£1.8 million to support vulnerable children

Thursday 06 July 2017

Jersey's Chief Minister has agreed to allocate an extra £1.8 million for projects to support vulnerable children over the next three years.

This decision comes after the publication of the Care Inquiry report in which it was said that children "...may still be at risk" in 2017.

Senator Ian Gorst has asked the Treasury and Resources Minister to release the funding, which comes from the £4.9 million agreed by the States Assembly in the Medium Term Financial Plan.

Following the report’s claim that some children “may still be at risk”, the Chief Minister said that he “will not rest until we have done all that we can do to change that.”

Video: Chief Minister Ian Gorst tells victims of abuse in Island care homes, "I am deeply sorry."

This latest allocation will support six initiatives from 2017-2019. They include extra staff for the Youth Enquiry Service and the Children’s Change Programme, a pilot psychotherapy service for parents and babies and a full time staff member to establish on-island social work training.

The Youth Enquiry Service will receive £281,200 over three years to employ more youth workers. They will provide a young person’s one-stop shop and advice centre with extended opening hours and will develop their existing curricular work which targets at risk young people in schools, youth projects and other areas in the community frequented by young people.

The Children’s Change Programme will receive £96,050 to ensure young people and practitioners from Jersey’s voluntary and statutory services are involved in a review of the Children and Young People Strategy so it reflects the recommendations of the Jersey Care Inquiry.

£176,000 has been allocated to the pilot psychotherapy service for parents and babies to provide a specialised therapeutic service for high risk babies, young children and their parents or carers. The service aims to improve the parent-child relationship and ultimately reduce the number of children entering the child protection system.

These initiatives will provide valuable support for the people in Jersey's community who most need it – parents struggling to bond with their babies, families coping with a child with special needs and vulnerable teenagers who need advice and guidance. 

Funding of £177,600 will also provide an outreach service to help children with special needs attend mainstream education. There will be £194,400 to allow Highlands College to develop an on-island social work degree course and to cover fees for twelve students starting in September 2018.

£868,000 will employ more legal advisers to deal with the increase in advice to Children’s Service and to assist in developing new legislation for children. It’s anticipated the workload will continue to rise in response to improvements in Children’s Services.