To ask what’s the alternative to a Deprivation of Liberty order?

[ToeIssues81]

To protect these children from drugs, sexual exploitation. To me it’s not the order that’s the issue but those who carry out the day to day care of these children.

BBC News article

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9xxyl3gp39o

I think you need to treat the cause, but the problem with acting proactively is that you will inevitably investigate and cause difficulty for innocent people too. These sort of orders are the consequence, you can't stop children being raised in bad environments, getting involved with heroin etc as shown in your BBC article, so they have to be taken into a more restrictive environment. The trouble with these environments is either you have to be strict, which leads to people being treated unfairly/outrageously (as evidenced in your article), or you adopt a more laissez-faire attitude, in which case some people won't get enough supervision and will self-harm or get into crime.

There isn't a solution that will provide the exact right support for every individual case. It's a balance, what causes least harm overall, but there's no such thing as a perfectly average case, everyone is either controlled too much or not enough. It's just the balance of keeping most instances within an acceptable range, most of the time.

Beyond better support for birth parents before it gets to this point I don't think there is currently a better option- some young people are totally out of control and need to be removed from their environment to protect them and some sort of legal provision is needed for this. Obviously the quality of the care when they are removed needs to be much better, but the system is pretty broken.

I think it's time only female workers are employed to work closely with vulnerable women and girls.

Yes, women can abuse but it's less likely they will compared to men.

Prevention is always better than cure, but we also need to stop outsourcing the care of vulnerable young people to for profit organisations. It's worth looking at Scandinavian countries, where outcomes are far, far better - and where homes are staffed with well paid and highly qualified people. Caring for vulnerable young people cannot be done on the cheap. It costs. It will also pay for itself by breaking generational cycles of poor parenting, abuse and crime.

There seem to be a lot of issues:

• Should these exist at all - well possibly for extreme cases
• Are they being applied appropriately and why is there such a huge rise in use of them?
• How they are being implemented - why are men restraining young girls some of whom have been sexually assaulted?
• What help is there with long term impacts - such as education, loss of any positive family and community ties and affect on mental health being under constant surveillance.

Supposed at least there is a panel of experts looking into why the rise in use.

I hate DoLs but right now, there are not the resources or alternatives to them.

@Keeva2017 that’s probably why the cases have risen, due to there not being the resources for alternatives.

It’s a deeper societal problem, I think as PP has said we can’t stop children sadly being born into problem families. But as you said we don’t have the resources to be with these children from the start to minimise the hurt.

I’m absolutely horrified a child that was sexually assaulted is being managed by men.

Is this the result of services for vulnerable young people being decimated?

It's very difficult. My anecdotal experience is that once a young person is being exploited like this (and it applies to county lines too, which is mostly boys) it's very, very difficult to extricate them, not least because they often don't recognise they are being abused. But the answer probably isn't DoLs because I've seen the young person just reverts as soon as it is lifted or expires, it doesn't actually treat the root cause, and being under the order is just another trauma. I do believe that unless home is actively abusive the young person should stay with family and the interventions should be home based - but, there is always the risk that the abuse will just continue.

Legally, these orders are an alternative to a secure placement. A secure placement is a purpose built, highly regulated children's home setting that has security similar to a youth detention centre or mental health hospital. They typically have a range of different levels of expertise on site, eg therapeutically trained carers, access to a psychologist, workers who specialise in working with victims and perpetrators of abuse/exploitation.

Those type of settings have largely been closed down, hence it done on a much smaller ad hoc scale, eg with a couple of minimally trained carers in a short term rental trying to do the same thing. It's really really sad.

Pointythings is right.

@Bridgertonned but secure units might have been a good idea in theory. In practice it's not a great idea to take groups of the most vulnerable children in society and have them live together 24/7. I saw children coming out of those homes more traumatised, and more deeply enmeshed in exploitation than when they went in. And they usually involved sending the child hundreds of miles away from home too. They weren't the answer either.

