UK Joint Social Work Conference

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UK Joint Social Work Conference 9th July 2008
Christine SmartChildrens Rights Director -
Cafcass Dean Coe, Lois ONeill and Ylber
NezirajYoung Peoples Board Members - Cafcass
Presentation by Sarah Woodhead
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• Outline
• Why did we hold the event?
• What were the benefits to Cafcass?
• About the day
• The Report
• Quotes from the Participants
• The Findings

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• Why did we hold the event?
• Young Peoples Board investigation consideration
  
• An opportunity to address other key areas
  relating to health, with event structured to
• Find out young peoples opinions on health and
  healthcare provided
• Identify success in existing support and service
  provision
• Identify gaps and commission and provide services
  in the future
• Inform young people, improving understanding in
  key health and lifestyle area
• Final deliverable report
  highlighting findings

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• What was the benefit to Cafcass?
• See it from the young persons perspective
• To be better able to influence the care plans
  for a child in proceedings in future.
• To recognise the health issues that need to be
  addressed for children in care whilst planning
  for their future.
• To be better informed of the collaborative
  partnerships of those involved in the life of a
  child in care.
• An opportunity to listen to the needs, wishes
  and feelings of children in care.

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About the day When - Wednesday 20th February,
2008 Where - National Space Centre,
Leicester Who attended Young People aged
12-18, either in care or recent care leavers
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• About the day (contd)
• The Consultation was split into three parts
• Focus Groups to encourage discussion of issues
• Question Cards to record views and experiences
• Information Stations to provide leaflets and
  access to further sources of advice and guidance

• Topic Areas
• Smoking
• Alcohol
• Drugs
• Emotional and Mental Wellbeing

• Relationships and Sexual health
• General Health
• Healthy Eating

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• About the day (contd)
• The Question Cards
• One for each topic area
• Multiple choice / short written answers
• Hand in Question Cards at the Information tables

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The Report Following the event, all information
gathered from questionnaires and focus groups was
processed by an external consultant. In
collaboration with the Cafcass CR team, a final
report will be drawn. This report will be made
available to the services / carers who attended
the event prior to publication VIA the Cafcass
web-site in July. This will also be officially
published and distributed through ADCS and
other key partner agencies involved in the care
of looked after children.
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Respondents
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(No Transcript)
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The Findings The health and wellbeing day in
February 2008 at the National Space Centre
provided a tremendous opportunity to capture the
voices of looked after children and young
people The majority of them appear to be doing
well in many ways. The majority of them do not
smoke Peer pressure emerges in the research as
an important factor in people starting to smoke,
drink and take drugs. It appears to be especially
important for girls and young women
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Alcohol
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Table 4 Weekly Alcohol Consumption of
Respondents Who Drink  
Table 5 Age started alcohol consumption
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Table 6 Reasons for starting drinking  
some respondents gave more than 1 reason
therefore percentages do not add up to 100
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Issues for consideration
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Alcohol

• Over half young people in care drink alcohol and
  many started at a very young age
•  
• Nearly half the sample answered the questionnaire
  on whether alcohol affected their daily lives.
• Young people drink for many different reasons
• As a focus group participant said
•  
• People get drunk because their friends are
  doing it peer pressure.
•  

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Smoking
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Table 9 Reasons for Starting Smoking
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Issues for consideration

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Smoking

• Most respondents did not smoke
• Almost a third of young people were smoking
  between 11 and 20 cigarettes a week
• Most people started smoking while they were
  between 12 and 15 years of age
• As with alcohol, peer pressure was seen as an
  important factor in young people starting smoking
• One focus group member said, for instance
• Its all around you. If youre sitting in a
  park, someone gets out a cigyou want to do the
  same. You want to be in with the crew.
•  

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Drugs
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Table 11 Drug Use and Ethnicity  
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Issues for consideration

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Drugs

• The vast majority of young people - 89 per cent
  answering the questionnaire - said that they did
  not use drugs. 11 per cent, amounting to ten
  people, did use drugs.
•  
• Of the ten using drugs, six people started at
  between 12 and 15 years old. One started using
  drugs at less than 7 years old, another between 8
  and 11 years of age.  
• Some of the focus group attendees said that they
  were currently taking drugs of different kinds or
  had done in the past.
• Some knew dealers locally to where they live and
  perceive them to be making a lot of money. Some
  have had drug dealers in the family and parents
  who have been drug users.
• One said
•  
• My cousin, auntie, and uncle all smoke dope.

