Social Care Leaders Welcome Action Plan For Excluded Young People And Families

Directors of care services fully support the government’s drive to provide more preventive services for young people and their families and to nip in the bud more harmful behaviours that might otherwise develop later on. The only concern Association of Directors of Social Services (ADSS) Children and Families Committee co-chair Paul Fallon expressed was over the dangers of stigmatising all children in council care or young parents.

“We know the government will try to avoid this,” he said, “but it is important to remember that many children from so-called `problem families’ do well at school and university, hold down extremely responsible jobs and live happy and fulfilling lives. We are sure Ministers will avoid the dangers of labelling everyone a failure in the four groups of social excluded people they have identified.”

Elsewhere he was full of praise for Cabinet Office Secretary of State Hillary Armstrong’s commitment to people with multiple disadvantages and her acknowledgement that there could be no simple, quick fixes in policy or practical terms. Persistence, at national and local level, is what is required, he said.

“It is good to see the government, despite a packed political and policy agenda, concentrating anew on this 2 – 2.5 per cent of the population with whom care directors have been working for many years,” he said.