Keeping The Promise to all our children, young people, adults and families

A good childhood

We want you to feel loved, safe and respected and have the opportunity to be the best you can be

We want all children and young people to have the best possible experience of life with love, support and the opportunity to be their best self.

Not every family can be supported to stay together, especially if the children are not safe at home. Sometimes children have to be taken into care.

If you are in care

We want to make sure that every child who does enter care has the support and love that they need

We will:

• Work hard to keep families together wherever it is safe to do so but where this is not possible we want to make sure that care services are built around the needs of the children and the family
• Improve the language we use – and the attitudes and behaviours this creates – to make sure we remove the stigma and discrimination that is felt from being in care
• Work with children and young people who are or have been in care to explain what this means and improve the language that we use
• Support brothers and sisters to be a part of each other's lives and we will continue to work with councils to help do this
• Provide support to parents whose children have been taken into care
• Make sure that your voice is heard and to help do this we will work to develop national advocacy services for people and families with care experience
• Continue to protect all children with care experience wherever they live from violence through the safeguard of equal protection legislation
• Stop young people aged 16-17 years old from going to Young Offenders Institutions
• Raise the age that you can go to the children's hearing system up to 18 for all who need it
• Continue to ensure that the use of restraint must be an absolute last resort where it is necessary and should always be pain free

Brothers & Sisters

It is the law that local authorities must help care experienced infants, children and young people to be together with their brothers and sisters. This includes listening to the views of the child's brothers and sisters before making any decisions about their care, and where it is safe to live together they should do or as near to each other as possible

When you leave care

We know that when you grow up you might need some extra support when you become an adult, especially if you don't have family and money to help you.

We will:

• Provide money to help care experienced people aged 16-25 years old through a new grant called the Care Experience Grant
• Help care experienced people aged 16-24 years to a job or further learning when they leave school through the Young Persons Guarantee
• Continue to ensure young people with care experience have access to housing