EVERY child leaving care matters

On Friday, ECLCM, travelled from various parts of the UK and met at Liverpool Hope University. Some members were meeting for the first time and it was fantastic to finally put a real face to the campaigners behind this diverse group.

Liverpool Hope University (Gateway Building)

ECLCM met to discuss the way forward and how to promote the campaign which wants to stop the discrimination against children in residential care. 

ECLCM will make detailed announcements about these very exciting developments and keep all supporters informed via Twitter @rescareto21 Facebook and this blog. 

In the meantime...

Competition time! Calling all artists out there. ECLCM are launching a competition for a new logo!! How would you represent Every Child LeavingCare Matters?

Send your design ideas via Twitter @rescareto21
Winner will receive a 'signed' copy of Ben Ashcroft's book 51 Moves

Competition deadline: 1st September 2014

Please continue to support this campaign, write to your MP, tweet and sign the petition.

ECLCM is a campaign group, without funding or political affiliations with any other group, formed to stop Government discrimination against children in residential care who want support to 21, the same as those in foster care.

A conversation with an MP

A conversation with a Member of Parliament

I was just reflecting on a discussion that sprang from nowhere between members of our Every Child Leaving Care Matters (ECLCM) team and an MP seeking to defend this government’s record in supporting care leavers. The ECLCM team have some regard for this MP, for unlike most MPs of all parties, he has openly shown an interest and some sympathy for the cause of equal support for all children leaving care, wherever they happen to be placed. He has our respect because he will debate and doesn’t hide or offer excuses not to meet like the ministers he so stoutly defends.

The ECLCM position is clear. The implementation and enshrining in law of ‘Staying Put’ arrangements that offer enhanced aftercare support to young people who are fostered, (including the opportunity to stay on with their carers until they are 21 by mutual agreement,) but deliberately exclude young people from other residential settings is immoral and discriminatory.  As we have said, which one of us would look after one of our children into adulthood and tell another they were not going to get the same support? Nobody – but this government is doing precisely that with young people leaving care. We want the same for ALL care leavers irrespective of where they are placed.

Our MP said we were unfair saying ministers did not care, because they had implemented the reforms of the Children & Families Act 2014 in March this year. Now young people from foster care were receiving support to 21. Er yes, this is where we came in – is it caring to discriminate against one section of vulnerable children who happen to be placed in children’s homes? We at ECLCM say “No, it isn’t”.

Our MP told us we were unfair because it is too soon for the impact of the changes introduced by the new Act and changes in March this year to be felt. We at ECLCM argue there are no significant changes for young people leaving residential care. That’s why we are campaigning.

Our MP reminded us that if a local authority wanted to discharge a 16 year old now, they would need the expressed consent of the Director of Children’s Services. This, he implied, will stop such young children being discharged from care without adequate support. That gives rise to a sobering thought; is he suggesting that the thousands of young people under 18 discharged from care since 1948 were all discharged by social workers acting on their own authority, without the knowledge or consent of senior managers or members?  Patent nonsense? We thought so too. With all due respect to DCS’s everywhere, this is not enough and nowhere near what we regard as supporting children leaving care adequately. Funding and legislative backing might help a little too?

We then have the Care Leavers’ Charter.  An inspirational document that many care leavers helped prepare and in which they invested great hope. Of course, this government has not made it mandatory to meet its recommendations, and we know of signatory councils across England who are not complying. Can we rely on the Charter to support young people leaving care? I’m afraid not! We would support any proposal to make it mandatory for councils to implement it in full, but that won’t happen under this administration.

We have asked repeatedly to meet directly with ministers responsible and put our questions to them directly. They declined due to ‘diary commitments’. Our MP said that we had been listened to because our Chair Ben had been invited to give evidence at the Select Committee (which appears to have gone unheeded). 

By what stretch of imagination does speaking to a select committee equate with meeting a responsible minister and challenging them face to face on behalf of the care leavers we believe they have abandoned?

We are prepared to meet the Minister at a time and place of his choosing and put our questions to him. For example, in claiming that children’s homes nationally were in too parlous a state to allow young care leavers to stay on up to 21 in the rare cases when that may be appropriate (as in ‘Staying Put’ for fostered children,) why did he choose to ignore the judgements on children’s homes of his own watchdog Ofsted which do not support such a statement? We have other difficult questions to ask too.

