Is this system operating on Fear or Care?
It is disappointing but not uncommon that a Local Authority has shared inaccurate information in a court arena about a provider. This highlights the serious need for providers to be made party to proceedings in Deprivation of Liberty hearings, something we have been calling for over recent years.
Great Minds Together have to regularly request to be made party to proceedings as we were acutely aware that some Local Authorities (not all) can share inaccurate information with the Judge, in order to deflect from the serious concerns surrounding their actions and inaction. Our requests are always denied, however some Judges allow for information to be made party to the proceedings.
Deprivation of Liberty hearings allow Local Authorities to have a platform with no challenge, to share information, sometimes to suit their own concerning agenda’s and many providers across the country are suffering from defamatory allegations due to the sharing of incorrect or out of context information. In a court relating to a crime, decisions can only be made based on factual evidence; however, not in the Court of Protection, or even the High Court – as decisions are made based on what is written only by a Social Worker, and is not fact checked.
The most serious impact of this is for the vulnerable children who are then moved wrongfully causing more trauma and attachment difficulties to add to many placement moves that have already happened as a result of knee jerk responses and a fear of regulators, over what is right for the child. In some cases, they are moved hundreds of miles away from their families due to Judge’s having sparse / incorrect and misinformation shared with them and subsequently making decisions that only cause further harm.
We have seen first-hand the distress this causes these children, when they could be making progress and are happy, they can’t understand how they can do so well only in their eyes to be punished. We, of course, can’t tell them it is because their social worker has been dishonest about the progress they have made, or that the concerning closed culture of some Local Authorities is impacting on decisions about their life and future.
As an organisation we are continuously campaigning for all children’s homes to be not-for-profit, or where this might not be achievable, for a significant percentage of their profit to be paid forward to support the sector that is currently drowning nationally, which is how we operate.
Great Minds Together pay forward surplus funds, and have supported thousands of families in the North of England for free who are suffering significantly due to the broken system they find themselves in.
High cost placements are not always reflective of what is covered by the amounts reported in inflammatory media coverage, as a large portion of this is Local Authority budget for various elements they should fund directly, however do so via independent organisations. A portion of these costs would normally sit on a Local Authority balance sheet.
Great Minds Together have created a specialist service that sits outside of the ‘norm’ and this is causing some professional anxiety for those who are used to working within a rigid system, and don’t like change or challenge. However, as an evidence based service we are demonstrating how working differently is achieving better outcomes for these children that the system has failed time and time again, and we are now making some progress in helping professionals understand that the current standard residential approach is just not meeting the needs of these children, similarly to the education system – where a large portion of these difficulties originate from.
Great Minds Together are not a care provider, we provide a Neurodiversity specialist Mental Health team of staff to carry out a therapeutic intervention for children and young people that have reached crisis point, as a result of being failed consistently by a system that cannot meet their needs. We have evidence of all the children we have supported making significant progress and a number of them being transitioned home positively to their families, some of which even work for us now. One of the young people we supported on our Thriving Futures (Tier 3.5) service speaks of her experience of our service as ‘saving her life’.
We continually raise concerns to certain Local Authorities about inaccurate information being shared that subsequently informs life changing decisions for these children. We work with some exceptional Local Authorities that work positively in partnership and clearly have the best interests of their children at the centre. We want to share this good practice with those not quite achieving this.
Unfortunately, we are working in a system where in order to obtain and sustain a skilled staffing team with the levels of resilience required to work at this level due to the damage caused to many neurodivergent children by poor and unsafe decisions being made by their corporate parent, the hourly rates to achieve this are extortionate. That coupled with the continuous and substantial increase in costs for organisations like ours to run. The social care system is completely depleted, with many opting to work in other sectors due to the effect on their own mental health as professionals.
The call for homes to be OFSTED registered needs to be more considered and understood. Providers are expected to work within a rigid regulatory framework that does not meet the needs of these complex young people. Although some Local Authorities can be difficult to work with, they are ultimately set up to fail as they are forced to place all children, no matter what their needs are, in a registered home, however this leads to registered provisions serving notice, a lot of the time within a matter of days due to them having to operate outside of their statement of purpose and the worry of how many notifiable incidents they are having to report, with many of them not having the trained staff to manage the needs and trauma based behaviours. Referral documents do not reflect a true picture and placement moves are requested based on vague and sometimes wholly inaccurate information, which is so unsafe and risks the lives of these children – many of whom are at risk of death by misadventure.
This is where the children end up being moved multiple times, causing more trauma on each end of placement, and more attachment difficulties, requiring more specialist support that just doesn’t exist in our country. This is why we have created a model that can support these children, their families and the professional networks around them, to work through their trauma and they respond so well to the therapeutic approach. However, despite this working positively for many children, Local Authorities are always more concerned about the child being in an unregistered provision as opposed to advocating for what is right for them and their wellbeing, in order to satisfy the pressure they are receiving from OFSTED.
