Children and Families Bill Public Reading: Additional Comments

Part 1: Adoption and children looked after by local authorities..
Please give more thought and rights to the grand parents. Even if they are pensioners.
The child would receive love and care along with a happier family enviroment.

I have been following this bill with interest because my husband is currently undergoing a terrible experience with his ex-wife refusing to allow him to see his children just because she can. She is constantly throwing the 'legally I have all the rights' claim in his face and threatening to go to court because she knows that the courts are biased in her favour from the outset. This is not a good situation at all and has long been in need of change.

I am not happy with the clause that emphasizes the importance of both parents' being involved in the children's lives simply because it doesn't change anything. The clause seems to be a superficial attempt to make a very tiny step in the right direction, but the clause as it stands doesn't carry enough weight to impact the court system and it certainly doesn't level the playing field so that both parents begin at the same point.

I feel that it is rather perverse to be worried that a more aggressive shared parenting clause would somehow result in parent's rights of access over-shadowing what is best for a child. It seems to me that the default assumption about children should always be that both parents should be equally involved in their lives unless proven otherwise. I think you would have fewer couples going to court to get court orders if they knew beforehand that equal parenting was the assumption and that other arrangements were the exception.

1. Ethnicity includes religion, language, culture and ‘race’. The removal of the clause means Adopters will have the right to promote, develop and nurture the child according to their faith and culture. For example, in terms of religion, it means Muslim adoptive families (the number of which are greater than the number of Muslim children in the public care system) will be able to adopt a Catholic, Jewish, Christian child or one without a faith and bring them up in the Islamic way of life. This is not necessarily a problem, but is this what the Government, children, birth families and faith groups want?
2. The rights of the child to their birth identities will be superseded by the Adopters’ rights. Most children (both ‘black’ and ‘white’) in the public care system have lost their birth families, their contacts with their extended families and communities so the removal of ethnicity will add to their losses. And, the rights of birth families to express their views in terms of faith and culture will be superseded by the rights of adopters.
3. Black Minority Ethnic children are not a homogenous group – Asian children are underrepresented; black children and those of mixed ethnicities are overrepresented.
4. The striking out of ethnicity is not a solution to the problem facing black boys and to some extent black girls. They have been waiting for 40 years for adoptive families without much success – that is because both ‘white’ and ‘black’ families do NOT want them! We need another solution to the situation facing black boys waiting for families in England.
5. In the USA it is illegal to consider ‘race’ in the placement of African-American boys (it is okay to consider ‘race’ in terms of the placement of Native American Indian children and those in inter-country adoptive placements). However, the Evans Donaldson Adoption Institution Report on the review of the Multiethnic Laws in America show that they have not worked – no ‘white’ or ‘black’ families have come forward to adopt black boys! The Report recommendations instead include ALL the principles which are currently embodied in the Adoption and Children Act 2002 in England! The Government appears to have not noticed these recommendations.
6. Mixed ethnicity children are overrepresented in the care system but they are being adopted! See the analytical data presented by Ravinder Barn and Derek Kirton (send via earlier email)
7. Transracial adoptive (and indeed foster) placements are happening in England! But this information is gleaned through anecdotal information. The Government does not collect statistical information on transracial and transcultural adoptive placements in England.
8. More financial incentives are need to promote the recruitment of black, Asian and mixed ethnicity adoptive families

Re the definitions of SEN in Articles 20 and 21:
As the mother of a very young girl with Type 1 Diabetes, I have been fortunate in gaining the highest level of support for her (full-time and 1:1) in school, via the present SEN system. However, precisely because of this, I have received literally dozens of requests in recent months for informal help with SEN applications from other parents whose children have this or other similarly life-threatening medical conditions that require intensive MEDICAL support during school hours but where the children are performing as well as their peers in terms of simple educational attainment. From this experience, I know that the present system -- which the definitional article of this Bill leaves sadly unchanged -- is failing children and forcing some parents to home school just in order to keep their kids safe. It is a shameful postcode lottery and also dependent upon the parents' own abilities/resources to make their cases on paper and in court. Wording such as that in Article 20(2)(b) about "making use of facilities" evokes images of unramped stairs, but entirely fails to envisage these cases where the issue is the inability to attend school for even one day if essential medical support is lacking.
The model in health care, at least in diabetes care, seems to be to give increasing control to parents as the real experts in their child's daily needs, encouraging them to manage the condition intensively so that their child (and the State) will be saved from the costs and suffering of long-term complications; such intensive treatment regimes cannot stop at school gates. I therefore strongly urge the Government to reconsider the exclusion of needs that are first and foremost 'health' needs, affecting overall access to education, from the drafted definition of SEN, and to thereby make this Bill as holistic and inclusive as its title promises.

