And should we do anything?
About the kids, I mean (see below for the uninitiated).
I would have though the obvious answer is YES! we should do something.
Prosaically? Because if 50% of the juvenile prison population is from kids in care (and remember we are talking of around 6,000 kids in any one year group, not hundreds of thousands of them), if we put money into care we'll save money in the prisons.
OK, OK, I'll disappear off and find out how many children there are in the UK today.
Pause. Lengthy, but not long enough to lose your attention, I am sure.
Returns, armed.
National Statistics from the Government, based on 2001 survey:
- 11.7 million dependent children
- 1 in 3 households have dependent kids and 2.6 million of them are in single parent families (94% headed by their mum)
- Of these 11.7 million, 45,000 under 16 live in communities.
That's got to be wrong. Not incorrect, but wrong on so many counts. We're supposed to be a rich nation. What are we, three or four in the world, and yet we are failing our under privileged children woefully? Makes me spit with rage.
But even if you are one of those who says 'so what' to the fact that poor kids from poor homes are getting a worse and worse deal in this country, you've got to be open to the economics of it, haven't you?
Do you know it costs more to keep a child in care than it does to send them to one of the top five boarding schools? OK, so they don't say what happens to these kids in the holidays, but I tell you what. I'd consider taking one. Would you?
And if we, as a nation, are letting the kids down, then that statistic about care workers compared with Germany has made me think hard. We let them down even more, for if we cared about them, they might have the energy and enthusiasm to care about their wards. Praise for the kids is vital, but what about respect for the people who look after them? An average salary of £12500, or barely £1000 a month is risible.
But there's no hope is there. Not under this democratic system. A democracy that means all and every bit of funding and energy is focused on the very few, urban, constituencies that will make the difference between winning and losing. The sacrifices of this system don't stop at the kids, oh no. For example, we're going to lose our hospital because the local seat is not a winnable one for Labour, and so they don't give a flying fuck about this community. So what chance have the kids round here got? The map hereabouts is blue or orange and will stay that way. So no funding for diddly squat here.
So WE have to do something. WE, the great voting public have to actually say we want changes in policy. We want you, we have to say, to do something about our nations children.
45,000 kids, Let's say one carer for 8 kids. That's, um, 5,625 carers. Let's pay them an average of £35000. That's.... cor... a lot: £200millions.
But we're already paying say £122 millions or so, so we're only after another £80 to £85 mill.
That's not a lot. Let me loose among the stationery bills and travel expenses for the House of P and I bet I could find that. Or we could knock it off the bill for Wembley. Or how about this: all the footballers who play here have to give 5% of their salaries to carers? I can think of a dozen ways to find £85 mill in as many seconds.
Or, of course, we make the posh schools take them, saving loads of money on food and cleaning and other establishment bills in care homes and put that into decent salaries for carers. And the kids get well educated and will then actually be in a position to influence the way society goes, rather than in prison or pregnant or homeless. And then, albeit 20 years hence, we may get some serious sense for the kids of this country.
That's too late for hundreds and thousands of them, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't make Herculean efforts for those that are to come.
The big question is, what shall we do about it, you and I?
And when shall we do it?
Eh?
.
4 comments:
well, you could write to your MP. . .
. . .you could join a charity and do good works in your spare time
(. . .you could become a volunteer for a prisoners' charity - check out PACT - for eg)
. . .you could donate money to a charity so someone who has had the right training can do the good work
(. . .you could leave a proportion of the money from your will to such a charity)
. . .you could discuss all of this with your own family so that it becomes an acceptable subject and not a taboo area where prejudice builds up
. . .you could continue to raise people's awareness to the facts so that when they have the opportunity to make a contribution of time or money (or also simply pass on the awareness) it occurs to them that this is an opportunity to contribute to society not just walk on by
(I like the idea of a proportion of footballer's salaries being donated to the cause!)
a lot of it - in MHO - is to do with opening areas of communication up, so people feel able to address these topics from the basis of normality, rather than being seen as a "do-gooder" or a "good samaritan"; eventually the threshold will be high enough for some of the problems to be solved
(sorry, went to a drugs awareness talk last night at eldest child's school; head spinning this morning with importance of opening lines of communication about difficult topics!)
Two brilliant posts Beep.
I guess we need to start or join action groups to pressurise our MPs into thinking these issues may matter to the voting public.
And we have to somehow get a sizeable chunk of the(unconverted) voting public to care enough to back up those groups.
And we certainly need to take every opportunity to encourage our children to care.
(I like the footballer's salaries idea I)
did you see the BBC programme last night "Evicted"? made stunningly sad viewing I thought
it costs anywhere between four and nine grand a week to keep a kid in care. most of them don't go home for the holidays, as they have nowhere to go.
nice.
Post a Comment