The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill offers an opportunity to significantly improve opportunities for children in England, with measures to protect children at risk of abuse, to improve care for those who cannot live with their birth families, and to help children grow up healthier.
Barnardo’s welcomes this legislation. Families in England face mounting pressures and provisions including free breakfast clubs, more support for kinship carers and a greater focus on identifying and supporting children who may be at risk of harm, will all help to make sure more children can grow up safer, happier, healthier and more hopeful. However, given the scale of the challenges facing children and families, the legislation needs to be more ambitious to make a transformative difference. Barnardo’s believes that there are six key areas where the Bill should be amended:
- Enhance obligations on local agencies to provide early support for families, before they reach crisis: We believe all parents and carers should have access to universal, non-stigmatising, community-based support – along with more targeted help for those who need it. This should include advice and support for parents from pregnancy to the start of school, help with issues like special educational needs and disabilities, accessing mental health support, and advice and guidance on raising teenagers (including online safety). The Bill should therefore be amended so that family hubs or centres are put on a statutory footing, and to require local agencies to provide sufficient levels of these services to meet the needs of their local population.
- Introduce a ‘national offer’ for young people leaving care: All young people who grew up with foster carers or in a residential care home must be able to access the support they need to thrive in early adulthood. While the Bill improves the support available, the changes proposed do not go far enough. To help address the inconsistency of support available to care leavers across the country the Bill should introduce a new ‘national offer’ setting minimum standards of help that should be available to a young person irrespective of where they live.
- Ensure that children’s wishes and feelings are considered in all decisions made about them: The Bill should be amended strengthens requirements on local authorities to give children’s views due weight, in decisions that affect them and to better reflect the UK’s government’s obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
- Improve information sharing between agencies working with children: The introduction of a single unique identifier is welcome. The provision will enhance safeguarding and improve services offered to children by ensuring professionals can more easily gain a complete picture of a child and their needs. However the Bill should be amended to clarify these provisions and ensure they have the maximum benefit for children.
- Extend the provision of free school meals: Many children who grow up in homes experiencing food insecurity do not have access to nutritious food via free school meals, with huge impacts on their health and wellbeing both now and in the future. The Bill's welcome provision of breakfast clubs in England does not go far enough to ensure all children get the nutrition they need. The Bill should be amended to introduce an auto-enrolment system for free school meals, and to expand the eligibility criteria, starting with all children from families in receipt of Universal Credit.
- Remove the ‘reasonable punishment’ defence for physically assaulting a child: Parents in England may legally hit their child on the defence of reasonable punishment. This is different from the law in Scotland and Wales where all physical punishment of children is outlawed. The Bill should end the defence of reasonable punishment in England and provide children with equal access to protection from assault. This would end the current ambiguity faced by professionals in distinguishing between physical punishment and physical abuse and help improve responses to child abuse.