Our MP said that ECLCM had failed to work with government to gain equality of aftercare for all care leavers because we refused to become directly involved in one of the expensive pilots they have introduced. We profoundly disagree; the pilots are looking at alternatives to support young people leaving children’s homes but are not looking at implementing the ‘Staying Put’ arrangements now being offered to children leaving foster care. That is not equality.

If we may be clear - the suggestion is that children in foster care can stay with their existing foster carers. Of course, this is what they should do. At best children in residential homes can move to a different resource. Would anyone support a plan for children in foster homes being made to transfer to a different foster home at eighteen? 

It will be years before the pilots report back. How many young care leavers will have struggled to cope without adequate support before anyone gets round to listening to the outcomes of the pilots. Mr Timpson said that he would allow ‘Staying Put’ arrangements for children leaving children’s homes ‘in a flash’ if he believed children would be safe and better off there. Yet he never responded when asked if he would support such arrangements being introduced if the pilots suggested so?

We at ECLCM are concerned that the pilots are simply this government ‘kicking the ball into the long grass’ until a few years hence after the next General Election. That’s why we don’t support the pilots. We don’t want to get involved with the pilots because we believe they are a bad idea, but we are happy to talk to them and share any expertise our group may have. We did write and offer a local pilot scheme. We still await the reply.

ECLCM want all young people leaving care to have the same rights and support up to the age of 21. We won’t support or justify any differential support or what we consider discrimination against any group. Do we consider such discriminatory policy to be uncaring? Yes, I’m afraid we do. Actually let me re-phrase that – We’re proud that we do.

Hannah's tale

Hannah’s Tale

Those care leavers who survive into their adult life without having been homeless, in prison, used illegal substances or admitted to a psychiatric ward may consider themselves to be fortunate and arguably even exceptional. Far too many care leavers have not been so fortunate over the last forty years as the government’s own disadvantage statistics starkly illustrate.  

Some care leavers write books about their experiences, but most don't. Yet every care leaver has a story to tell that illustrates an often very difficult and traumatic struggle through challenge and adversity to survive into the world of adults. Here is Hannah's. 

By any measure, Hannah is an exceptional human being. She is a care leaver, although that would not be obvious to the people who see her daily and depend upon her. They see Hannah as a busy manager in a service providing support for adults with mental health difficulties. However, it might so easily have been different, and Hannah might so easily have been on the other side of this relationship, had it not been for her fortitude and resilience and the fact that in her latter years in residential care she came across two women who simply refused to ‘go away’.

Hannah’s earliest memories are not happy ones. It is only comparatively recently and with the aid of counselling that she has been able to understand and accept that the reasons for her unhappy early years are not her fault, but the responsibility of others. Put simply, her mother didn’t protect her as she should have done, nor did she protect Hannah’s brothers and sisters.

Hannah knows now that if she had been protected by her mother, as children have every right to expect, then she wouldn’t have been as vulnerable to the abuse she suffered. Her mother’s selfishness manifested in part by her “just keeping having children” who each in turn were not protected.

At an early age Hannah knew that her life was different from most of those who lived in the area. ‘Social Services’ were regular visitors but Hannah does not blame them – “It was hidden from them” she explains.

A harsher critic may ask “How hard did they look? Aren’t they supposed to be able to see through lies and look at the evidence before them?” Hannah does not ask this question. She does not blame Social Services.

Hannah was about two years of age when she first remembers Social Services coming. She was four or five years old when she first went into foster care. For several years things just seemed to get worse as Hannah became more and more angry, and more and more detached. In successive placements she never felt that she fitted in and had no confidence that she could fit in anywhere.

That’s where the vicious circle for children in care comes in. The child can’t make attachments because she is guarded and fearful of rejection. Because she is guarded, withdrawn, suspicious and maybe even rejecting of carers approaches, she is written off. This causes her to withdraw further and protect what she has, however small that may be, because it’s better than risking further rejection. Tragically, further rejection is often what she gets. As Hannah says “You think you’ve got a heart that swings like a brick – but its protection.” Naturally as a child she can’t work any of this out and by the time she can in later life –for those who can – it’s too late.

Hannah was eventually moved into a children’s home where staff imposed their will through physical restraint. This provoked further anger in her. She earned a growing reputation for fighting back – except that’s not how it was interpreted. To the ‘professionals’ she was just violent and aggressive. She was told by one staff member “No wonder your mum dumped you”.

