Agenda item

To receive a report from Brent Care Leavers and Brent Participation Team regarding views on the Council agreeing to make care experience a protected characteristic.

N (CLIA) introduced the report, which provided an initial overview of the conversations and thoughts that young people had regarding care as a protected characteristic and the further work that was expected to be carried out going forward. In introducing the report, she advised the Committee that, over the past few months, young people and participation workers had been discussing the prospect of care experience as a protected characteristic in several different sessions hearing from a range of young people about their views, and in September four young people had come together to bring those conversations into a report. The Working Group had also researched what other boroughs were doing in this space, for example, Camden Council provided free WiFi for care leavers.

Kelli Eboji (Head of LAC and Permanency, Brent Council) added that children and young people and staff alike had been on a journey of understanding what care as a protected characteristic would mean for children, young people and the Council and how it would benefit children and young people in the borough. With the research and reviews that young people had undertaken, there was now support for recognising care as a protected characteristic and adopting it as a Council principle to address issues of equality and protection. She highlighted that, even though this would not be enshrined in law at this point, as a Council principle it would mean all Council decisions, reports and activity would need to consider the impact on care experienced individuals.

The Chair thanked CLIA and officers for the introduction and invited contributions from the Committee, with the following points raised:

The Committee felt the report reflected the meaningful process CLIA and officers had undertaken to agree a principle and were pleased to see significant engagement from children and young people in this work. It was felt that by adopting this principle, the Council could more strongly tackle forms of discrimination that care experienced young people faced. For example, the Committee recalled the stigmatised attitudes the Council had faced from some members of community towards the decision to open a children’s residential care home in the borough, which the Council could have been tougher against if care experience was protected and enshrined in Council policy. Care as a protected characteristic was also seen by the Committee as an opportunity to educate other staff outside of children’s services about the barriers faced by care experienced children and young people and make them aware of the Council’s obligations to them.

Nicole Levy highlighted that, in feeding back to officers about care as a protected characteristic, young people had made a strong request for the local authority to lobby central government to enshrine care experience as a 10^th characteristic by law, which other local authorities had also done.

RESOLVED:

i)              To endorse the adoption of care experience as a protected characteristic by the Council.

ii)             To support and explore care experience having a similar status to other protected characteristics, including aligning this with Council activity to review Equality Impact Assessments (EIA) and the adoption of a socio-economic duty outlined in Section 1 of the Equality Act (2010).

iii)           To agree that young people have a key role in monitoring the practical implementation of care experience as a protected characteristic.