B

Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 8 June 2026

Debate

Children’s Social Care: Enduring Relationships Strategy

Contribution

The noble Lord makes an important point. To come back to the point I made earlier, we have changed things in the law such as the requirement for family group decision-making at an earlier stage. In this strategy we spell out clearly the need to change practice to focus on relationships at all stages of a child’s experience of coming into and being in care. I agree with the noble Lord that there needs to be a change in culture, and we are providing support for kinship care pilots and other initiatives such as the recruitment of 10,000 more foster carers. The central message here, as I suggested earlier, is that at every stage in a child’s journey social workers will be asking themselves: what do we need to do at this point to enable this young person to maintain or re-find the enduring relationships that will set them up for and support them for the rest of their lives?

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