

• If you are spoken to with bad language

• If the house is in a bad state

• If other children there are unpleasant to you or bully you

• Bad environment for you around the establishment

• Risks from the kind of people you meet in the local streets

• If you don’t know what will happen to you

• If they can’t cope with your disabilities

• If you are not allowed to make and be with friends

• If they decide against and dislike your family

• If you are treated differently from people who are not in care

• When you do not behave well

• When you have already moved lots of times

• If you can’t cope with being separated from your family

• If you think foster carers have taken you just for the money

• If you are putting other children there at risk

• Telling lies

• Being told the new placement is your very last chance

• Bad communication

• Lack of support for your problems

• Being left on your own and to your own devices too much

• Being moved in too suddenly

• “Getting given up on and not listened to”

What can be done to stopthings going wrong in aplacementWe wanted to know not only what children thought often caused a placement tobreak down, but what could be done to help placements not to break down. Ofcourse, one way is to deal better with the problems children tell us often causeplacements to break down – arguments, the child hurting other people’s feelings, orthe child feeling very unhappy. There were two other ways of saving placements thatchildren wrote to us about – one was a social worker visiting the placementregularly, and the other was the child and the carer or social worker being able totalk problems through. Things work out best if “everyone listens to each other anddiscuss any problems.”

It is important that social workers come round “kind of fast” to check with the youngperson on how a new placement is turning out for them. Many people suggestedthat social workers should also phone someone very often when they have justmoved to a new placement, to check up on how they are doing. A social worker mightvisit and phone in the first one or two days, then ask the child how often they wouldlike the social worker to check on things after that, and whether they would prefervisits, phone calls, or a mixture of both. We heard it is a social workers job to “checkthat we’re happy in the environment they’ve put you in”.

When children and young people have told us what they want from their socialworkers, one of the most frequent requests is that children should be able to get intouch with their social worker directly whenever they feel they need to. This isoften to talk about what is happening in a placement. We have heard that this can beespecially important for those placed a long way from the council where there socialworker’s office is. Being able to get in touch with your social worker directly andquickly, for a chat rather than only in a crisis, is an important way of making surethat problems in placements are talked through or sorted out early on, before theybecome a crisis and lead to the placement ending.

Another vital message from children about social workers has been that they want tobe able to talk to their social worker alone, without carers being with them ornearby. We have heard that many children, such as those in foster homes, are notoften given the chance to talk to their social worker on their own, even during socialworker visits to check that all is well in the placement. Children have said that youneed to go out of the house or building to feel free enough to discuss problems about

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the placement with your social worker. Many have suggested that this can easily bedone if social workers go out for, say, a walk or a coffee or a meal with the child as ausual thing on every visit.

A very special point made to us by foster children is that they sometimes feel thatchildren’s social services staff want to move children on from foster care to beadopted. Some tell us they think this is to do with targets social workers have to tryto meet, rather than what each child wants. Many have told us that they are happyto stay as foster children, and not be adopted – either by their foster carers or byanyone else. A message from many children is to let children stay as they are inplacements that are working out well, without trying to move them on to adoption,unless that really is what is right for the individual child and is what they want tohappen.

A final point from one discussion group was that people are more settled in anyplacement they are in if they are kept up to date with news about what ishappening to their family at home, and what their own plans are. Not knowingwhat is going on can make it harder to settle and stay settled in any placement.

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What would make changingplacements better for youngpeople?One of the main problems we hear about being in care is that very many children andyoung people get moved on from one placement to another,sometimes many times. We asked children what could be done tomake changing placements better for young people when it didhave to happen.

Two answers stood out above any other ideas. The most usualanswer was that the child or young person should visit the newplacement beforehand, and meet their new carers well beforethey move in; “to know more about where they are going and toknow more about the people you stay with”; “knowing the peopleyou’re moving in with.” This answer was given by nearly half of thechildren who wrote to us with their views. This needed to be linkedto having a real say then in whether they did in the end move thereor not; “meeting new parents before moving in, having choice tolive there”.

The other usual answer was that changing placements can be made better byalways telling the child or young person exactly what is going on, and not keepingthem in the dark about moves that are likely to happen until the last minute. It alladds up to always “knowing what’s going on.”

As well as being kept informed about what is going on, many told us they wantedmore notice to be given of when they were going to have to move placements, sothat they could prepare and get to know where they were going to. One discussiongroup told us they thought children should have a right to have at least two months

notice before being moved, unless it was a realemergency.

