Children in Care Need Better Support The different structures
for care of children in different countries vary, but what they
share is letting the most vulnerable children down. New
guidelines have been published in Britain, developed by the
National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and
Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE). The new guidelines
say that workers in children's services should share information
better. Social workers, teachers and healthcare workers must
work better together to improve the lives of children in care.
Lack of information is a major cause of failed placements.
Foster parents are frequently not fully informed about the
child’s mental and emotional health and history. This
information should be confidential, but not for the foster
parents who have a need to know what they are getting into, and
for an understanding of why the child behaves as s/he does. The
report said that many children and teenagers in care did not
have positive experiences and were unable to