She was now trapped in the vicious circle and her life was spiralling downwards. She wanted to be allowed to withdraw into her own space but that wasn’t acceptable to the adults around her. They wanted her to conform. She warned staff of the consequences if they tried to impose their will on her by moving her to where they wanted her to be but they seemed to find it important to be in charge. This could end in explosive outbursts, and Hannah is not proud when she recalls that she pushed a door in the face of a member of staff, and was responsible for another ending up at the bottom of the stairs with a broken leg. 

On the other hand, staff members didn’t spend the night in police cells for restraining Hannah even when at times the line between restraint and assault was a fine one. Hannah did.

School didn’t help. Hannah was and is extremely bright, as the string of qualifications she now holds testifies. However, to her school was “…a load of crap”. How might it have been if, at an earlier age someone had, in Hannah’s words “pushed me”. How would she have viewed school if someone encouraged her and believed in her? It didn’t happen. She was just trouble.

Hannah didn’t engage in school. She “bunked off” at every opportunity she could. She found it hard to be different in school – different because she was in a kid’s home. She was difficult and found herself at a Pupil Referral Unit and thereafter an even smaller ‘school’ run by Social Services that was more like some form of day care where there were no qualifications to be had. For a bright girl this seemed even more meaningless so why go at all? Another self-fulfilling prophecy.

Hannah got lucky. A new manager arrived to run the children’s home. Hannah understandably had very little time for her but became increasingly puzzled that the new manager seemed to have all the time in the world for her. She spent time unconditionally sitting with Hannah perhaps drinking coffee but often in total silence. No questions, no expectations and no judgements.

Over time she began to develop something approaching trust in this woman who seemed to expect nothing from her except what seemed to be in Hannah’s own interests. As the relationship grew Hannah’s excesses appeared to diminish and she began to start thinking of the future for she was now approaching sixteen with every expectation that she would have to leave her children’s home that remarkably seemed to have become her home.

Hannah knew she was not ready to leave but there was no choice, that’s what happened. 

Then amazingly for one who had not had too much luck so far Hannah got lucky again. A new social work team had been formed and Hannah had a new social worker who the manager said was OK. That was enough for Hannah not to instantly dismiss her.

Her new social worker recognised that Hannah was not ready to live entirely independently and started pushing for her to be considered for a new scheme that had been developed that provided care leavers with their own independent accommodation but within a supported project.

It was also suggested to Hannah that she apply for an exciting though challenging project to go to Africa to help others. Why, perhaps, she wondered did people suddenly feel that she was worthy of such support and care when previously it was absent?  She started to believe in herself a little more - if other people believed that she could do it then maybe she could?

And she did. She passed through the demanding selection processes, played her part in the considerable fund raising necessary for the trip to take place and found that, as a bonus she made friends along the way. No longer burdened by the label of being in care, she was simply another committed young person desperate to help others whilst finding herself.

It’s not been easy for Hannah since then but then it’s been no harder than it is for many young people making their mark in the world. Crucially she has people behind her - people who believed in her. Most significantly she had begun to believe in herself.

Hannah shouldn’t have needed to be lucky to find care professionals who actually cared but the reality is that many care leavers and those approaching the abyss that leaving care can be don’t have that kind of support.

What of Hannah’s family? Well she has the unconditional support of two people who she describe s as her ‘adopted mum and dad’. The ‘mum’ part of that couple being the now retired manager who many years earlier had just sat with Hannah and expected nothing but has been rewarded with so much. ‘Every Child Matters’ but only if someone decides that they matter to them

The student's view.

These comments were shared with the ECLCM team by a social work student following a placement with a care provider. We show them exactly as they were made: 

‘THIS ISSUE (the differential treatment of children in foster and residential care) IS A CLEAR CUT EXAMPLE OF A SOCIALLY MORAL AND ETHICAL DILEMMA and the manner in which it is resolved will serve to determine our belief in democracy and equality of treatment.

As with any socially moral/ethical dilemma, the question of social justice can be raised and discussed. But, little needs to be said before drawing a conclusion that injustice is apparent in this case.

Ultimately, the life chances of the children in residential units will be stifled to a greater extent than those in foster care - it makes no logical sense that a child who generally presents with greater complexities and requires more attention is entitled to less supported years in care than a child in foster care, who will generally present as less complex and yet is entitled to more supported years in care.

In my humble opinion, there exists a clear case of discrimination against children who reside in residential units and a callous disregard towards their healthy growth and development which is being unjustifiably limited in comparison to their fostered counterparts.

