Dawn Bowden MS, Minister for Children and Social Care
The Welsh Government’s vision for children in care and care leavers is a crucial element of the broader Children and Young People Plan. This Plan explicitly outlines the actions the Government intends to take to ensure that Wales offers a supportive environment for children and young people to grow up within.
The foundation for this initiative is established through our eight commitments outlined in the Programme for Government, to create a new vision for Children’s Services in Wales. These commitments focus on implementing significant systemic changes and ensuring that appropriate care is provided for every child: this includes reforming and integrating services for children looked after, adopted children, and care leavers.
Today, I am pleased to launch a public consultation on proposed changes to existing regulations and codes of practice to improve adoption, fostering and kinship services in Wales.
The changes being considered are a key component of the radical whole system change we are making and are in direct response to feedback from members of the children’s social services sector about how to improve support for vulnerable children and their families across Wales.
The consultation is seeking views on the following areas:
- the provision of adoption support services in order to simplify arrangements for providers of these services and increase access to support services for adopted children, young people and adults.
- bringing together existing regulation and good practice guidance across a number of legal frameworks in relation to adoption.
- introducing a more flexible approach to assessing suitability for kinship care placements alongside a more flexible approach to the Children Looked After (CLA) framework in supporting the placement.
- a more effective and efficient process for transferring foster carers from one fostering service to another.
- a clearer explanation of how different types of foster carers can obtain the enhanced fostering allowance.
- the Independent Review of Determinations process.
- the establishment of a national register of foster carers.
The consultation period will last for 12 weeks, concluding on 20 October and is available on the Welsh Government’s website. I encourage all stakeholders, including individuals, carers, professionals, and organisations, to participate in the consultation. Your opinions are essential for making sure that the regulatory changes are strong, feasible, and align with the needs and hopes of those who will benefit from them.
I look forward to receiving your responses which will be instrumental in influencing the legislation and enhancing services for our vulnerable families throughout Wales.
This statement is being issued during recess in order to keep members informed. Should members wish me to make a further statement or to answer questions on this when the Senedd returns I would be happy to do so.