Summer is the time that I catch up on reading all the research papers and news articles that I have been storing on my laptop; and so I have finally found the space to pull some thoughts together. One thing that has particularly caught my eye over the last months has been the reporting on the rise in the number of vulnerable young people subject to Deprivation of Liberty (DoL) Orders.
Children and Young People Now has run a number of articles about this, examining the reasons for the sharp rise in orders (here), and analysing the growing gap in secure care provision (here), and in this piece from the beginning of August, looking at the impact on the young people themselves, often placed at great distance from their families and support systems, in unsuitable accommodation and in situations likely to increase their trauma and vulnerability rather than aid their recovery.
The Deprivation of Liberty court was launched by Sir Andrew McFarlane, President of the Family Division of the Royal Courts of Justice, last year, and he himself is critical of the way that the orders are being used to patch up a failing system. I was privileged to speak with Sir Andrew about this myself, and we discussed the need for more appropriate accommodation, but also the importance of supporting families earlier on to try to prevent such crisis situations occurring.
DoL Orders are used when a young person with particularly complex needs must be held securely because of the risk they pose to their own safety or to other people. They may have a range of vulnerabilities such as learning difficulties, autism or mental ill health; they may have suffered abuse or been exploited in the home or in the community. Their behaviour is extremely frightening to all concerned, as they act out their own anxiety, anger, fear and distress. Those familiar with children using harmful behaviour towards parents and carers will understand how this looks and feels.
The needs of these young people are complicated, but what becomes clear often is that, in the absence of a therapeutic response and with the sole use of restraint, their distress and behaviour is compounded. One well publicised example was that of “Bethany”, but there are many others. In 2021, Mr Justice MacDonald was highly critical of the failure to provide adequate accommodation or adequate therapeutic care in his judgement on the treatment of “Y”, and again in 2022, on the failure of Manchester City Council to adequately respond to the needs of “ST” a young woman whose behaviour at home was causing her family to fear for their own safety as well as hers.
While there are many and varied backstories and circumstances for these children and their families, time and time again, families experiencing child to parent violence and abuse (CPVA), harmful behaviour from their child towards other family members, seek to enable their child to remain within the family home; they seek the support to be able to do so and ask for removal only as a last resort. Yet they are faced both with a lack of understanding and support early on, at a time when intervention may reasonably be expected to bring about improvement, and a lack of appropriate alternative provision later when crisis point is reached. It is not OK that this situation continues. There must be renewed efforts to work with families early on to prevent the breakdown of family life, built on a thorough understanding of the dynamics of CPVA – of trauma, neurodiversity, mental health – and then steps taken to develop suitable therapeutic care for those children and young people who sadly cannot remain at home; care that meets their needs and respects their rights. We cannot simply continue to deal with each situation as it arises, or to continue to kick it further down the road.
The award winning journalist, Louise Tickle, has researched this issue at length and you can listen to her podcast here, and read her companion piece in the Observer here.
For more about this story see also this article from Community Care: Deprivation of Liberty – ‘We’re managing risk, not helping these children recover.’
HOLES IN THE WALL 