Vulnerable children

 

Unaccompanied asylum seekers – (7%) in Care in Suffolk were unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

Children in Need (assessed as needing help and protection as a result of risks to their development or health) – One in 10 pupils in England (2019/20) had been a child in need in the last 6 years.

• In 20/21 the rate of children in need episodes during the financial year, per 10,000 children was 280.8 for Essex and 467.7 for Suffolk
• ‘Toxic trio’ – living in a household with Domestic abuse, substance misuse and Mental Health problems

• Poverty – both Tendring (23.3%) and Ipswich (17.9%) have higher proportions of children living in low income families than England ave. (17%)
• Free school meals – In 2020/21, 19.3% of primary school pupils in Suffolk (10,969 pupils) were eligible for free school meals. lower than England (21.6%

Young women

• Over a quarter (26%) of young women aged between 16–24 years old report having a common mental health problem in any given week. This compares to 17% of adults. And this number has been going up.

Young carers

• A young carer is someone under the age of 18 who looks after a family member or friend who has a physical or mental health condition, or misuses drugs or alcohol. They may also look after brothers, sisters or elderly relatives too – Some people start giving care at a very young age and don’t really realise they’re carers. Other young people become carers overnight.
• Over a quarter of young carer’s (27%) aged 11-15 miss or have difficulties at school due to their caring responsibilities
• One in three young carers said that their caring role makes them feel stressed.
• To claim Carer’s Allowance the customer has to be aged 16 or over. There are 60 under 18 year olds in Essex and 23 in Suffolk that were entitled to Carer’s Allowance in Q4 of 21/22.

Guidance for implementing ‘All our health’ on childhood obesity highlights the potential harms children can experience:

The guidance recommends best practice for health professionals:

• Recognise obesity is complex with many drivers including
  behaviour, environment, genetics and culture
• Understand the activities and interventions that can support
  individuals and families to achieve and maintain a healthier
  weight
• Be mindful of weight bias, and use neutral, non-blaming,
  factual language when discussing weight with families
• Think about how professionals can role model healthy
  behaviours
• Promote and support healthy home environments to
  families

Care leavers

In 20/21 The percentage of care leavers aged 19, 20 or 21  in suitable accommodation was 91% in Essex, 87% in Suffolk

The percentage of care leavers that were NEET for Suffolk was 28% and 36% in Essex

Low Income Households

Suffolk HealthWatch research found:

30% of children and young people receiving free school meals reported that they had experienced a mental health difficulty but not sought support. They were amongst the most likely to indicate this.

LGBTQ+

Suffolk Healthwatch research found:

Young people who preferred to describe their gender in another way were much more likely to be vulnerable to self-harm, than either male or female students.

LGBTQ+ young people tended to experience poorer wellbeing than their peers. They were also more likely to report self-harm, lower self-esteem, and poor outcomes against many other measures.

The lowest wellbeing scores were reported by those who identified their gender in another way (not male or female) and those who recorded their sexuality as gay female/lesbian

over 75% respondents reported low resilience (perceived ability to recover from stress)

41% were at risk of social isolation

Looked after children may be living with foster parents, in a residential children’s home or living in residential settings like schools or secure units.

A child stops being looked after when they are adopted, return home or turn 18. There is a requirement for Local Authorities to required to support children leaving care at 18 until they are at least 21

Certain groups of children are more likely to be in care than others – more males and more who are black or of mixed ethnicity

The majority of looked after children are in care because of abuse or neglect – 63% of looked after children were looked after due to abuse or neglect in 2018/19, 14% family dysfunction, 8% family in acute stress, 3% child’s disability and 3% parent’s illness or disability, and 1% socially unacceptable behaviour

Almost a third of children leave care to return to their family – 18 % Move into independent/supported living arrangement, 17 % go into the care of former foster/kinship carers and 12% are adopted

In 2020/21 there were 1079 looked after children in Essex (34 per 10,000 population) and 947 in Suffolk (62 per 10,000 population)

Children in care and those leaving care face a variety of poorer outcomes compared to their peers

These outcomes follow children to adult life – e.g. almost 25% of the adult prison population has previously been in care, and children who have been in care reoffend at roughly twice the rate of children who have never been  looked after

The majority of LAC experience more positive outcomes than they would have if there were not taken into care

Become Charity’s report Sky’s The Limit co-produced a toolbox for life that care experienced young people said they need:

• The measuring tape of risk – To find out where on the scale you sit and how risky a situation might be on the tape.
• The prioritisation multi-tool – Buy a few of these multitools and replace them as your priorities change.
• The relationship screwdriver – When you screw it in, you screw the screw really tight and it makes that connection strong. It’s also about what screw end you need in order to screw it in as well as you can. Be able to change or adapt or know what you need in order to be able to screw it in as tight as possible.
• The self-worth weight – If you have good self-worth, you’re not gonna end up lowering what you’re worth for others.
• The torch of optimism – Keeping optimistic, looking ahead, fighting through
• The red tape scissors – Cut all the red-tape, bureaucracy and challenges and cut through.
• The Swiss army knife of boundaries – The Swiss army knife gives you different ones for
  different things, for different people. Learning your boundaries and keeping them is one
  of the most important tools you could have in your kit.
• Picture hooks of memories – A set of picture hooks so you can hang up your picture
  and remember the good bits and the things you want to remember, learn from or
  reflect on.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation’s 2019/2020 annual report of inspections of youth offending services found:

• A very small proportion of young people enter the youth justice system – less than 1% of 10-17 year olds.
• However violent offences make up 50% of proven offences, most against other young people but also against adults eg older boys’ violence towards single mothers, which worsened during the pandemic.
• Youth Offending Teams’ approach is ‘child first, offender second’, but the safety of
  others is an issue – many young offenders pose a risk to others – 85% of children
  sentenced to a court order
  were assessed as presenting some form of risk to others, and 29% were
  considered to present a high or very high risk of harm.
• Reoffending rates are falling but remain high, at 38.5% in 2019.

Ethnic minority young people are over-represented – 50% of
those in youth custody were from minority ethnicities despite
making up only 18% of the youth population

Office of National Statistics data shows in the year to March 2022:

• 9% more potential child victims referred compared with the previous year (from 5,028 to 5,468)
• Of the decisions that there were reasonable ground the child was a victim, boys were most likely to have been criminally exploited (62%) while girls were most likely to have been sexually exploited (42%)
• Over four-fifths (82%) of children who received a positive RGD were aged 15 to 17 years
• 27% (to 3,239) more modern slavery offences involving a child victim recorded by the police in England and Wales.

Child sexual exploitation: coercion into sexual activity using the vulnerability of youth. Impacts can include:

• low self esteem, worthlessness, and fears about being believed or judged
• misplaced loyalty to the offender
• threats to the young person or their family, or placing other young people in the family at risk

Criminal exploitation: where a child is manipulated or coerced into criminal activity for the benefit of an abusive adult or peer. Risks to a child or young person, and their family and friends, as a result of experiencing criminal exploitation can include:

• Debt bondage
• Neglect, basic needs not being met, being placed in unclean, dangerous environments by exploiters
• Tiredness and sleep deprivation, where activities must be carried out over long periods and overnight

Both can lead to missing education, criminal records, and long term trauma, physical or mental health problems. (PACE)

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