For a robust bill consideration should be given to ensuring all schools are measured in outcomes for children with health conditions. I would like to see all schools with a 'medications in school' policy that is regularly updated. I also feel strongly about appropriate training and support for school staff on medical needs of students. Regular training from a qualified NHS professional should be a statutory requirement.

General comments and comments on things which, in my opinion, ought to have been included in the Bill:

I think that this Bill generally represents a step in the right direction, but also ought to take the opportunity to address more general issues and anomalies in education law, some of which disproportionately affect young people with special educational needs, as follows:

1) Sixth-form colleges receiving less funding per head than school sixth-forms;

2) Low-income students at sixth-form colleges being denied the free school meals they would get if they were pupils at school sixth-forms;

3) Non-maintained special schools being disadvantaged relative to maintained special schools in terms of school choice, and also, uniquely for state schools, being exempted from the Freedom of Information Act. This particularly, indeed exclusively, affects pupils with special educational needs;

4) The broader denial of rights to mature young people in education relative to rights in all other areas of law, and the lack of consistency, in, for example, allowing state sixth-form pupils to withdraw themselves from collective worship, but not from religious education;

5) The anomalous and confused position of pupils over eighteen in education law, who are denied autonomy and rights in many respects despite being considered as adults of full age and capacity in all other areas of law. This particularly affects young adults with special educational needs, who , as a result of their needs, may be more likely to ‘repeat’, or otherwise take an extra year in the course of their studies, and consequently remain in a school or sixth-form college after the age of eighteen;

6)Education should be about teaching young people how to think, not what to think, and, with this in mind, I must express concern about the growing educational segregation of children and young people in “faith” schools based on the wishes and beliefs of their parents.

I think a vital part is missing from the Children and Families Bill. There is a gap in information to help children with medical needs, serious medical needs where potentially if not thought about now or dealt with, then there could be serious consequences. My daughter had Type 1 diabetes and this is a condition that needs to be thought about constantly. No child should have to spend their time at school thinking about a medical condition as this will impact upon their education and given that it is such a hard condition to manage no child can do it without complete support or help from adults.
This bill is a perfect opportunity to get this right and to introduce a law to protect my daughter and thousands of other children.

I feel these are some of the most important points :-

1. It should be compulsory for schools to write and implement medical conditions policies.

2. Within initial teacher training there should be time given to explain medical conditions and once qualified there should be regular updates provided to ensure that children are given appropriate care in school.

3. OFSTED or any other school inspections should include judgements on how children with medical conditions are supported and what the outcomes of those children will have. This should be part of the well-being indicators. Surely this is part of a schools’ safeguarding remit.

There is currently nothing to safeguard these children and it is vital that this is corrected. Many children with additional medical needs are excluded from PE or school excursions, and this has a massive impact on their ability to make friendships and to fit in with their peers. Thousands of parents have had to give up their job or reduce hours to make the trip into school to inject insulin or give other medication. This should not be acceptable in the year 2013. I hope that when thinking about this bill you will reflect on the needs of my daughter and other children with additional medical needs and find a way to ensure they are fully supported within the school system.

Thank you .

Our family has a child with severe food allergies. We feel that the Children and Families bill should be strengthened so that it should not be voluntary to help such children and that schools should be REQUIRED to produce and implement medical conditions policies.
In addition, OFSTED should need to look at the experience of such children and their acheivments as part of their inspection on a school. I am a teacher, but have had no first aid training for this role, let alone training specific to the medical needs of the children I currently teach. It is only common sense that all school staff SHOULD receive appropriate training and support. NHS bodies and local authorities should have a statutory requirement to help schools fulfil their responsibilities.

Please could you address the standard of care required to be given by Schools to children with medical needs. At present it is not compulsory for schools to 'take on' medical needs of a child, how can this not be discrimination? Children that are worried about their care and safety at school? Parents that need to attend the school every day to administer life dependent medication? Ignorance and discrimination shown by staff to these pupils? Exclusion from activities and holidays (unless parent present? etc. How can this be right? How can this be fair?