I agree they aren't the best for everyone, but I have worked with some children for whom they have worked - but only for intense support for a short period of time (eg 3-6 months) with a good programme of step down support when they move back home. I agree about the distance issues, because there's so few of them, as convenience for family to visit is key, as they are usually the relationships that you're trying to build up for a successful return home (or return to care, but feeling a sense of belonging to family )

I was wondering about this. If their behaviour was so extreme, and I've met some kids like this at work. I do t see what other options there are. Obviously some of the behaviour of the carers described in that report, is absolutely wrong. But I'm
Not sure how else those kids could have been kept safe.

In my experience they've been used for children whose mental health makes them a danger to themselves. There's a chronic, severe shortage of provision for such children and this is the only way of keeping them safe.

I heard the report on Womans Hour. Why on earth were girls subjected to male guards? And what gave the men the idea that they were supposed to supervise showers? Who chose the men for this task, because as has been shown in Edinburgh, the men who want to enter this like of work are the men who shouldn't
I remember reports some years back that girls in care were going out of homes to their pimps and the homes were not allowed to lock them in. Presumably deprivation of liberty orders were designed to counter that, but have obviously not been thought through.

For those posters saying there's no alternative - the DOLs itself isn't always the issue, eg it makes sense that if a child is at risk of suicide that they need to be supervised.

The problem is that the most vulnerable children are often in 'placements' that are staffed by minimum wage agency staff with very little training. Despite costing councils thousands (12-18k a week is not unusual for a child in a solo placement with 2:1 or 3:1 staffing. And in those settings there's usually nothing to actually address the root causes, it's just firefighting the day to day crisis. Restraints are more frequent and more severe than they should be because the staff often don't know how to respond to the child to avoid situations escalating.

I've worked with children who have been bounced around from one unregulated placement to the next, every time going to the bottom of a CAMHS waiting list in that area, and the only education offer being some online tutoring. It's heartbreaking.

@Bridgertonned so are these private organisations able to charge £50k-£80k a MONTH?! Per child? If they are getting that sort of money why can’t they pay someone to take care of the child? they are profiteering on the back of these kids and their damaged lives.

Product of out outsourcing and lack of longer-term, evidence based quality care and support. Which costs. Especially in the shorter term. Councils are selling their art works and buildings at the mo. None are likely to invest in proper services that these children deserve.

My current thought after reading that article is to say no they shouldn’t be happening.
They are not fit for purpose and it’s swapping one trauma for a state sanctioned trauma.

Agree with pp that root causes should be looked at and supervision of vulnerable girls should not be done by men.

Break the grooming gangs. Another example of something that doesn't affect middle class families (much) therefore being treated as unimportant.

@ToeIssues81 yes. There's been multiple headline news stories in the last few years about the lack of provision, and high court judgements about DOLS and there being no available alternatives to local authorities. Councils can't not house the child somewhere, so the private providers have them over a barrel. The profits made by some providers are horrifying.
Weirdly the system dissuades good providers from taking on the highest need children, as they risk their Ofsted gradings (eg if there are incidents of self harm or violence as that all has to be reported to Ofsted and they pressure the home if they feel the home isnt meeting the childs needs) so they're more likely to take children who are a safe bet. So the most needy children end up with providers who either don't have good Ofsted reports, or set up brand new 'placements' and care for them while unregulated. It makes me really angry.

@Confortableorwhat it will vary in different areas but where I am, children subject to dols due to grooming is very much in the minority. The vast majority are due to mental health, risk of serious self harm/suicide, risk of running away and being too vulnerable (eg no sense of danger/fear of strangers, which is common for children who have moved around a lot/been neglected)

That does nothing to help the boys who are subject to a DoL though.

What I found striking was the increase in numbers in recent years. I mean, I know the covid has neurotoxic effects and we are storing up increased levels of many difficulties, but could it really be causing erratic/dangerous behaviour at such a rate that this level of increase is the expected amount? Or is this really about the professionalism of both those involved in applying for and those involved in the granting of, these orders