We live in a socially unjust society characterised by oppression, segregation and marginalisation, making it increasingly difficult for disadvantaged children to claim a respectable stake in society. The least that can be done to alleviate this problem would be to show some compassion to the most vulnerable children in society who reside in residential units and offer them similar rights to those children in foster care. In the spirit of humanitarianism, this would be the moral and ethical way forward’.

Natalie's story

This is the story of Natalie. Natalie is a care leaver who experienced a massively disrupted and unhappy childhood, but with support, hard work and determination successfully left custody and misery behind her and became a successful university graduate. 

As a result of family disruption Natalie was taken into care at 13 years old. She was a very angry, frightened young woman, who quickly focused her anger on those who were in authority. She was abusive and aggressive towards the police and other young people and often difficult for the staff at the assessment home to control. She had been placed in a short term children’s home for assessment which did not offer the care or stability she yearned for at that time. Although she admits that any carer would have struggled with her, she remembers wanting to be placed with a caring working class foster family who would offer her care and affection. She was clear that they needed to be ‘working class’; she was once placed with foster carers who had expensive cars and a big house, where she felt inadequate and excluded and didn’t settle. As it was, she was in a short term residential placement which quickly broke down and so began a series of care placements, 25 in about eight years. None of them were able to help or manage her behaviour and inevitably, police became increasingly more involved with her. Natalie began to accumulate criminal convictions related to her violent and aggressive behaviour.

Even though her care career was deteriorating, Natalie formed a close relationship with her social worker, who eventually became a personal friend and mentor. Initially, she had six social workers in 12 months of coming into care, adding to the chaos of her life. But her next social worker and Youth Offending Team (YOT) social worker formed a positive relationship and continued to support her into her adulthood. Natalie believes that she would not have broken the cycle of despair without the support this worker has given her over the years, even when things appeared at their most hopeless.

Drifting through failed placement after failed placement, Natalie was eventually discharged from care without prior notice on her 16^th birthday,  because her behaviour was so challenging. She was discharged on the street with nowhere to go, with her possessions in bin bags  and went to stay with friends overnight. She was later placed by Social Services in a B&B, which quickly broke down. She had no coherent care plan or pathway plan at that stage and was quite unprepared to cope with living alone.

Natalie did not have any consistent formal education in a school during her care career. She blames herself for this, recognising she was out of control. This altered when she spent time in secure children’s homes. There she attended school and found she enjoyed it, successfully taking GCSE’s and enjoying the praise and encouragement of her teachers, her social worker and YOT Worker, who constantly reassured her that she was bright and could do well academically.

Her education quickly became disrupted once she left custody, with no planned placement to support her. No supported lodgings would take her because of her record, and she drifted between friends and inevitably back into custody.

Whilst in prison, Natalie witnessed another prisoner take her own life. She heard the officers joking and talking about it in a matter of fact way, and resolved that she would change her life when she got out. It took a little longer, but Natalie kept her promise to herself and eventually managed to work her way through ‘Access’ courses and eventually to university, ready to fulfil the academic potential she knew she had.

Natalie does not blame the staff or carers for her failed placements. She blames herself, even though she was a child. She reflected though that if she had been placed in a caring foster family at admission, she may not have failed so dramatically in care. Even had she been placed in a settled long term children’s home, it would have been better than the short term assessment placement she endured.

Natalie regretted her education being disrupted, even though she again quickly blamed herself. She sees education as the route that eventually led her away from a life in prison. She feels that she might have coped better with care if she had had a stable educational placement and support throughout. Only her achievements in school in the secure children’s homes, reflected her academic potential during her childhood.

Natalie saw her social worker and YOT worker as the constants in her life who had the most positive influence on her. Nevertheless, she identified poor discharge planning when she was in custody as adding to her problems. She was never consulted or advised where she was going when she got out.  She did not blame her social worker or the secure units for this, but regarded social work managers as responsible for failing to allow resources or opportunities for her social worker and carers to support her.

Looking back, Natalie knows she must have been very difficult for her carers to manage and does not seek to blame them. She does feel that children and young people should be more involved and consulted in decision making than they are, even if they are presenting challenging behaviour. She also feels that young people are moved too quickly and too often, instead of being supported properly in planned placements they have agreed to. Also, that the right to a good and continuous education is too easily put aside when children are difficult for carers to manage.

