The Education Committee of the House of Commons has just issued its report on Children’s Social Care. Support Not Separation and the Disabled Mother’s Rights Campaign gave evidence to the Committee about what happens to children in “care”, as well as the rising costs and huge profits of the privatised child welfare “industry”, the importance of Section 17 of the Children Act to stop children being taken from their mothers, adoption, kinship care, disabled children, care leavers and Ofsted.

Please see our evidence below and the Committee’s Report here.

The Committee took seriously our comments about poverty being used as neglect to remove children – see paragraph 158:

Much of the evidence also highlighted the relationship between poverty and neglect, and we heard some concerns about children being taken into care on the grounds of poverty, defined as neglect (footnote Support Not Separation)

One of their recommendations (161) is that:

The Dept of Education must put in place a national neglect strategy to set out how it will reduce the incidence of neglect.

We urge the Education Committee to follow the lead of legislation in California forbidding poverty being used as neglect to take children and see also a a Special Committee in Philadelphia which proposed removing neglect from the law.