Decision details
Labour Group Motion: Ending Stigma and Discrimination of the Care Experienced Community
Decision Maker: Council
Decision status: Recommendations Approved
Is Key decision?: No
Is subject to call in?: No
Decision:
Labour Motion: Ending Stigma and Discrimination of the Care Experienced Community
Hackney Council notes:
1. Care experienced people face significant barriers that impact them throughout their lives.
2. Despite the resilience of many care experienced people, they too often experience stigma and disadvantage;
3. Care experienced people often face discrimination and stigma across housing, health, education, relationships, employment and in the criminal justice system.
4. Care experienced people may encounter inconsistent support in different geographical areas.
5. As corporate parents, councillors have a collective responsibility for providing the best possible care and safeguarding for the children who are looked after by us as an authority.
6. All corporate parents should commit to acting as mentors, hearing the voices of looked after children and young people and to consider their needs in any aspect of council work.
7. Councillors should be champions of the children and care leavers in our care and challenge the negative attitudes and prejudice that exists in all aspects of society.
8. The Public Sector Equality Duty requires public bodies, such as councils, to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment, and victimisation of people with protected characteristics.
This Council further notes:
9. That care experienced people are a group who are likely to face discrimination.
10.Councils have a duty to put the needs of people facing inequalities of outcome as a result of socio-economic disadvantage, at the heart of decision-making through co-production and collaboration.
11.Hackney Council’s Equality Plan identifies looked after children, care
experienced people and care leavers as a group who are “vulnerable because of life experiences”
12.Hackney’s Equality Plan states the Council will “ensure that services are
taking account of the needs of these groups in policy and practice” by:
o including data and an analysis of the needs of looked after children, care leavers and care experienced children in the Council’s refreshed equality profile that is linked to service planning and equality impact assessment guidance.
o developing the Council’s understanding of their needs through sharing lived experience of inequalities and of council services.
o identifying specific proactive actions that are also needed through this needs assessment.
13.That looked after children, care experienced people and care leavers have been included in the Council’s new Equality Impact Assessment Guidance and forms, due to being identified as a group of people facing inequality of outcomes locally.
This Council therefore resolves:
14.That in the delivery of the Public Sector Equality Duty the Council includes care experience in the publication and review of Equality Objectives and the annual publication of information relating to people who share a protected characteristic in services and employment, as outlined in Hackney’s recently adopted Equality Plan.
15.That this Council will continue to treat care experience as if it were a Protected Characteristic.
16.To encourage other bodies to treat care experience as a protected characteristic until such time as it may be introduced by legislation.
17.For the council to continue proactively seeking out and listening to the voices of care experienced people when developing new policies based on their views.
18. For the Mayor and Cabinet leads for Children’s Services, and for Equalities to lobby the Government to introduce legislation to recognise care experienced people as a protected group.
Proposer: Cllr Anna Lynch
Seconder: Cllr Sophie Conway
Publication date: 28/11/2024
Date of decision: 27/11/2024
Decided at meeting: 27/11/2024 - Council
Accompanying Documents:
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