The every child matters scheme was set due to several past failings in the ability to help children in their time of need and when they are in such vulnerable circumstances.
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the proposal of every child matters sets out in reforming the delivery of services which young children receive and their families. It builds on the existing measures which are already put in place to guarantee that we protect children from harm and neglect, which will give them also the opportunity to live life to the full and live to their potential.
The ‘every child matters’ scheme was set due to several past failings in the ability to help children in their time of need and when they are in such vulnerable circumstances. The first was the death of a young girl named Victoria Climbie who over a period of ten months on twelve occasions opportunities were not taken to save a Childs life. This death caused there to be uproar of dissatisfaction with the failing of the social services, the police and the NHS. Lord Lamings which were to be done were not done to a satisfactory level.
There were also the cases of the deaths of Maria Colwell and Jasmine Beckford, also more recently Lauren wright and ainlee Walker which all appeared to have striking similarities within their cases, and caused a show on long standing problems with the system, which caused a failure to intervene sooner within families. These faults included:
- A failure to share information
- The absence of anyone with strong sense of accountability
- Poor management
- A lack of effective training
- Frontline workers trying to cope with staff vacancies
The tragic storied of these young and vulnerable children who have been failed by the authorities to be protected from harm and neglect is the consequences of the arising problems with organisation. But the problems of children going unseen and falling through the cracks in the system, between the different services. Children may be experiencing issues difficulties when they are within their homes or when they are in school and receive help when it is too late. Therefore children need to be protected via a framework of universal services to support children and reduce and negative outcomes which could occur.
The aim of every child matters has the aim to ensure that every child is able to fulfil their potential, in that they will reduce the amount of:
- Educational failure
- Reduce ill health
- Reduce substance abuse
- Reduce teenage pregnancy
- Abuse and neglect
- Crime and anti-social behaviour among children and young people
The five outcomes of the every child matters include:
- Being healthy - whereby children are able to enjoy good physical and mental health and also living healthy lifestyles
- Staying safe - to ensure children are being protected for harm and neglect
- Enjoying and achieving - the every child matters scheme enables children to get the most out of life and help them to develop the skills for adulthood
- Making a positive contribution - the organisation will be involved within the community, whereby they will aim to try to distil individuals away from disruptive, anti-social or offending behaviour
- Economic well being - the organisation will aim to prevent children from not being able to achieve their potential die to economic disadvantage
The government will raise standards through a number of ways, including through sure start, which will raise the standards within schools and make progress with eradication child poverty. This scheme, called sure start, gives many families the opportunity to receive support in the crucial early years of children’s lives. Which will provide early education also integrated with health and family support services. This service runs from 8:00am to 6:00pm on a daily basis and gives childcare to those who are in need of extra help and support. The combination of services that centres provide for young children and families contributes to the every child matters outcomes by:
- Improving health outcomes for children and families
- Reducing crime rates
- Reducing child poverty
- Enabling parents to study and work
- Helping lone parents to access work and training opportunities
The children centre of the sure start scheme is being expanded and there will be up to 3500 across the country by 2010. Centres will be established to service all the most disadvantaged areas with link to local childminder networks and jobcentre plus, which will reduce the stress of all parents related. There is a ten-year strategy put in place which recommends that more co-located and accessible services be et up, and children’s trusts given the ability to develop children’s centres in response to local demand outside of priority government funding.
Effect of national policy and legislation on care practise and provision
Every child matters legislation has many impacts on their many stake holders and the service users who use the services to improve their lifestyles. This legislation can have both negative and positive impacts, for example, the cost of services and the pressures of individuals to do their jobs correctly, in order to create the best possible opportunity for the children involved.
