Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on access to advocacy services for looked after children and outline what funding is in place to ensure all looked after children can have timely access to an advocate?
The National Approach to Statutory Advocacy services for children and young people has been rolled out across Wales since July 2017.
As part of this approach Local Authorities are required to make an active offer of advocacy to a child or young person at the earliest possible time following entry into the statutory ’care system’.
Advocacy is the assistance given to help a person represent their views, wishes and feelings. The advocacy service will contact the child or young person to arrange to make the ‘active offer’, and set up a meeting with them. The advocacy support will be as agreed with the child or young person.
To support the delivery of the National Approach, particularly the active offer; Welsh Government has made a contribution up to £550k to the Social Services Regional Collaboratives, which commission advocacy services. The remainder of the funding will come from the Local Authorities’.
Welsh Government recognises the progress of the National Approach to date and is confident it will deliver consistency of entitlement and good practice in the commissioning, delivery and awareness of statutory advocacy provision in Wales.
The implementation of the national approach is now part of the work programme of the Ministerial Advisory Group (MAG) which has put arrangements in place to monitor its effectiveness.