In our discussion groups, we have heard how it can helpif you are able to take your property with you when youmove. Just as photos are important to help you find outabout a new placement before you move in, many peoplehave told us that it also helps having photos of placesand people you have liked in your past life to take withyou when you have to move on.

“meeting newparents beforemoving in, havingchoice to livethere”

“knowing what’sgoing on.”

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If you have a pet of your own, being able to take your pet with you can be extremelyimportant – whether the pet is something very big and major like a horse or dog, orsomething small in a cage. One person told us that a dog, if you have one, “is like abit of your own life, a bit of stability, a safety blanket. The only living thing you cantalk to.” Many in these discussion groups though agreed that you might not be ableto take a pet to some placements, and that sometimes having a pet might be unfairon other people, for instance if they are frightened of it, or are allergic to it. Onesuggestion was that “if you can’t take it, take a picture of it to keep under your pillowand be allowed to visit it somewhere else”.

Two other important points came from our discussion groups. One was that becausebeing moved can mess up your education, knowing what educational plans thereare for you, which school or college you will be going to, and how you can carry onwith studies you are in the middle of, are all important things in making a newplacement work.

The other point was that if you have just left a placement you liked, you should stillbe able to keep in touch and visit there sometimes, if you wanted to, so that yourlife there wasn’t just stopped when you left.

How can social workers getplacements right first time?When we asked children and young people what they most wanted from their socialworkers, another of the most usual answers we got was that social workers shouldget placements right first time more often. For this report, we followed this up byasking children and young people exactly what social workers should do in order toget placements right first time.

One answer stood out above all others, and was given to us by over half the childrenand young people. That answer was that to get placements right first time moreoften, social workers should ask and listen to what the child wants and how theyfeel about the placement. We have already heard from many children and youngpeople that having a choice of placement and a backup placement if the first onestarts to go wrong are important ways of helping to make sure that the child finds agood placement that will last.

The next most usual answer to this question was that social workers could getplacements right first time more often if they made sure that the child or young

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person did visit the placement and meet the carers before the decision was madeand the move happened. Having good information about a placement before making achoice helps to find the right placement – including information about the carers, thebuilding, other children there and any new school. Many children and young peoplehave suggested that having photographs (of people, buildings, their bedroom,where the placement is, the school) would be an important way to begin to thinkforward to a new placement and to help make choices between placements.

We have already come across this answer to an earlier question. Getting to know theplacement before you move in helps to make sure the right placement gets chosen,and also helps the placement not to break down later on. Getting to know a newplacement gradually helps to make placements work better. “I had an introduction tosee if I liked it, by visiting and sleeping over”. Being suddenly “dumped withstrangers” is not likely to help someone settle down and make a placement work. Itis important to have time to prepare, and time to adjust with a number of visitsbefore moving. When the child is visiting a possible new placement, the socialworker should, we are told, directly ask the child if they actually like it – and if not,do some research into what the child doesn’t like about it.

Some children told us that they feel more at risk of abuse from carers they don’tknow, until they get to know and trust them. This makes it all the more importantthat you can get to know them before they finally become your carers.

We have also already heard that it is important though that a choice in the first placegoes along with having a backup placement to go to if the firstchoice doesn’t work out after all, or proves to be the wrong onewhen you actually move there. Some children warned that it can bedifficult for a child to find out enough about what a placement isreally like from a visit or trial stay before they actually move in, sothere needs to be a choice of a change if it doesn’t work out for youonce you get there.

A point made by some in our discussion groups was that whetherthe child wants to move from the placement they are in makes allthe difference to whether they will settle in to a new placement

they are moved to. As one young person suggested, social workers “could if theyactually want to move”.

Where a child or young person is moving into a children’s home, we were told thatsocial workers and children’s home staff should think more about looking at both thenew person and the people already in the home to make sure that the mix ofpeople living there is right. If this doesn’t happen, children are more likely to getbullied, and many placements will break down as a result of them being the wrongplacements to begin with.

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could always askthem if theyactually want tomove”

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One special kind of placement is the accommodation found for those leaving careto live in on their own. Care leavers have very often told us that this needs to bereasonable and safe – but that often they find themselves alone in an area orwith others where they feel very unsafe living alone, or which they have to moveon from to an uncertain future. That can for some mean finding friends to staywith or even living on the streets. Their message has been that social workersand leaving care workers need to take especial care to make sure that careleavers are OK with the accommodation they move on to when they leave theirlast care placement.

