Leaving Care: Throughcare and Aftercare in Scotland

Abstract

Leaving Care: Throughcare and Aftercare in Scotland by Jo Dixon and Mike Stein , London : Jessica Kingsley , 2005 . ISBN 1843102021 , 191 pp , £19.99 (pb) Around 11 400 children and young people are ‘looked after’ in care in Scotland, and there are around 2000 Scottish care leavers. Whilst other young people in Scotland remain dependent on their families until well into their twenties, for care leavers their journey to adulthood can start, often abruptly, at just 16 or 17. Throughcare and Aftercare in Scotland draws on a 2-year research study (1999–2001), looking at the support for young people leaving care primarily under the Children (Scotland) Act 1995, which came into force in April 1997. Thirty-one out of Scotland's 32 local authorities took part in the initial stage of research. In the second stage, three in-depth case studies examined support available from the perspective of institutions and over a hundred young people. The book is well structured. Services are examined first from the local authority's perspective and then backed up (or not) by testimonies from care leavers. There is quantitative data from the research questionnaire, which provides statistical backup throughout. Throughcare and Aftercare in Scotland paints a picture of patchy support from local authorities, with limited success but still an overwhelmingly bleak picture. There is some positive evidence of interagency working with local authorities, especially around housing issues, but interagency co-operation remains worryingly low in areas such as health, education and training. Many local authorities were not meeting their legal obligations, and 38% of the young people surveyed had had no contact with support workers at any point during the research. Setting-up-home allowances ranged from £300 to £1700, and two in five young people in the study said they had had no choice about the time when they left care. Other gaps in throughcare support were identified, including budgeting and help with building self-esteem and confidence. The lives of care leavers in Scotland outlined throughout the book are unfortunately all too familiar to those working with looked-after children and care leavers elsewhere in the UK. More than two-thirds had been excluded from school; 95% left school at the end of compulsory education; and 61% of the care leavers in the study were not in education, training or employment. The penultimate chapter looks more optimistically at what makes a difference. It is the chapter of perhaps most interest to policy makers and service providers and builds on the follow-up study, looking at what enabled young people to make a successful transition from care. Interesting findings included: a strong link between truancy and generally more troubled lives; a correlation between the number of placement moves and educational achievement and also between placement moves and school exclusion; considerable evidence of a strong relationship between preparation and young people being able to cope in some areas – domestic tasks and lifestyle being the most important; a link between poor life skills and problems with offending, and also links between substance abuse and poor life skills; very strong links between poor social networks and unemployment, with all but one of those with poor social networks being unemployed; and 86% of those with poor social networks said that they felt unhappy some or most of the time. This chapter concludes with testimonies from young people with their advice to other care leavers in the light of their own experience. This includes encouraging care leavers to take the help and support offered, stay out of trouble, get education and not leave care too soon. Given the latter advice, it is a sad reflection that the average age for young people leaving care in the study was 16 and around one in five left care aged just 15. Another Scottish study (Furlong et al., 2003) showed that for young people generally, 94% of males and 88% of females were still living in the parental home at 18. Throughcare and Aftercare in Scotland is a useful reminder of the role of throughcare and aftercare services in intervening, as most parents would, to help facilitate positive outcomes for young people leaving care.