Serenity Welfare’s Hope Instead of Handcuffs campaign has been fighting to end the physical restraint and handcuffing of vulnerable children being transported between homes for the last six years. Following a parliamentary drop-in event earlier in May, the campaign is drawing in greater volumes of support from the political class as it bids to end the inhumane practice.
On May 18, 2022, Serenity Welfare founder Emily Aklan [pictured, left], the driving force behind Hope Instead of Handcuffs, was invited to showcase the campaign and more broadly discuss the work of Serenity Welfare at Portcullis House on London’s Victoria Embankment. The drop-in session was organised with the support of Steve McCabe MP [pictured, right], chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Looked-After Children and Care Leavers, and a longstanding supporter of the campaign to end the handcuffing of children.
McCabe commented: “For much of my life, I have worked with looked after children or on issues affecting them. Initially, as a social worker and social services lecturer, and later in Parliament where I have also served as chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group [APPG] for Looked After Children and Care Leavers.
“It has always been a great privilege to lend my voice to represent some of this country’s most vulnerable young people. As more and more children enter the care system – over the past ten years alone this number has increased by 25 per cent – it must surely be an increasing priority of the government to ensure these young people’s life chances are not adversely affected by their experience in care. Sadly, the opposite is true.”
Highlighting the need for the Hope Instead of Handcuffs campaign, McCabe elaborated: “For too long now, looked after children in the care system have been disregarded and written off by society, and funding to support them has been cut. What this creates is an environment and mentality of apathy: viewing these children, who are already vulnerable and have suffered the trauma of requiring state intervention for their care, as inevitable problems. This mentality creates a self-fulfilling prophecy: when looked after children are seen as ‘beyond help’ from the highest level, this filters down through the system, making it incredibly difficult for those working with these children to provide them with the support they so desperately need. It has also allowed the brutal and unnecessary practice of physical restraint and handcuffing of children to become rife. The impact is clear: with looked after children far more likely to end up homeless, in prison or out of work with no training or education.
“We have serious concerns about the treatment of our society’s most vulnerable young people, which the government must address. With the full impact of Covid-19 on the children’s welfare system currently unknown but predictably challenging, there has never been a more important time for ministers to act and safeguard the futures of these children.”
During the drop-in session, MPs and their staff, civil servants and others in attendance listened to Aklan and her fellow staff present the Hope Instead of Handcuffs campaign and its wider aims. It was during this presentation that watching and listening parliamentarians were left shaken by the realities that some vulnerable children face, which were laid bare by a harrowing case study involving ‘Child F’ in South Wales.
At the age of 13, ‘Child F’ was moved from one residential care home to another at the opposite side of the country without any explanation. The teenager was left traumatised by the experience of being spoken to by the transport providers as if they were sub-human, forcefully dragged into a vehicle which they remained cramped inside for long hours and were not even allowed to go to the toilet without using a police station bathroom under supervision. During the journey, the child was pinned down, physically restrained and treated like a criminal if they made any attempt to even stretch out to make themselves more comfortable.
After listening to this bewildering account, several in attendance including Welsh Labour peer Baroness Wilcox of Newport, Labour MPs Janet Daby [pictured, centre] and Marsha de Cordova, and Alba Party MP Neale Hanvey, spoke out in support of the Hope Instead of Handcuffs campaign and called for the practice of forcible restraint of children to cease.
Hanvey tweeted that it was “hard to comprehend” that the practice of restraining children still existed in the UK, while Daby referred to the practice as “outrageous” and “traumatising for children”, calling for it to end immediately. De Cordova echoed this sentiment with a tweet from her own social media account.
However, Serenity Welfare’s ambition goes far beyond a series of supportive social media posts from MPs. Whitehouse Communications, the partner company which helped facilitate the parliamentary drop-in session, has followed up with those in attendances with messages of encouragement to table oral questions to the education secretary and push for a Westminster Hall debate to take place, discussing the use of restraint during secure transportation of children.
MPs in attendance have also been encouraged to write to the campaign’s key targets, including minister for children and families Will Quince MP and education select committee chair, Robert Halfon MP.
As Serenity Welfare founder, Emily Aklan, explained further: “We want to raise the profile and the aims of the Hope instead of Handcuffs campaign among policymakers and make sure they understand that the inhumane practice of private organisations restraining and handcuffing children while transporting them is still happening. During the drop-in session, we also took the opportunity to showcase Serenity Welfare’s comprehensive suite of services, including safe transportation, mentoring and training for county lines.
“We are pleased that the session has had a profound effect on the outlook of attendees and helped secure further parliamentary support for the campaign. But we must do more. The key now is to build on this traction and get the education select committee to take note and investigate this issue in Whitehall.
“With the support of the committee chair and the children and families minister, we can fulfil our aims of developing a national framework of regulations to govern restraint practices deployed by secure transportation providers and promote industry best practice. Vulnerable children deserve better, and we will keep fighting.”
