We spoke to Katherine Sacks-Jones, the Chief Executive of Become, a charity for care leavers and children in care; and Vava Tampa who is a frontline social worker and chair of the British Association of Social Workers.
Supporting early years providers to keep nurseries open and costs down for parents as inflation reaches a record high “needs to be at the heart of our political agenda”, the National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) has warned.
Charities push for Staying Put Derren Hayes Tuesday, January 5, 2021
Better funding and tackling bureaucracy are needed to help more over-18s stay with their foster carer.
Young people in Staying Put placements are “twice as likely to go to university compared with all care leavers. Picture: Shutterstock Register now to continue reading Thank you for visiting
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Number of looked-after children continuing to rise on eve of Covid
Latest figures show 2% rise from 2019-20 in care population, taking it to over 80,000 in England, amid sharpened focus on systemic pressures and growing clamour for government care review
Photo: Detailblick-Foto/Fotolia
The number of looked-after children in England was continuing its year-on-year rise on the eve of the Covid-19 pandemic, Department for Education figures show.
The number of children in care reached 80,080 in March 2020 – up 2% on the previous year – with the rate of looked-after children rising to 67 per 10,000 children – up from 64 in 2018 and 60 in 2015, the DfE figures showed.
However, for the third consecutive year, the number of children starting to be looked-after during the year fell, with 30,970 entering the system in 2019-20, down 3% from the 31,770 in 2018-19 and a peak of 32,940 in 2016-17. Andy Elvin, chief executive of fostering and adoption provider TACT, said this suggeste