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Health and Wellbeing
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Table 13 Health and Young People in Care
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Table 14b Factors that would Improve the Health
of Young People

Respondents could tick yes to more than one
question and therefore percentages do not add up
to 100
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Table 17 Factors which help people in care eat
healthier
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The Findings Some of the information, advice and
support that should be made available should be
about eating healthily on a budget and how to
cook, what to cook, and how to make cooking an
enjoyable experience Groups where young people
who have been in care or are in care can get
together and support each other would be of great
benefit. This could be developed into a full
mentoring system, organised by Cafcass
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Issues for consideration
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General Health

• Many said that young people in general were not
  very healthy.
• A number of different reasons were given for
  this they ate unhealthily they smoked too much
  they drank too much alcohol and there was too
  much drug taking. In addition, they were
  overweight and took too little exercise because
  of the strength of the influence of computer
  games and similar machines.
• About 60 per cent of the sample responded to the
  questionnaire on how often they exercise,
  producing answers that seemed to contradict this
  view of the general health of young people.
• Half of those answering said they engage in
  exercise three to five times a week,
• 22 per cent exercising once or twice a week, and
  
• A further 19 per cent claiming an athletic
  exercise regime of six to seven times a week.
• One focus group participant, describing diet and
  lifestyle in families they were placed with,
  said, for example
•  
• In some families you get addicted to sweets
  and chocolate and dont realise you are
  putting on weight.

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Healthy Eating

• Young people seemed very knowledgeable about
  food and had remembered talks that had been given
  in school.
• They knew what healthy and unhealthy foods were.
  
• They said that they knew where to look on the
  packaging for ingredients, including e-numbers
  and they knew about the concept of eating 5 a
  day.
• Moreover, the focus group participants were also
  aware of the affects of unhealthy food,
  mentioning high blood pressure, high cholesterol,
  and risk of heart attack as possible
  consequences.
• Fast food is clearly a big part of the diet of
  young people
• Quite a high proportion of young people,
  however, are eating fruit and vegetables
• The questionnaire revealed that a third of the
  young people eat three or four portions of fruit
  or vegetables every day. Another third eat five
  portions of fruit or vegetables per day.
•  
• Some people in the focus groups said, however,
  that young people do not always have a choice
  about what they eat if they are in a foster home
  or a childrens residential home.

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Relationships and Sexual Health
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Table 22 Sexual health Worries of Young people
in Care
Respondents could select more than one option
therefore percentages do not add up to 100
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Table 24 Who Young people talk to for Sexual
health/Relationship Advice

Some respondents selected more than one answer
therefore figures do not add up to 100 per cent
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Table 25 How young people would advise others on
sexual health
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Table 26 Knowledge of issues relating to sexual
health

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Issues for consideration
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Relationships and Sexual Health

• Providing information on sexual health is
  crucial
• It is very clear from the focus group discussions
  that many of the young people found talking about
  sex embarrassing.
• Nonetheless, over 90 per cent answering the
  questionnaire said that they did know where to
  get information on sexual health..
• There was some debate about value of sex
  education in school, however, and clearly,
  getting sex education right is vital
• Presented with a range of options, which included
  getting pregnant, getting a sexually transmitted
  disease, girlfriend getting pregnant, and how
  their girlfriend/boyfriend treats them, getting a
  sexually transmitted disease was identified as
  the second biggest worry for young people, with
  pregnancy being the top.
• As one of the participants in the focus groups
  commented on sex education
•  
• If it was made in a way wed understand, that
  wed enjoyrelevant, interesting, if its not
  well forget about it.

