From the chapter ‘Children society fails most‘
Katharine Sacks-Jones, Chief Executive of Become, the Charity for Children in Care and Young Care Leavers
If we, as a society, are serious about helping today’s children to thrive and to realise their potential as they grow into adults, then we must focus our attention on some of the most overlooked and marginalised children in society – those in the care system. We have to ensure that these young people have the care and support they need to make a successful transition to adulthood.
Children come into care when it is deemed they cannot continue to live with their family – for most, because of abuse and neglect.[i] These are children for whom the state has ‘corporate parenting’ responsibility. So, of all our children, this group absolutely must be the focus of effective public policy interventions. Yet, as the Chief Executive of Become, the national Charity for Children in Care and Young Care Leavers, what I hear time and again from care-experienced young people is that the care system lets them down, and that rather than setting them up to thrive, the system sets them up to fail.
The majority of children coming into care are traumatised. The care system should be there to give them the love and stability they need to recover from this trauma, yet sadly too often it does the very opposite. It replicates the instability that children and young people have experienced before coming into care, and can even compound their previous trauma.
Most children in care face a major change each year – be that in terms of schooling, their social worker or where they live.[ii] For some it is even worse – more than one in six move two or more times in a year.[iii] Nowhere is this instability more keenly felt than when it comes to young people at the time of leaving care; in fact, young people often describe what actually happens at this juncture as a case of ‘you don’t leave care; care leaves you’.
Each year some 10,000 young people leave care.[iv] For some the process effectively starts as young as 16 when they are then moved to ‘semi-independent accommodation’. In the worst instances this can include tents, caravans and hostels, or being placed in accommodation with much older adults who can be dealing with their own challenges, for example with drugs or alcohol. This can leave young people vulnerable to harm and exploitation.
Then, when young people turn 18 they face what we call the ‘care cliff’ – an abrupt drop in support and an expectation of ‘independence’ often well before they are ready. The shift from ‘in care’ to ‘care leaver’ means a complete change overnight in how they are viewed by the local authority and other services and in the support they receive when it comes to housing, mental health and so on. One young person described approaching their 18th birthday to us as ‘like being on death row, counting down the days’.
For many young people the care cliff means moving out of the home they are in and having to navigate ‘independent living’ on their own. No good parent would throw their child out on their 18th birthday. Yet that is exactly what we do to thousands of care leavers every year.
As any parent of teenagers will tell you, they do not magically become independent on turning 18. On average, most young people don’t leave their family home until the age of 23.[v] Many – the so-called ‘boomerang generation’ – having left home then return to live with their parents at a later point – perhaps when they leave university or to save for a deposit or if things don’t work out with their flatmates or partner. Yet for young care leavers this is simply not an option.
Little wonder then that so many young people leaving care struggle with this ‘transition to independence’. For many, this abrupt change falls at a time when they need stability the most. Sometimes this can be in the middle of important exams at school. Often when they are beginning to process the childhood trauma they have experienced, to work out who they are and understand what has happened to them. Rather than having the opportunity to understand their past and what they want to do with their lives, they are worrying about paying bills and rent, about looking after themselves entirely on their own. They have no control over this ‘transition’ or its timing or where they will live. Relationships and support can be fractured as young people are moved to a different part of the country. Often the accommodation is unsuitable. This can have a significant impact on well-being.
And sadly this is reflected in the statistics. Young care leavers are overrepresented in all the wrong places – the homelessness population,[vi] the criminal justice system, and among those not in education, employment or training (so-called NEETs). But we also know that this isn’t inevitable. Many care-experienced young people go on to achieve amazing things. This should be the expectation not the exception. Success, whatever that means to an individual young person, must be what we aspire to for all young people leaving the care system.
To achieve this we need to see a reimagining of leaving care. This means addressing the arbitrary age-based cliff edges that take no account of an individual young person’s readiness for independent living. This means no young person in ‘semi-independent’ accommodation at age 16. This means no young person being forced out of their home when they turn 18. This means giving young people certainty about where they will live as they transition into adulthood.
As a corporate parent, the government has a responsibility to act. Society should expect no less than each parent expects for their own children. If today’s children are to become tomorrow’s happy, thriving adults, society has to support them as they enter young adulthood. A stable roof over their heads is the very least we can do.
There must be an end to the uncertainty about where young people leaving care will live. This is no small task. A welcome start is in the introduction of Staying Put[vii] in recent years – which offers some young people the opportunity to remain with their former foster carers until the age of 21. However, the care system is under increasing pressure, with record numbers of children in care – 100,000 across the UK[viii] – and impactful, real change will require more funding and political will. But the consequences of doing nothing more bears a far greater cost – not only economically, but in the wasted potential of a group of young people we are too often setting up to fail. We urge the government to guarantee a Staying Put or equivalent for all 18-year-olds so that no child has to worry about leaving their home as they approach their 18th birthday. The government must use this commitment to open further doors to deeper thinking and actions that can address the needless and tragic wasted potential of so many young people leaving care.
Notes
[i] GOV.UK (2022) Children Looked After in England Including Adoptions, https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoptions#dataDownloads-1
[ii] Become, the Charity for Children in Care and Young Care Leavers (no date) ‘About the care system’, https://becomecharity.org.uk/about-the-care-system
[iii] Children’s Commissioner (2020) Stability Index 2020: Technical Report, www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/cco-stability-index-2020.pdf
[iv] GOV.UK (2022) Children Looked After in England Including Adoptions, https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoptions#dataDownloads-1
[v] ONS (Office for National Statistics) (2019) ‘Milestones: Journeying into adulthood?’, 18 February, www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/milestonesjourneyingintoadulthood/2019-02-18
[vi] Centrepoint (2017) From Care to Where? Care Leavers’ Access to Accommodation, London: Centrepoint, https://centrepoint.org.uk/media/2035/from-care-to-where-centrepoint-report.pdf
[vii] DfE (Department for Education), HMRC (HM Revenue & Customs) and DWP (Department for Work and Pensions) (2013) ‘Staying Put: Arrangements for care leavers aged 18 years and above’, www.gov.uk/government/publications/staying-put-arrangements-for-care-leavers-aged-18-years-and-above
[viii] NSPCC Learning (2021) ‘How many children are there in care?’, Research and Resources, March, https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/research-resources/statistics-briefings/looked-after-children