Facing the problems with children’s homes

The Guardian’s investigation on children’s homes (Vulnerable children ‘auctioned online’ in care-home system, experts warn, 10 November) is hugely disturbing and grimly highlights why we must do better for our children. It is unacceptable for children to be treated in a way that deprives them of their dignity or fails to make their best interests paramount.

We believe care homes can be the first choice, not the last resort, for some children, especially teenagers who have struggled with family placements in the past.

That’s why we are urging local authorities to work with us to develop a new model for care homes; one which puts children’s needs first, is focused on delivering the best outcomes for children and gives value for money to the taxpayer.
Carol Iddon
Managing director of children’s services, Action for Children

• Many young people leaving residential care carry the burden of earlier systemic failures – in helping their families when problems first arise, so young people can remain at home, or with kinship carers, or in finding them an adoptive or foster family. Instead, for many, their lives have been further disrupted and they have “ended up” in residential care.

To break this cycle and move away from children’s homes being used as a last resort will require radically rethinking their role. One approach would be to develop an integrated model – where children’s homes make an important contribution in addressing the systemic failures identified above.

First, to assist family and kinship support through providing care when young people need time out of their families. Second, to support adoptive and foster care placements when carers and young people may need a break from each other. Third, to provide care for young people who would benefit from living in a children’s home, including young people who choose to live in group care, who for different reasons have been unable to settle in family placements, and those who will be assisted by different therapeutic approaches.

This will require well-funded local services and is the antithesis of the unethical marketisation of care, which results in the dispersal and attendant estrangement of highly vulnerable teenagers from their families and communities.
Prof Mike Stein
University of York

• Government reports on adoption, fostering, children’s homes and residential special schools have not provided a cohesive strategy for children’s services. Currently, the residential care leadership board only has the chair appointed. Children’s homes are taking the lead with the necessary new thinking, partnership, ethics and relationships. It is time to move beyond transactional to relationship commissioning.

For children’s homes to offer a secure emotional base, they need to operate within an environment that provides stability. Stability connects childcare and financial good practice. Demand for a children’s home place is outstripping supply. Providers are receiving between 500 and 700 referrals a month. Homes have around 95% occupancy. Often there are only 75-125 placements available nationally, all subject to matching of needs to provision. In 2017, numbers of places fell by 2%, according to Ofsted figures.

Local authorities are in competition for a scarce number of placements. We need a further 125 homes but available fees are keeping residential childcare as a low-wage sector, resulting in the key professionals, registered managers, being in high demand. It takes hundreds of thousands of pounds to open a children’s home, whether funds are privately sourced, from a voluntary agency or local authorities.

The majority of respondents to the ICHA state of the market survey in February 2018 reported a lack of confidence. Occupancy may be high but holding fees to current levels results in turnover flatlining or declining. Reserves are static or declining. These factors explain the lack of supply in a situation where a market response might be expected to create expansion. The need for new thinking has never been more apparent.
Jonathan Stanley
CEO, Independent Children’s Homes Association

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