27/05/2008

Foster Care Boosted

Young foster children with emotional or psychological difficulties are to get extra support to stop them getting into trouble at school and help them settle in care placements, thanks to a £3.8 million pilot project announced today by Children's Minister Kevin Brennan.

Eight local authorities will get £400,000 each to set up a multi-agency team to help 7-11 year old foster children displaying early antisocial challenging behaviour, who have already had a number of care placements or interventions.

The Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care - Children pilots will involve multidisciplinary health and social care teams that combine high levels of supervision with intensive positive parenting training for foster parents.

They will encourage the child into positive recreational activities, greater involvement in school and break contact with other children who are a bad influence. Early intervention should make it possible to reduce the numbers of older looked after children with complex needs who require intensive services and very high cost placements.

Speaking at the Associate Parliamentary Group for Looked After Children and Care Leavers, Children’s Minister Kevin Brennan said: "Evidence shows that many young children who enter care are already showing signs of developmental delay, behavioural difficulties and are at great risk of long term poor outcomes. If we are to make this country the very best place in the world to be a child, we need to give our most vulnerable children the same opportunities as their peers. We must intervene early and put all the support they need in place."

The focus on younger looked after children who are presenting significant difficulties was announced in Care Matters and fits well with the Every Child Matters emphasis on early intervention and securing permanence and stability for children.

Each pilot site will get training in the new model, which was developed in the Oregon Social Learning Center in the United States of America, and be supported by a national training team, based in the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust and Booth Hall Children’s Hospital in Manchester.

The pilots follow on from successful four year MTFC programmes for adolescents and, more recently, for younger children aged three to six. Local authorities in all these pilots are at the forefront of developing evidence-based interventions for looked after children and young people with the most complex needs and challenging behaviour.

(BMcC)

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