Prioritising our Cared Experienced Children
To be moved by Councillor Teresa Pepper and seconded by
Councillor Jim Cammell.
This Council Believes:
We as members of this council, together with officers and partner agencies, have responsibility for our cared for children as Community Parents. These children may have had adverse experiences in their lives. They will have faced difficult challenges. Care Experienced people often experience discrimination and stigma across housing, health, education, relationships, employment, and in the criminal justice system.
It is our responsibility to do for them the things that good parents would do. To provide the best possible care that we can. To keep them safe. To help them grow and prosper. To be the best they can be. To fulfil their dreams. The things that we want for all children.
When our children legally become adults at 18 they continue to need our support and guidance as they navigate their way to the next stage of their lives. They seek our advice regularly and rely on our life experience to help them.
When our Cared for children reach the same milestone, it is reasonable for them to expect that our support and guidance as community parents also continues.
Most will start their journey into independent living, and some will remain in their placements. They will all need our community parental support as they make that transition into adulthood.
This Council Notes:
We already do a great deal in Salford to offer the best level of support that we can to our Care Leavers.
? All of our Care Leavers are exempt from Council Tax until they are 25
? All of our Care Leavers have Band 1 priority on our housing register
? All of our Care leavers have free prescriptions until they are 25
? We have zero intentionally homeless decisions for our Care Leavers
? We encourage “staying put” so that young people can remain with Foster Carers and 36 of our Care Leavers are subject to such arrangements (November 2022)
? Our in house “Next Steps” team offer guidance and support as young people make their journey into adulthood
? Our support continues post 25 for any care leaver who needs our help
We need to be continually challenging ourselves to do more. It is the ambition of this council in everything that we do, in all of our departments and in the policies that we set, to consider the impact on Cared for Children, Care Leavers and Care Experienced Young People and to prioritise their needs.
We want to make sure that we are responsible and caring parents who give our children the best possible opportunity to succeed in their lives and be the best they can be
This Council Resolves:
That it will call on the City Mayor in consultation with the Cabinet Team to include the consideration of “Cared for Children” and “Care Experienced Young People” in all of our Equality Impact Assessments, alongside those protected characteristics as set out in Equality Act 2010, and consideration of socio-economic disadvantage which the city council adopted in November 2021. This will give them the formal recognition to ensure that in all the decisions that we make and in all of the policies that we set, will consider their specific needs and the impacts on them.