Another important message from children and young people is that sometimes aplacement is going really well for them, but social workers end the placement forreasons that are nothing to do with the child or young person themselves, orwhat they believe is best for them. This can happen when someone is placed along way away from the council they are placed by. What we have heard happensis that the council has a policy of bringing people back from distant placements, orthose placements were only made for a definite period (like two years) and themoney runs out at the end of that time and so the young person has to leave, evenif they don’t want to and their social worker thinks the placement is going well. Wehear sometimes that children have to leave a placement for reasons like this justbefore they take vital school exams, so that their education can be seriouslydamaged by the move.

Many of the individual children and young people who contact the Office of theChildren’s Rights Director for help and advice are those about to be moved fromplacements they think are going well and where they want to stay. As I write thisreport, I have another letter on my desk from a young person asking for our helpfor just this reason. Usually, when we write to the Director of Children’s Servicesabout situations like this, the decision to move is checked out and the child isable to stay in their placement. I am grateful to Directors for this – but theproblem is definitely one that children and young people keep telling us needssorting out. The request from children and young people placed away fromtheir council area is that once they have been placed there, they should onlybe brought back from that placement if that is really in their own bestinterests, taking what they want to happen into account, and not for any otherreasons like policies or money.

It is also important that when social workers say they will do something, arrangesomething, change something, or pass on information about something, theyactually do what they have promised to do. Children often tell us that socialworkers mustn’t make promises they can’t keep, and this is especiallyimportant at the time a child or young person is on the move from one placementto another.

One young person summed up for many others how they thought social workerscould make a placement more likely to last by discussing it with the child first: “askwhat the child is looking for, what they really want, then they may be able to find afamily who they can get on well with. Not just send you there without asking orsaying anything”.

Another person summed up for us how making a placement workout is a mixture of getting the right support for the big things youneed help with, but also of knowing the little things that you needto know for everyday living anywhere: “make sure kids get supportand that they know what time to go to bed.”

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“make sure kidsget support andthat they knowwhat time to goto bed.”

The best and worst of reviewsThree quarters of the children and young people who wrote their views in to us saidthat they do go to their review meetings. When we asked them why they went totheir reviews, those who wrote in to us gave two main answers: to find out what isgoing on, and so that they could have their say about what will happen to them;“so I have a view and can say what I think”; “I go because I want to be a part of it”.One person summed things up for most others when they said they went to theirreviews “so I know what is being said and think it’s important for me to be therebecause it’s about me”. Only two children told us they went to their reviews becausethey were told they had to go.

Of those who didn’t go to their reviews, some thought their views weren’t gettingacross, and others that reviews were boring. Some had mixed feelings about them:“reviews can be boring but they do listen and try to get your views heard”. Otherswere concerned about the number of people, with many people they didn’t know,who attended reviews and said that it was difficult talking about personal things infront of a lot of strange adults.

Some of those who did go to their reviews said that as well as finding out what wasgoing on and being able to have your say, you also heard the reasons for decisionsthat were made about you, which you might not know otherwise.

When we asked what children and young people thought were the best things aboutreviews, we got the same answers as we got when we asked why people went totheir reviews. Those who wrote in said the best things about reviews were findingout what is going on, and being able to have your say about what will happen tothem. These answers tell us that for many children and young people, reviews dowhat they want them to – they keep them posted on what is happening, and theygive them a say.

Some of the best things about reviews were:

“it is helpful to see how you are progressing”

“you get to give your opinion on what you want in your future”

“you can get things said directly to the people you want to talk to”

“get to give your own opinion about things when they ask if you like where youare or you want to move”

“hearing what other people have to say about me”

“get a clue to understand what they are going on about”

“helps make the right choices for when you are older”

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“decisions aren’t made behind your back”

“you get your review typed out so you know what’s been said”

“you know things are happening”.

Since we had asked what people thought were the best things about going toreviews, we also asked what they thought were the worst things about reviews.People who wrote in to us gave lots of different ‘worst things’ – the only one thatcame back from more than one or two people was that a worst thing about reviewsis when you have to sit and listen to people saying bad things about you – andthis was worst if you didn’t think what was being said was true about you.Knowing that one of the best things about reviews is having the chance to have yoursay, it is important to say that only one young person told us that the worst thingabout all their reviews was not being listened to properly. However, if you did feelthis sometimes, things could go very wrong – you could shout, cry and storm out ofyour review meetings if you felt nobody was listening to your point of view.

