Responding to the publication of the Government’s new ‘Enduring Relationships’ command paper, Dr Jo Casebourne, Chief Executive of Foundations, said:
“Everyone deserves to grow up with safe, stable, and nurturing relationships. Whether a parent, a mentor, a neighbour, a teacher – they make up the tapestry of a support network that enriches a child’s life. But this is something many of us can so easily take for granted.
“For care-experienced children and young people, there can be fewer opportunities to form meaningful connections with trusted adults. We know the positive impact supportive, enduring relationships can have across so many areas of young people’s lives and yet not enough is known about how best to support care-experienced children to build and maintain these. Currently there are very few programmes or approaches developed to support relationships for care-experienced children that have been evaluated. It is crucial that we tackle this.
“We’re pleased to see the importance of enduring relationships placed front and centre as the ‘guiding principle’ of the government’s children’s social care reforms. Today’s paper provides a much-needed blueprint for how to make this a golden thread running throughout the system, with a welcome commitment to tackle the lack of evidence on what works to support these relationships for children in, leaving, or on the edge of care.
“Better and more reliable data on care-experienced children and young people is needed, so the announcement today of the plan to implement a measure of enduring relationships is an important step towards understanding how these young people are being supported.
“We look forward to supporting the government, local leaders and sector partners to find out what works to support care-experienced children and young people to create and maintain the enduring relationships they need and deserve.”
For further information, please contact Silvia Tadiello, Senior Communications Officer: silvia.tadiello@foundations.org.uk