Ceremony to celebrate care leavers’ lifelong relationships risks ‘othering’
A government framework to celebrate enduring relationships between care leavers and significant adults was launched last month – and immediately came under criticism.
The new Lifelong Guardianship Ceremony seeks to be a way of publicly affirming meaningful connections and a sense of belonging for care-experienced people.
It is envisaged former foster carers, mentors, community figures, friends, teachers or other trusted adults may take part in the ceremony.
The idea stems from the 2022 Independent Review of Children’s Social Care led by Josh MacAlister who has since been appointed children’s minister.
MacAlister recommended creating a Lifelong Guardianship Order legally joining care leavers to the family of another non-related important adult, reinforced by a celebration ceremony.
The legal status, however, was dropped. Instead, the government says the ceremonies are to be viewed as a symbolic gesture celebrating lasting relationships that many others take for granted.
Children’s minister Josh MacAlister described them as “a new way for care experienced adults to recognise and celebrate the people in their life who love them – their tribe”.
Speaking in parliament, he added: “Just as we have christenings and naming ceremonies, Britain is generous enough to also mark these wonderful and unique relationships that give hope and meaning.”
However, Rebekah Pierre, deputy director of children’s rights charity Article 39 and herself a care leaver, warned “ceremonialising” relationships risked making care-experienced participants feel “othered”.
She added: “What happens if, for whatever reason, the significant adult(s) concerned don’t want to take part?
“Recognising a relationship in this way may give rise to expectations which may not come to pass. And should it end, for whatever reason, this would hurt all the more.”
Pierre highlighted other retraumatising risks: “If one care leaver has a ceremony with, say, a well-known key worker at a children’s home, this may understandably set up the expectation for others to have the same.
“This just wouldn’t be feasible if they had supported hundreds of children. Those left behind would feel ever more isolated as they watched others celebrate what they lack.”
Pierre questioned the role of religion in designing the framework and highlighted a danger of private providers using ceremonies, which are not publicly funded, as a “PR opportunity”.
She also warned of a lack of independent oversight, regulation and safeguarding within the framework: “This could have the potential to become a vehicle of grooming and exploitation without due diligence.
“That a safeguarding partner has not yet been confirmed in a proposal of this scale really is a major oversight, to say the least.”
Pierre suggested financial support to sustain enduring relationships, addressing housing problems faced by care leavers and life-long access to therapeutic services would be more valued initiatives.
Other concerns have been shared on social media. eQuiPT Therapy Services, which supports children to recover from trauma and attachment disruption, posted: “It feels like a token that isn’t actually offering anything that is genuinely helpful.
“How do the care leavers feel who are going it alone and have no one to celebrate with?”
A residential care professional said: “I’ve worked in residential care for 25 years and could see some real issues arising from this. All around pressure and rejection in the very relationships that we try so hard to maintain or repair especially when they fracture.
“I couldn’t possibly keep in contact with all the children I’ve cared for, but I do with many and some who lived together and have maintained their relationship.”
The government has identified promoting enduring relationships as a key plank of its children’s social care reforms, of which the Lifelong Guardianship Ceremony is part. The Department for Education said: “The ceremony celebrates commitment, belonging and enduring support.
“Safeguarding is central to the framework. A ceremony should only go ahead where the relationship is safe, voluntary, emotionally appropriate and entirely free from coercion or exploitation.
“All participants must give informed consent and have a clear understanding of what the ceremony is before it can go ahead.”