Young people 'unaware' they are subject to DoL orders, research finds

In its latest report, The Nuffield Family Justice Observatory (NFJO) shares the experiences of young people, some of whom said they "didn't know" they were subject to DoL orders for six months after they were put in place.

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The experiences were shared after researchers, working with Somerset Council, asked 13 care-experienced young people their views on the five principles of care created by the Observatory in a bid to improve services for children.

The principles are designed to act as a guide for local and national decision makers looking to improve services for children with "complex needs and circumstances".

They include stable relationships, planned, long-term support, experienced teams and respect.

Leon Isaac, lead volunteer of the project, who was subject to a DoL order from 2019 to 2022, said: “Giving young people more of a say and changing how you act towards them could help them to have a better experience.

“Being on a deprivation of liberty order was a really bad experience for me. I didn’t have a chance to advocate for myself or talk to someone to advocate on my behalf. I didn’t even know I was on a deprivation of liberty order until six months after the order was put in place.”

Other young people interviewed said they “didn’t know” they were subject to DoL orders.

One young person said: “I was not made aware I had a DoL until six months after the order was put in place. I wanted to go about life as you would normally do as a teenager. I would go into school with my friends and then I was taken into a private room, secluded from everyone else.

"I had to be escorted from the car by my carers to staff in school, and then escorted from staff in school back to the car with my carers. I was in a private room for the entire school day. I was not allowed to go out for break or lunch. I had to put in my lunch order with staff. I was not allowed to talk to my family or anything, and at the time I had no reason why.”

BBC Journalist Ashley John-Baptiste recently released a documentary about the rising use of DoL orders.

He told CYP Now that: “There’s concern about how restrictive these orders are. The children I interviewed said they were worse off because of these orders, often being placed far away from their families with little internet or phone access”.

Figures from the NFJO show that 289 children were subject to applications to deprive them of their liberty between October to December 2023 in England and Wales.

One anonymous care leaver told researchers: “They [my local authority] just couldn’t find a placement for me because of my needs. They’d find one and the funding would fall through, so it meant that I got stuck in hospital for about a year."

Other care leavers reported feeling as if they “could trust no one”, with another person revealing: “Me and my sister were placed in different counties so it was quite difficult for us to form a healthy relationship. Now we’re grown up we feel like we lost valuable time.”

They also reported feeling as if they weren’t encouraged to have trusted relationships, and that the staff they encountered needed more training. Though some felt supported by staff, they acknowledged that they were “overwhelmed” with work and underpaid.

Researcher from the NFJO said while they were "pleased" that young people who took part in the study agreed with the principles laid out in the guidance, "the stories they tell provide further evidence that there is a long way to go before they become a reality".

Following the Labour Party's landslide win at the general election, the new Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has highlighted children’s social care as a key issue she plans to prioritise during the next parliament.