This system is operating on fear not care.
Unregistered provisions are a problem, we agree, however they are also more regulated than a registered provision, with weekly visits from the Local Authority, constant quality assurance on staffing, policies and daily reporting as well as extreme scrutiny. However, a registered provision has only 6 weekly visits required as statutory, with OFSTED only visiting once in a year, sometimes less. Many registered children’s homes are not fit for purpose. Our service has supported a number of children coming out of registered provisions where they have been significantly abused. This is not the answer. The framework needs to change, what we are offering needs to change, the oppressive culture of some Local Authorities needs to change and Government officers need to start listening to those seeing this every day before making decisions to please the media pressure.
What we are trying to achieve as an organisation is the prevention of untrained staffing agencies being drafted in to support these children – sometimes in hotels, and on minimum wage where resilience levels of these staff quickly become unsafe. By creating a model for a purpose, providing a specialist team that can help repair Mental Health and transition these children on to a positive future which we have done many times – it works, however we need to work together not against each other, for the sake of these children. Local Authorities need providers, however the treatment of them is not in line with the work they do or the appreciation and regard they deserve. A focussed and specialist model of support is also much more cost effective for the system overall in the long run, as well as preventing further impacts to the NHS which we have seen and have a full evidence base to be able to demonstrate.
Local Authorities are powerful, and providers across the country are powerless when they make a decision based on money and politics as opposed to what is in the best interest of the child.
We have supported one young person having had 28 placement moves within an 18 month period, and another child making progress and about to come off their DOLs order being moved to a registered provision instead of home with their family which was weeks away from being achieved, and subsequently suffering sexual abuse in that registered home – any registered provision will do right?
There are many new laws and policies coming into effect in this space, however these are being implemented by people in positions at a higher level that do not understand the reality, who are also not talking to each other about what they are implementing, leaving nowhere for these children to go – what are Local Authorities meant to do?
We have offered to work with OFSTED on this, however this has been declined with comments made such as “The law is the law” – but the law can only change when it isn’t working when we do something about it…
Senior politicians are making comments about registered provisions being required as the only option for these children, but there aren’t enough of them, and they are creating nowhere else for these children to go, leaving them either in hospitals or being criminalised with children as young as this 10-year-old boy being sat in police cells because there is nowhere for them to go. It is appalling that policy and law makers do not see clearly the impact of the decisions they are making, relying heavily on an outdated regulatory body who are also out of touch with what is required. One OFSTED inspector said to our CEO when she raised this exact point “ I agree with what you are doing as a human, but as an OFSTED inspector I am not allowed to” when likening us to an unregistered care provider, which is not what we are – but it is all they understand.
Local Authorities then have to regularly operate in an unethical way due to the worry of what OFSTED will say or do, and decisions are made that ultimately cause more harm to these children continuously. This is what we are witnessing every day and it needs to stop. We would welcome conversations with those at Government level to provide the evidence of what we have gathered over the last 7 years that demonstrates this, and work with them to provide a practical and meaningful solution that we know works. However for it to work effectively, pressure needs to be taken off Local Authorities so that they can start working with providers positively, rather than in fear and we need to stop generalising and putting all providers in the same category, as there are many out here on the ground doing real good, and it is not being recognised.
There is a lot of media attention surrounding unregistered provisions; however, it fails to address the real issue: the systemic inaction and neglect by local authorities and Government officials who have repeatedly ignored the professional advice, safeguarding concerns, and urgent warnings raised by Great Minds Together.
For over two years, we have raised formal concerns in writing, in meetings, and through safeguarding channels about the increased use of unregistered or inappropriate placements, the lack of capacity and resource in specialist provisions, and the failure to plan adequately for children with complex needs.
We have been through every process, every regulation, every regulatory body, no-one can help these children when poor decisions are being made that put them at risk – not one single person or entity can over-rule a Local Authority decision (or won’t) not even a Judge – is this safe?
The more recent warnings were not whispers they were loud, evidence-based, and repeated. Yet, some local authorities chose bureaucratic delay, blame-shifting, and opacity over action. And now, with media enquiries being made, one particular authority appears willing to deflect accountability onto providers working tirelessly under impossible conditions.
We are one of the few organisations willing to speak truth to power, step up when others refuse to, and place the wellbeing of children above cost-saving and PR management.
The real scandal is not that children were placed in unregistered settings; it’s that those placements were made because the system was broken, and those in power refuse to fix it.
The human cost is being paid by vulnerable young people, while senior decision-makers distance themselves from the consequences of their own inaction.
We will continue to provide honest, ethical, and legally compliant support to children and families. But we will no longer stay silent about the consistent failure of some local authorities to do the same.
If meaningful reform is to happen, it starts with accountability at the top, not with targeting those on the ground doing the work others won’t.
Emma Mander
CEO
Great Minds Together