Many people wrote in, or told us in our discussion groups, of things they thoughtwere bad about their own reviews in particular. Some of these were:

“feeling nervous about talking in large groups about personal feelings”

“questions and someone who is there that you don’t want to be”

“having things you wrote said out aloud”

“having people from school there”

“its boring”

“they last a very long time and you can get very tired”

“they bring stuff up about your past and they bring stuff up you don’t want tohear and talk about it in front of you”

“they delve into your personal life”

“having a new reviewing officer who pushessomething I don’t agree with”

“they make you fill in forms that you don’t want to”

“always going into your past – but you can change”

“just sit there listening to what they’re doing to you”.

There was a lot of discussion about how the adultsbehave towards the young person during a reviewmeeting. A young person on their own amongst a lot of adultsdiscussing personal things about them already feels in the spotlight,

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“just sit therelistening to whatthey’re doing toyou”

and what the adults did often made this worse. Examples were adults who “butt inwhile I’m talking”, or don’t look at the young person but spend all their time with theirheads down writing notes. Some children find the words used by the adults difficultto understand (“I wish they could use terms I could understand”).

Two young person in a discussion group summed up for us how a review meeting feltto them:

“I walked into a panel meeting as about 12 people sat around the table and itput me off. I got an introduction, but that wasn’t enough. My social workerended up doing most of the talking as I was too nervous.”

“They talk about you as though you’re not there, you feel like you’re invisible.You wave your hands to say ‘hello, I want to speak’ and you’re aware they’rethinking you’re not there and why should they listen to her?”

Reviews are especially difficult if you happen to be the sort ofperson who doesn’t like speaking in front of other people anyway;“I’m not a people person, so I don’t like my reviews because there arelots of people there and I don’t get my points across.

The last word on what it feels like to be at a review goes to theyoung person who just said: “like watching your life”.

Some of the proposals from children for improving reviews were:letting children write their views more; letting younger childrendraw more to show what they felt; explaining things in more simplewords; holding reviews in less worrying places (or even outdoorssometimes), having an advocate you could brief to speak for you atreviews, using a computer like “View Point” to help get your views across,having fewer people there (but making sure they are the important ones), andhaving better and more interesting forms to fill in. It is important to give plentyof opportunity to young people to get their views across, and to ask questionsthat are right for the person’s age group. Some told us the questions or forms theywere given to fill in were obviously for much younger children, and ‘didn’t cover theground’. It is also vital that reviews are the right length, not so long that they keepgoing round the same things without getting anywhere, but not so short that as oneyoung person felt “it seems like everyone wants to get home”.

We have often heard that young people are uncertain about who actually has thefinal say in making a decision after it has been discussed in a review. For thisreport, we asked children and young people who they thought had the final say intheir own reviews. Over half of those who wrote their views in to us said theythought their social worker or the person who ran the review meeting had the finalsay in making any decisions after the review had happened. In our discussions,some thought their parents always had the final say. Some thought their social

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I don’t like myreviews becausethere are lots ofpeople there and Idon’t get mypoints across"

worker had to ask their manager to decide things if they weren’t there at the meetinganyway. A few thought the final decisions had to be made after the review by acourt.

Two people thought they could make the final decision for themselves if they wantedto, and two more thought the final decision was whatever most of the people decidedat the review, and was not made by any one person at all. Some others in ourdiscussion groups believed that there were various mixes of people who made thedecision: “me, Mum, foster parents, social worker”, “reviewing officer, and also me”.Children and young people told us they would like to be certain who actually doeshave the final say in making a decision after things have been talked about in areview meeting.

Sometimes a child or young person might not be happy with the decision that ismade at a review or after it. So we asked for this report what people thought theycould do about it if they were not happy with decisions about them after a review.The people who wrote their views in to us had two main thoughts on what they wouldhave to do. Just under half thought that they would need to say something at thereview itself if they were not happy with the decision that was being discussed.Another quarter said they thought they would be able to raise it with their socialworker if they were unhappy with what came out of a review for them.

One point we heard was that it was not so much a matter of going to the person whoyou were supposed to go to, but going to someone you felt comfortable talking to; “Ithink it depends on who the young person trusts”

If a review meeting decided on moving a young person somewhere they didn’t wantto go, they might just run away as soon as they got there. This was also somethingthat people told us was the reason for running away when we were doing a reportabout running away.

A few young people said that they were not able to cope with it if they thought theirreview meeting was making the wrong decisions for them, and instead of being ableto argue with the professional adults there, they would probably just walk out. Onesaid they would then “hit objects, privately”.

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Having a say in your plansChildren who are in care or looked after by their councils should all have a ‘care plan’which says what should be done to help them and what should happen in the futurefor them. For this report, we asked children and young people about their care plans.