Natalie was able to break the cycle of despair and create a successful and fulfilling life for herself and was fortunate to have people prepared to support her to do that when she felt strong enough. Too many care leavers are not so fortunate. That is why the ECLCM campaign demands equal aftercare support for ALL children leaving care now, no matter where they are placed. 

Reflections of another care leaver

I was thinking about the campaign for Every Child Leaving Care Matters and was reminded of how my life looked as a care leaver between 20 and 25 years of age. First though, I thought “Well, obviously every child leaving care matters and how could anyone possibly think otherwise?” It’s a bit like saying that every child should have access to the National Health Service isn’t it?

For me leaving care was in some ways terrifying, and only with the benefit of hindsight can I recognise that I had to pull myself up by my bootstraps. Where did the resilience and determination which enabled me to make the journey from being homeless, unemployed and largely uneducated to achieving a PhD, being accepted into the Fellowship of the British Psychological Society and being invited to offer my opinion to Government come from? It certainly did not come from the Leaving Care or After Care support that I received from my Corporate Parents. Am I in some way more remarkable than thousands of other young people who passed through the Care System at the same time or subsequent to me? Different certainly; we all are different to each other. But better, brighter, more socially adept? Not necessarily so. Although my life achievements may be judged to be successful by many, how many other young people leaving care could have emulated me had they received a reasonable level of support?

In my case, those 5 years from the ages of 20 to 25 marked the transition from living on the streets to having graduated from Cambridge University, having my own apartment and starting to teach.  I cannot say it was an easy ride and in so many ways I would have benefitted from the way families would now support a son or daughter today doing the same sort of things. 

For example, I would guess that my family (natural or foster) would have been around to possibly safeguard me from being homeless. Unfortunately for me this never happened.  In supporting this campaign I would also wish to see young people being supported and nurtured as they make the transition from care in avoiding homelessness, imprisonment, joblessness and being without education; in many ways all the things that the nurturing resilience of a family would give to a young person. If the child’s ‘family’ happen to be those caring for them in their (residential) home then what difference does that make?

 In looking at the campaign one has to ask whether it’s objective of wanting the plain ordinary and everyday items that would occur and be part of a young person's life is too much to ask for care leavers.  I do not believe they are.  Any good responsible adult, parent or professional would want the very best for their child or young person.  It's not hard to see that our youth is society's future.  In planning for the best care for our youth, I am sure we are also planning for the best future for our society. Why exclude children in care from being part of and making their valuable contribution to our society?

 

The Social Worker's Question: Is Care Any Better?

I am a social worker and in a few months I will have been a social worker for 40 years.

In that time I have met thousands of children and young people and worked with many hundreds of them. This fact alone does not give me any right to express a view about how the world might seem to ‘looked after’ children. It does however place me in a strong position to hold a determined view on the progress that I have seen in child care practice for children raised by the state between the implementation of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969 and the present day in 2014.

I firmly believe that the systematic, institutional physical, emotional and sexual abuse of children in care by their carers (both in residential and foster care settings) is no longer commonplace. Only a fool would say that it has been eradicated, and we as social workers must continue to be vigilant.

It is also less common for boys to leave care and go straight into custody now. I vividly recall too many troubled boys leaving care directly for the ‘custodial apprenticeship’ so common in the past. The ‘short sharp shock’ in Detention Centres, so often lauded by politicians but rarely effective, often followed by ‘graduation’ to borstal.

Far fewer young women are placed in ‘mother and baby’ homes now and as far as I am aware, we no longer deport children to ‘the colonies’ to enjoy a better life away from their ‘inadequate’ parents. It is chastening to remind ourselves that it was well into the 1960’s when we stopped doing that.

These are pleasing developments but I still regularly ask myself “is care any better now for those children and young people living in it?” For many children, care is a positive experience that helps them negotiate the rest of their lives. It has been my role in life to ensure that as many children as possible find care to be a real springboard into a successful and happy life. Sadly though, this is not true for all.

If we examine the real outcomes for many children in care now and compare them with the same outcomes for children in care in the 1970’s there is far less difference than we would have anticipated back then. 

