Support omitted for children in care with disabilities
Experts from Coram Voice have discovered councils data on care experienced children with disabilities is inaccurate, signalling thousands could be missing out on vital support.
Disability, Disparity and Demand, is the title of the new report published this morning by Coram Voice – a leading children’s rights organisation. The pages are injected with austere findings about how children in care or young care leavers are not receiving the support they need for their disabilities. For example, experts discovered, through freedom of information requests, that councils across England recorded 13% of care leavers as having a disability, but 27% of young people who have left their care homes self-reported having a disability or long-term health condition.
Reasons for such disparities could come from disagreements. Researchers found that in some areas only 3% of children in care are recorded as having a disability, while in others, it’s 32%. The difference is even more stark for care leavers – 1% to 36%.
The reasons for why this is such a concern are endless, though the report touches on a few examples. According to the findings, more young people are claiming they have a disability or long-term health condition, rising from 22% in 2017 to 32% in 2023.
In addition, professionals were found to give support for physical disabilities or learning problems – where it’s clear an individual obviously needs help. However, some said they weren’t as confident about understanding ‘invisible illnesses’ such as Autism and ADHD.
Against this backdrop, young care leavers were asked to write down what they thought a disability was and the answers were populated by a range of mental health problems including, ‘eating disorder’, ‘depression’, ‘PTSD’ and ‘anxiety’. However, these are not included in the ‘disability codes’ used by councils.
Image credit: Coram Voice.
With these findings in mind, Coram Voice is calling for a number of recommendations to be made:
- Better data and understanding: Councils and central government must collect better information about disabilities in children in care and care leavers.
- Improved policies and services: Facilities should be more inclusive and ready to help disabled care experienced children, even those who might not meet the ‘criteria’ for support.
The latter point is vital as the research outlined that young people were put off from getting a diagnosis for their disability as a result of the negative stigma that comes with it.
Dr Claire Baker, senior practice advisor at Coram Voice, said: ‘To make sure disabled children in care and care leavers get their rights, we need to know who they are and how they’re doing. Without good data, we can’t create services that meet their needs.’
‘Our research shows a big gap in the numbers recorded by local authorities. We’re also missing young people’s voices,’ Dr Baker continued. ‘No matter how we measure disability, a large number of children in care and care leavers are affected, but we don’t know enough about how they’re doing. We need better data and to be more curious about disabilities when working with care-experienced young people.’
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