#ThisIsFostering: care leavers share how they #definecare virtually during lockdown
Backed by the Children’s Commissioner for England, IMO (“in my opinion”) is a peer-led digital platform where children in care and care leavers share first-hand stories, experiences and advice with others in a similar situation. The project exists to challenge perceptions of looked-after children and shine a light on their experiences of the care system. […]
Response to steps taken to relieve councils of certain duties to children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)
10 June 2020 Update: The Government has now issued a new notice which extends the measures through June. After publication of this response and note, the Government updated its guidance to reflect the fact that the timescales under which LAs and CCGs must comply with binding orders from the First-tier Tribunal have been eased. We […]
Changes to SEND duties
Modification of Section 42 of the Children and Families Act 2014 What is the change? Section 42 conferred an absolute duty on local authorities to deliver the special educational and healthcare provision set out in a child’s EHCP. After changes made through the Coronavirus Act, local authorities will now be deemed to have met this […]
Ensuring new families recieve the support they need during the coronavirus pandemic
Lockdown has changed all of our lives in so many different ways. But if there’s one thing that hasn’t changed it is that babies are still being born, including of course a new arrival in Downing Street. In England 1,688 babies are born every day.This means that 76,000 babies will already have been born during […]
Lockdown babies
Children born during the coronavirus crisis
Lockdown experiences: Leaving school and preparing for college
As part of our lockdown experiences series, we are talking with children and those working with children about how the current lockdown is affecting them. Ayra, 16, has written a blog for us about what lockdown has been like for her. My lockdown experience has been very varied. When we were told that schools were closing and […]
Teachers will play a frontline role in getting our children back up to speed with their education
I hope one of the positives to emerge from the national lockdown will be a greater appreciation for those people who work on the frontline of our public services – the care workers, the social workers and of course the NHS staff. All of them have kept this country going during an unprecedented time. The […]
Lockdown experiences: How it’s affecting children and social workers
We are talking with children and also those working with children about how the lockdown is affecting them. We asked Rowan, aged 10 to tell us about life in lockdown. Here’s what he said. After lockdown began, my life became a little more stressful. I was delivered my new bed though, so that’s a plus. […]
Statement on changes to regulations affecting children’s social care
Statement by the Children’s Commissioner for England On Friday 24th April the ‘Adoption and Children (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2020’ came into force, and are not due to expire until 25th September. These regulations make significant temporary changes to the protections given in law to some of the most vulnerable children in the country – those […]
Statement
Local vulnerability profiles
Data providing a way for councils to understand which groups of children are likely to be at risk under lockdown, and how many children in their area fall into those groups
Children’s Commissioner for England creates local area profiles of child vulnerability during Covid-19
Analysis of the extent of child vulnerability around the country, much of which is hidden from sight under lockdown.
We’re all in this together?
The essential public health measures that have been taken to stop the spread of Covid-19 have affected everyone in the country, and many families are struggling with additional financial and social pressures. But there are some children, who before this crisis were already vulnerable or living in precarious situations, who are facing particular hardship. These […]
Archived Content
Gaming the system
The overwhelming majority of children (93 percent) in the UK play video games. Yet despite its popularity, the culture of ‘gaming’- its rules and its rituals, the varying profiles of players, the risks they face – tends to be spoken of by adults, whether they be policymakers or parents, as if it were an alien […]
The state of child poverty and how we can tackle it
On the United Nations Day for Poverty Eradication we should never fail to be shocked that we are talking about child poverty when are one of the wealthiest countries on earth. Yet as all of us here know, the number of children living in poverty has been steadily increasing in recent years. There are around […]
EU children in Britain
If you are an EU citizen living in Britain, Brexit will affect your rights. This means you will need to apply for what the Government calls ‘settled status’ in Britain. What is settled status? Settled status is a special immigration category for EU nationals who have made Britain their home. Once you have settled status […]
Children’s Commissioner for England response to CQC report on the state of care
Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England, responding to the CQC annual report into the state of care
Almost one in five children left education at 18 last year without basic qualifications
Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England, has published research looking at the number of children who leave the education system at 18 without reaching Level 2 attainment (five GCSEs grade A* to C, or equivalent technical qualifications). These are children who will have spent 14 years in compulsory education, often having more than £100,000 of […]
Children’s manifesto calls on political parties to back six pledges to transform life chances for all kids
Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England, has published ‘Guess How Much We Love You: A Manifesto for Children’ ahead of any upcoming General Election.
A Manifesto for Children
The manifesto, published ahead of any upcoming General Election, calls on Britain’s political parties to include a six-point plan in their election manifestos to transform the life chances for disadvantaged children and to help all of England’s 12 million children to thrive. The manifesto sets out some of the key issues that children have told […]
Anne Longfield responds to Government Spending Review
Anne Longfield, Children’s Commissioner for England, responding to the Government’s Spending Review
Children’s experiences of online harm and what they want to do about it
In April this year the Government set out their plans for a world-first: a system of regulations that they argue will make the UK ‘the safest place in the world to be online’. The Online Harms White Paper, produced in collaboration between the Home Office and Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), maps out […]
Bleak houses
Tackling the crisis of family homelessness in England