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Emotional and Mental Wellbeing
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Table 28 Current Feelings 
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The Findings Throughout the research, it was
clear that many young people became angry and
upset if they were seen as a different breed.
They saw themselves as the same as anyone else
and being in care had no bearing on whether or
not they smoked, or took drugs, or drank
alcohol In another recurring theme, young
people thought that they would behave differently
if they were with their biological parents. Or it
might be a variation of this, such as their
parents would stop them smoking and they would
listen, but they do not listen to their carers,
because they are not the real parents.
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Issues for consideration
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Emotional and Mental Wellbeing

• The general view in the focus groups was that
  young people are happy, going to school and
  meeting up with their friends.
•  
• Sport made young people happy too, especially
  popular with the boys, naming it their top
  activity.
• Nevertheless, some overall themes did emerge. One
  was people listening and talking to young people.
  
• Something else that would make young people feel
  happier is social workers valuing them and
  treating them with respect, which many thought
  did not currently happen.
• Again, the issue of people in care being treated
  differently was raised as being something that
  causes distress. One focus group participant
  said
•  
• Being in care is a label. Everyone has to be
  police checked if they are to stay over. This
  makes life harder. Information about your care
  status is therefore disclosed. Young people
  are not happy about this.
•  

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Quotes from Participants
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Its about the way you are brought up as to
whether you drink alcoholits not just the care
system that failed me. If it is illegal, more
people want to do it. If you ask these
questions to someone not in care, you would
probably get the same answers. you are not
given support quickly enough by social workers.
Therefore, problems with alcohol get worse
because the support is not there.
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People in care are looked on as being different.
Its wrong. We get all this feedback about how
people in care are different from other people.
Someone from a perfect background might smoke 40
fags a day. A lot of young people dont want to
take drugs, but if everybody is taking drugs then
a young person will want to fit in. Youre not
any different from anybody thats not in
care. Telling you is not enough. Instead of
giving leaflets, having people speaking to you
may help.
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Conclusions
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• The findings of this research are important,
  capturing voices of young people on what their
  concerns are and issues facing them.
•  
• We know from the report that there are many good
  things to say about these young people.
• We knew that they are relatively happy despite
  facing what must have been difficult challenges
  in their young lives.
• We know that most of the them do not smoke, take
  drugs, or drink to excess.
• We also know that many of them eat fruit and
  vegetables and that a surprising number exercise
  regularly.
•  
• In addition, we also know that they are young
  people, like other young people, who face the
  normal developmental challenges of growing up.
  Where they are different is that they are not
  getting the right kind of support when they
  need it.

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• This emerges from all of our findings, which
  suggest that young people in care need
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• Someone to talk to who cares about them and can
  offer them guidance
• To know that they are being treated in the same
  way as other young
• people, that they are not different because of
  their background
• Help to overcome boredom and to find something to
  do and
• Help to resist peer pressure.
•  
• As with many young people in the general
  population, they start to smoke, drink and
  experiment with sex and drugs at an early age, so
  very young people need to be part of the target
  audience.

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• A number of factors have been identified that
  would help.
• Firstly, those who are responsible for providing
  care to children need specific training in how to
  provide support that helps young people to deal
  with the normal developmental challenges that
  they will face, without losing sight of the
  specialist issues that the young person has to
  deal with. Training is needed
• on how to deal with the issue of the young person
  in care feeling different from the rest of the
  family
• on recognising the importance of encouraging
  young people to take part in activities on how
  to decide which food are healthy and which are
  not
• on how to provide information on sex and sexual
  health and
• social workers would benefit from training in
  communicating their messages more effectively.
• Secondly, the idea of providing safe environments
  - places that are open and welcoming to all
  young people, where they can gather to
  socialise - would help in the fight against
  boredom.

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There is also much work to do. Listening to
the voices of young people, encapsulated in this
report, provides many pointers to the way
forward Professor Adrian L James Department of
Sociological Studies University of Sheffield
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Contact Details
Any comments or feedback to Christine Smart 0113
394 7493 / 07810 852560 Christine.smart_at_cafcass.go
v.uk Thank you for listening!