Just over three quarters of the children and young people who wrote their views into us said they knew they had a care plan. Three children (one in seven) of thosewho wrote in thought they did not have a care plan at all. In our discussion groups,we found that some young people didn’t know whether or not they had a care plan. Afew said they knew they had one, but they hadn’t seen it.

When we asked those who had care plans how much say they had been given inwhat their care plans said, nearly half of the people who wrote in to us said theyhad been able to have a big say in what was in their care plans. One person at aspecial school told us they had been very involved in working out their plan - “a lot, Isit with my LAC teacher and we do it together”. Over a quarter, though, said theyhad had either only a little say or no say at all in what was in their care plans;“nothing much, I had a little input towards the plan”.

Sometimes how much say you had in your care plan depended not on you, but onhow good your social worker was: “in general I am listened to and sometimes get myviews taken forward, but this is to do with my social worker who treats me more likeI’m an adult and not like I’m in care”.

When we asked whether children and young people agreed with what was in theircare plans, regardless of how much say they had in what was in the plan, two thirdsof those who wrote their views to us said that they agreed with what their careplans said. Only 3 children told us they didn’t agree with their plans.

We asked for a bit more detail from those who wrote their views in for us. We askedthem to give their care plans a score out of 5 for how good they thought the plan wasfor them. 5 out of 5 meant top marks for a near perfect plan. Out of fifteen youngpeople who told us about care plans they knew about, five people (a third) gavetheir plans top marks of 5 out of 5. Another five people gave their plans 4 out of 5.Two thirds of those who gave their plans a score therefore scored them as goodenough to score 4 or 5 out of 5. Four people gave their plans a score of 3 out of 5,and another three scored their plans as only good enough for 1 or 2 out of 5.

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Keeping to plan15 of the children and young people who knew about their care plans wrote to tell uswhether they were being kept to. 8 of the 15 (over half) told us that everythingtheir plan said should be done was being done for them; “everything has been donehow I have wanted it”. Where some, but not all, of the plan was being kept to, thepart usually being done was sorting out contact with their birth family.

One young person told us they had a plan, but that it didn’t get properly talked aboutat review meetings, which always seemed to focus on problems, and then didn’t getcarried out either: “at reviews we don’t talk about a care plan. They bring up a loadof old stuff, but don’t do it.”

When we asked what children could do if their plan was not being kept to as itshould be, those who wrote in to us had two main ideas. Nearly half said that theycould take this up with their social worker. “If social worker said something wasgoing to happen and it didn’t I would ask why it didn’t”. One in three told us this wassomething they could put in a complaint about to theircouncil. This had sometimes made a difference afterfeeling they were not being listened to any other way;“then they knew I wasn’t messing about ”.

In our discussion groups, others suggested that theymight go to their foster carer, and others again that theymight go to an advocate if they had one. One personcommented that when their advocate took up the factthat their plan wasn’t being kept to, their social worker“backed off”. Advocates were useful to explain thingsand give you support if you felt that you were beingpushed into a situation you didn’t want to be in.

A few young people told us that they had told visiting inspectors thatthey were not being cared for as their plan said they should be, butinspectors didn’t usually do anything about that, and didn’t pass it on to the rightpeople to deal with the problem.

Some of the young people we spoke to suggested that people should be able to goto a court to get things sorted out if their plan was not being followed. There weremixed views about this in our discussion groups. Many thought that courts would besupportive, and some said that a court, although not quick, would be likely to getsomething sorted out before social services were likely to make a decision onsomething complicated. Some though said that going to a court “is not a nice thingto do” and that there was a danger that it would “draw a line between you and thestaff” which could make life difficult afterwards.

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“then theyknew I wasn’tmessing about”

In discussion groups we asked whether children and young people knew that theperson who runs their review meetings could go to an organisation called “CAFCASS”if their care plans weren’t being carried out, and that organisation could take thematter to court. Hardly anyone had heard of CAFCASS, but many thought morepeople should know this was a way to get a court to look into things if they weregoing wrong.

A few said that if their plan had gone badly wrong, they might run away or dosomething harmful to themselves. In one group we were told that if someone’s planhad gone very wrong, “some people might commit suicide”.

The last word in this report goes to someone who told us what should happen withcare planning:

“have been asked about care plan, and had a say in agreeing it”.

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If you have any comments regarding this reportplease send them to:

Dr Roger Morgan OBE

Children’s Rights Director for England

Office of the Children’s Rights Director

Commission for Social Care Inspection

St Nicholas Building

St Nicholas Street

Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 1NB

Children’s Website www.rights4me.org

September 2006

Further copies are available free of charge fromcsci@accessplus.co.uk Order line 0870 240 7535

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