Readers of this blog and people who come to LGiU events will know that over the past six months I have been highlighting the educational under achievement of children in care. It is great to see today’s announcement from Ed Balls on the Care2Work programme. Ball’s acknowledges that many children are let down by the current system although he will be pointing to some progress following the Care Matters reforms, including improvements in GCSE results. A report on this will be published later today by DCSF. In his statement Ball’s highlights the effect of instability on children’s attainment, a point made by the Danish expert on social care that I met last week. He also calls on local authorities to get children in care more involved in the design of their own services. We very much support this and it has been a part of our work, outlined in this recent report, on how social media can help local authorities and other service providers to engage with young people.
