A RECENT council scrutiny committee saw the council extolling the virtues of a ‘team around the child’, in reference to supporting vulnerable children.
It’s obviously crucial that all organisations working with children are 100 per cent committed to child wellbeing, be they schools, GPs, Scouts, Guides, the Police, youth clubs or any other organisation.
But what ruling Lib Dem and Green councillors cannot avoid is the need for the council to lead in this work. Unless it does, numbers in care will continue to rise as problems with vulnerable children are not tackled early enough (York care system sees ‘too many children taken into care’, January 10).
The reality is despite the best efforts of staff on the frontline, Ofsted’s judgment is that services in York are failing at-risk children.
Part of the reason for this is lack of money in the service, and the council needs to be up front about this. Instead, what we hear are terms like ‘more for less’. For years employing this kind of terminology hasn’t changed anything. Staff on the frontline know what the problem is: there aren’t enough of them.
Family centres gone, children’s centres largely gone, early help work being scaled back. With this and over a decade of austerity, little wonder the number of children going into care is increasing.
Cllr Bob Webb (Labour),
Garden Street, York
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