I am grateful for this contribution from one of our readers, who was inspired to write following publication of Martin Narey’s recent report into Childrens Homes. Should more of the money currently being used to provide residential or foster care for children be used to support families instead?

 

A Relative’s View on Children’s Homes

If you ever meet a strange person gingerly crossing a wooden bridge looking as though they think they are going to fall through the gaps that they couldn’t possibly fall through that is probably me.It is as a result of a childhood trauma of having to cross a wooden railway bridge going to visit my half brother in who lived apart from me in a Children’s home. I both loved visiting and hated leaving without him believing as small children do that it was my fault that he was there.

He was placed in the home aged 2 by his father when my Mum fled from what would now be called coercive control. My Mum was told by what was then Social Services that she had no say in the matter and there was never a court case. There was no social services involvement at all in my childhood, but the impactof being apart my brother has been lifelong has now spanned three generations.

 

My Observations:

Children in children’s homes are more likely to be living away from their local communities than those in foster care (37% are placed more than 20 miles from home and outside their local authority) Recommendation 7: I urge local authorities and consortia to be cautious about following any hard and fast rule about placement distance and to recognise that the right placement for a child is more important than location. They should no longer impose geographical restrictions on where homes must be located in order to be included in contracts.

This really does not work to maintain family ties and it seems to be a secondary consideration. These family ties once stretched are very difficult to strengthen again, my Mum describes the tie to her son as thin as a thread. I myself know very little about my brother’s childhood as he doesn’t speak about it. Isolation is a key factor in development of mental illness and children leaving care are very likely to be isolated.

 

The average weekly cost of a place in a children’s home is approximately £3,000, with little difference in cost between local authority, voluntary sector and private sector provision

My Mum needed support not condemnation, in her day single mothers were scorned, she soon got her self straight, but even then wasn’t allowed to have her son back. I really do not see any change today time and again we hear some Local Authorities would rather shell out this average of £156,000 per year rather than support parents with much lower outlay.

 

But fostering is the right choice for most children who cannot return home, enter special guardianship, or who are unsuitable for adoption. And local authorities must treat it as the first option, not least because it is much less expensive than residential care. According to DfE, the average cost of foster care has been estimated at around £600 per child per week compared to around £3,000 per week for a child living in a children’s home.

My brother stayed in the same home for 14 years, I do not know if fostering was considered at all. Today I do not believe that all Local Authorities consider fostering as a first option especially if a child has special needs, yet they will wriggle out of their obligations to provide support to such familes which would stop problems escalating to crisis in the first place.

 

“In 2014-15, eight commercial fostering agencies made around £41m profit between them from providing foster placements to local authorities. This is pure profit. It’s after allowances for foster carers, staffing costs and support services… The fact that £41m of public taxpayers’ money, allocated to support children in state care, actually ended up in the pockets of … some seriously rich capital firms is obscene.”

I agree with the last word. Imagine what £41m could do if used to support families.

 

The Howard League believe that children are “pushed into the criminal justice system by homes which are supposed to be helping them.”86 And the Prison Reform Trust (PRT) – which published its own report on this subject just a few weeks after the Howard League – was reported as saying that “children in care are sucked into the criminal justice system for trivial reasons.”87 It is a pity that statement did not reflect the more nuanced conclusions of the PRT report, because, like the Howard League assertion, I believe it to be unfair. The Prison Reform Trust’s laudable aim is that children in residential care – as far as is possible – are diverted from the criminal justice system and, particularly, from custody.

Sir Martin Narey does not believe that children are being criminalized, this is actually what I find to be the most disturbing part of the report. From my experience they most certainly are for the most trivial of reasons and they are victims of crime within the homes.All is not rosy.

 

Alongside this:

Recommendation 16: The Department for Education, in consultation with Ofsted, needs to reconsider their guidance – taking account of recent Court judgements – to ensure that staff are able to keep children safe by preventing them leaving homes at time of danger, either by locking doors or using restraint, and that they can be confident in the legality of their doing so.

I do not know the legality of these measures, but I can see them being open to abuse.

I know from my family situation, being brought up in a Childrens home is certainly no substitute for family life, it leaves deep scars on the child, siblings , parents and grandparents. No matter how many decorations are put up pronouncing home is where the heart is or other such sentiments it is not the ideal place for a child to grow up in. It is rarely stable, there are many moves and children grow up not having the first clue about family life. It really is time for a policy change, to start using some of the obscene costs to actually support children and familes.