Effects on service users
As previously mentioned in the background of the every child matters legislation the green paper has identified that the 5 main aims and the hopeful outcomes which are important to both children and young people. Those 5 outcomes include:
- Be healthy - this outcomes aims to make sure that every child is able to live and work in a healthy environment. Every institute which has the role of being responsible for children has to implement the every child matter legislation. One example of this is schools, with the recent campaign by famous chef Jamie Oliver, schools now by law are not allowed to sell junk foods which are high in additives and saturated fats, this is because many children within the united kingdom were not eating the correct diet and were increasingly becoming obese, which was both effective their fitness and their education due to not being able to concentrate because of the foot they were eating. This scheme which was created by chef Jamie Oliver was a took which educated children about what healthy is, meaning that they did not have to restrict themselves so simple fruit and vegetables but have all round foods, but in different proportions, and before the legislations for school canteens was passed a lot of work was done in classrooms across the county to educate the children about healthy living, diet being a main part of it. Schools now are only able to sell a baked cake to students at the school as a dessert and are required to also sell a main meal or a sandwich swell. This will obviously affect children and in the long run their fitness and their concentration levels at school, which should in turn help those required skills to gain opportunities in further life, and also form good habits which will enable them to stay healthy throughout life which will also reduce the risk of many health issues. This scheme which was initiated by Jamie Oliver will also affect the parents of the children. There was much media attention during the time at which his show was on television, which caused many parents to question their parenting techniques, but is also was an opportunity for the parents to get educated and gain knowledge on what they were doing wrong and also what they were doing right which for many parents would have gives them an extra boost at the thought of knowing that they were doing right by their children. As many of them will choose the give their children pack lunches, die to the recent healthy eating campaign it put strain upon the parents to make their children healthier, therefore it may have also caused them to question their ability to feed and protect their children properly. Another was in which it would have affected the parents of children is that some who are from less socio-economic backgrounds may not financially be able to feed their children with the best nutritious foods and therefore the healthy eating scheme would have loosened the strain to feed their children and instead the schools are able to provide the children with their one hot meal a day which contains the correct requirement necessary for healthy growth.
- Stay safe - this outcome aims to make clear the institutions that their main priority is to keep to children, to whom they are responsible for, safe. Therefore an example is that in any case where a teacher may suspect that a child is being harmed at school, whether it be poor attendance, unexplained bruises or marks on the skin, falling grades within schools there should be a meeting with the child, whereby they have an opportunity to speak with someone where it will be kept confidential, also the parents should be invited to a meeting whereby occurring problems should be discussed. This will affect the child in both the long term and the short term in that they will be aware that they have someone professional and reliable to talk to about any issues they have, without the worry of it getting back to carers or parents, which is good as they themselves will not at a young age be left to deal with dangerous situations which could affect their lives in the future. However, there are many times where individuals and social workers are unable to prove that there is any mistreatment occurring within homes and therefore due to the current amount of bureaucracy within the system, it can in some cases be too late to help protect a child, which is why the aim for the every child matters legislation is so important to many individuals today.
- Enjoy and achieve - children of a young age need to enjoy being a child and enjoy being able to achieve within school, and outside of school, whether it be at a football game or simply behaving well. This sadly is not available to many children, with the stressed of work and deprivation, many parents lack the empathy which is necessary for a child to develop properly, this aim and outcome can be seen to be put in action at ,any different organisations and institutions. One main organisation which clearly implements this is the Sure Start centres, which are available to everyone; parents and children under the age of 5. These sure start centres run many different services including nurseries, pre-schools, health visitors etc. These centres again will help to provide parents with the support which is needed in the early stages of a child’s development. Having young children is a very stressful process especially when one does not have the accessibility to everyday services, which is why sure start centres offers both paid and free services to those who are in needs therefore people in low socio-economic backgrounds are still able to offer their children with the opportunity to play with other children their own age, which will help them to develop socially. The service will also help the relationship between children and their parents in that they run courses educating parents on child development, safety equipment, behaviour management, stop smoking sessions etc. These will all help the opportunities’ for both the children and their parents.
- Make a positive contribution - This outcome aims to get children and young people to be involved within the community and society and prevent them from engaging in anti-social behaviour or offending behaviour. This aim is implemented in many school and youth centres, especially with the increase awareness of anti-bullying groups, who set out to help those who are being bullied and also the individuals who are doing the criminals and offensive activity. These kinds of workshops can help the child who is in need and help them to speak out when they are being brought to harm not only physically but mentally as well, as many people who go through the process of bullying do not speak out and further problems have arisen, recent media report can verify this information with the suicide of a young girl, who had been severely bullied for a long duration of time. Members of staff, on some occasions, have not taken the correct action and often see the bullying as children bickering, this thought process will therefore lead children to suffer in silence and cause further problems if the perpetrator is not punished or faced up to what they are capable of doing it their victim.
- Achieve economic well-being - This is the final outcome of the every child matters legislation, and aims to ensure that children are not prevented by economic disadvantages and are able to achieve their full potential in life. This process can be seen across the board in many different institutions as I have mentioned before, however again it is especially implemented within the education sector, whereby children are all given the same resources to work from, and everyone has the opportunity to eat well, for example within school, enable them to eat healthily, which should help them maintain concentration throughout their schooling day. Another way in which those who are at a disadvantage for financial reasons is that those who wish to attend college or sixth form at the age of 16 will be given the opportunity to apple for EMA which is a government funded service which gives individuals the opportunity to ear £20 a week which will help pay for transport and resources which will be necessary to be able to succeeds at further education and then again move towards university level of education.