For example:

• ·         Are care leavers still massively over-represented in the prison community? – Yes, they are.
• ·         Has there been a discernible change in the proportion of children from care who end up in custody in the last 40 years – No, there has not.
• ·         Are care leavers still massively over-represented in adult mental health wards? – Yes, they are.
• ·         Has there been a discernible change in the proportion of care leavers with mental health issues during the last 40 years – No, there has not.
• ·         Is suicide more prevalent among care leavers than amongst the general population? – Yes, it is.
• ·         Has there been a discernible change in the proportion of young people from care who commit suicide during the last 40 years?  – No, there has not.
• ·         Are care leavers still massively over represented among the ‘homeless population’? – Yes, they are.
• ·         Has there been a discernible change in the proportion of care leavers amongst the homeless population during the last 40 years? – No, there has not.

This list of outcomes is not endless, but I find myself asking how much longer does this catalogue of disadvantage have to continue before Society is persuaded that we are still getting something very badly wrong? Is there another explanation I am missing? Are care leavers perhaps all victim of some unknown genetically transmitted condition? Of course they are not. In fact children in care have shown themselves over many years to be remarkably and wonderfully average – given the chance.

The answer is that it is their childhood that is abnormal. There is a mass of literature on the key issues that I have merely hinted at, but this piece is not about the reform of the child care system. Indeed, it is about one very small but crucial aspect of that system.

I have been fortunate to have worked in and around the same geographic area for much of my life. I have seen and known third and fourth generation ‘care families’. Should we be surprised that this is happening? I don’t believe that we intuitively know how to parent well and if a child’s early experience is lacking and their departure from care is abandonment, should we be shocked that there are young adults who simply do not know how to be good enough parents?

Abandonment? Too strong a word? I don’t think so. Imagine if you will a child who becomes looked after – for whatever reason - aged about nine. Imagine that this child then spends time in a number of different foster homes but fails to ‘settle’. As each foster placement ends the attachment difficulties that developed as a consequence of the child’s parents simply not meeting its needs are self-evidently more acute – after all, each failed attachment in each placement has reinforced them. It is not that the child is necessarily ‘unfosterable’ as some may have it. It is as likely that they can’t cope with the pressures of life and relationships in a family at that time of their life.

Imagine that this child is by now about 13 years of age and is placed in a children’s home that is affordable to his corporate parent, but like the foster homes is not supported by a therapeutic programme. It is very likely that with their basic needs not being met, the child will continue to be  ”disruptive”, such  that the placement will fail, and another children’s home will need to be found. Another broken placement, more broken relationships, broken friendships, broken education, declining self-esteem and capacity to trust. It is likely that by now the child is regularly absconding, and our now 14 year old may be spending time on and off the streets, stealing to eat and experimenting with illegal drugs.

Children experimenting with drugs can lead to an accidental (?) overdose. Imagine our 14 year old is kept in hospital for a few days and then as an alternative, they are placed in a very ordinary children’s home with extraordinary staff who know about children with attachment difficulties and are supported by a therapist. These staff will have been helped to understand that therapy isn’t an event that takes place in an hour a week but a process that involves all those caring for the child 24 hours a day. In such a setting, over the next two years these staff help the growing but still vulnerable young person to piece together what has happened in their early years, to grow to understand that their future is not pre-determined but within their ability to change – given the appropriate support.

With support, the young person may go on to college and be successful. Having started after their classmates, they will have a great deal of time and work to make up and may not ready to take their GCSE’s at 16. Perhaps our young person will gain GCSE’s at 17, and show real potential.

Now the young person faces a real dilemma. In a few months they will be 18 years old and be expected to be ready to leave care.  Perhaps their transitions worker is really good and realises that the child needs support beyond 18 if they are to meet their untapped potential and move successfully into adult life. The worker may suggest to the young person that they need to move to a foster home where they can stay until they are 21.

By now, the young person may have lived in their (children’s) home for several years, surrounded by those people who have helped them on their journey, people they trust. They may be settled and relate well to the other kids too. They are not ‘real’ family but to the young person they may certainly feel like family. Our young person had been fostered before and it didn’t work. They are happy with their life as it is in the children’s home. They have friends, relationships, trusted people around them and a social life.

Why should it have to change? The only reason is because they are looked after, and looked after in a children’s home. As a result, their wishes don’t count as much as if they lived in a foster home. They are faced with making a choice that they don’t want to make or potentially being abandoned.

This is not a real story but it is based on very many real lives that I have witnessed in my 40 years in social work. There are many brilliant foster carers and brilliant children’s homes (Ofsted say as much). There are many brilliant children in care in both types of placement. These children must be given every opportunity to succeed and supported until they are able to move on successfully and with confidence. “Every Child Leaving Care Matters” – wherever they happen to live on their 18^th birthday.