Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights: extract about my Staying Close proposals in my recent review of residential care for children in England

1. 47. The Government also points out that, since the Bill was introduced, its
provisions relating to care leavers have been welcomed by Sir Martin Narey in
his review of children in residential care. The Government has also accepted his
recommendation that further work be done to explore “Staying Close” options
which would allow care leavers to remain close and in touch with their former
care home, to complement the “Staying Put” provision in the Children and
Families Act 2014 which allows care leavers in foster care to remain with their
carers up to the age of 21.
48. The Government’s “Staying Put” initiative was a welcome recognition of the
need to do more for care leavers when they reached the age of 18, by enabling
young adults to remain in their foster home, where they wished to do so.
However, the arrangements did not apply to those in residential care (children’s
homes) as opposed to foster care. Sir Martin Narey’s Report recommends that,
subject to some satisfactory pilots, the Government now commit to introducing
“Staying Close” for those leaving residential care, which would enable those
reaching the age of 18 to live independently, in their own flat, but very close to
the residential home that they have left. The Narey Report explains the
compelling justification for enabling care leavers to “stay close” to the residential
care setting that they leave at the age of 18:
We cannot allow young people, often just weeks from childhood, to be left to
navigate life on their own. And nor should we sit by and allow them to drift
home when that is patently not in their interests. When visiting homes, and
when talking to staff and to care leavers, I was frequently struck by the
resigned approach to a child becoming eighteen and the probability of that
child gravitating to their parental home, despite that home having been at
the centre of their earlier neglect. But that happens because–from the
young person’s point of view–there is often little alternative. Staying Close
would provide that alternative.
Children reaching adulthood and living in children’s homes are relatively
small in number. But they are the most profoundly challenged,
disadvantaged and often damaged children in the country. Offering them
continued care and support alongside a growing independence, and in a
way comparable to that experienced by eighteen year olds when they leave
home for University, would be dramatically to improve their life chances.
49. We welcome the Government’s recognition of the need to do more to
facilitate contact between care leavers and their former carers, and its
acceptance of the recommendation that care leavers should be enabled to stay
close to the residential home that they have left. The Staying Put initiative for
children in foster care required statutory provision to be made in the Children
and Families Act 2014. We recommend that the Government bring forward an
amendment to the Bill to pave the way to the implementation of the
recommendation it has accepted in Sir Martin Narey’s report, that would enable
residential care leavers to remain close and in touch with their former care
home.