So, linking strongly to the point that you've made about too many children being in care, we agree with that, and we are trying and we're going to have a concerted effort to try to reduce the number of children in care. I'm pleased that there is significant interest in this important area, because if we are scrutinised, it does maintain our focus to actually try to achieve something. It can drive quality improvement and galvanise actions. For example, the Public Accounts Committee is undertaking its own inquiry looking at public services for care-experienced children and young people. And the first part of that inquiry has been completed, and we're taking forward a number of recommendations as a result. For example, we've given a commitment to develop a national approach to placement commissioning, and this will build upon the work already being undertaken by the National Adoption Service, the national fostering framework, and the children's residential care task and finish group.

We're particularly keen to promote regional approaches to provision of specialist services, such as residential care for children and young people at risk of going into secure accommodation. We want to de-escalate the services and try to make sure that we do have regional provision for children to go into so that they don't have to travel miles away from their home, because we do think it's very important that children are placed as near as possible to their families, who, obviously, are of utmost importance to them. Following our new investment of £15 million into the integrated care fund to support prevention and early intervention services for care-experienced young people, regional partnership boards have been working hard to develop proposals for innovative new approaches to increase the capacity of our residential accommodation and promote new models of support.

And of course, we have got the children's ministerial advisory group, which is chaired excellently by our colleague David Melding, and I'm sure you'll have heard about the work that that group does. They have three key areas of priority, and they are the same as what are now my priorities: safely reducing the number of children in need of care; having sufficiently high-quality placement options for children who are looked after or who are leaving care—so, we want to be sure that there are suitable placements for the children who have to come into care; and supporting children who are looked after to have the best possible journey through care and into adulthood. We have invested to support care-experienced children to keep families with their birth families wherever possible, and this includes—we've established the St David's Day fund, and in its first year alone, over 1,900 care-experienced children across Wales have been supported through this fund. We have developed edge-of-care services in each of the 22 local authorities, and we've helped over 3,600 children to remain within the family unit, by working with more than 2,000 families last year. We've rolled out the Reflect service across Wales, and so far, this year, the service has supported in excess of 160 young parents who've had at least one child placed in the care system, with the aim of trying to not let that happen again. And the previously mentioned £15 million integrated care funding will be also used to support the delivery of prevention and early intervention work highlighted in the improving outcomes for children work programme. And a regular topic of discussion at the ministerial advisory group has been better access to and availability of therapeutic support for care-experienced children.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to speak at the launch of a joint report produced by the NSPCC and Voices from Care about the emotional and mental well-being of looked-after children, and I know there are some very important recommendations from this report, and I look forward to hearing their advice on the action that is needed.

So, to finish, I want to emphasise that there is a lot of good work going on around Wales. We must be scrutinised, so I welcome that scrutiny, but I think we have to acknowledge that our local authority colleagues are committed and do work very hard for the interests of the children. We are a small, compact nation, which makes it relatively easy for us to learn from each other, so it's very important that the good practice is able to spread around Wales. We here in this Chamber, we are all corporate parents to care-experienced children and young people; they are our responsibility throughout Wales. So, I do hope the Member will agree that the aims of the Welsh Government are to do our utmost to look after children who are in these difficult situations. We want to reduce the number of children who are in care, and we want to do our very best as a Government to ensure that they have the best possible opportunity in life. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer.