The Guardian view on children’s homes: on the edge of chaos | Editorial

Auctions for places, and a pattern where increasing numbers of children are moved out-of-borough, indicate that the system has failed

At the last count, there were 7,890 children in England being cared for in a children’s home, a secure unit or semi-independent accommodation, with a further 1,080 in settings such as residential special schools. The children’s homes that care for the majority of these young people probably bear only a passing resemblance to popular stereotypes, which range from sentimental to dystopian. Around three-quarters of English children’s homes are run for profit, with most of the rest run by councils. Between three and four beds is the most usual size, and Ofsted rates most as good or outstanding. Since the 1970s, when 40,000 children (40% of all those in care) lived in children’s homes, residential care has fallen out of favour. Foster and kinship care is now seen as preferable in most circumstances, but the remaining children’s homes provide an important service and many continue to do this difficult work well.

The system as a whole, however, is in the midst of a crisis produced by marketisation, and the local authority’s reinvention as a shopper seeking a bargain. Since 2010, a bad situation has been made dramatically worse by cuts to council budgets, which have increased pressure on prices to a point at which smaller providers struggle (and fail) to compete. Hedge funds and private equity increasingly dominate, as they do in the wider social care sector. An acute shortage of secure unit places, which one judge said had driven him to his “wits’ end”, is having an impact on the sector as a whole.

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from Children | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2qILxfS