The government must act to protect 'sent away' children
4 min read
Some of the most vulnerable children in the country are being packed off to ‘out of area’ placements. We must do more to ensure they are not left to fall victim to exploitation, writes Ann Coffey
It is shocking that thousands of the country’s most vulnerable children continue to be sent away to live in children’s homes in far flung places.
Record numbers are packed off to ‘out of area’ placements – sometimes more than 300 miles from their home town – and then left isolated and alone.
The All Party Parliamentary Group for Runaway and Missing Children and Adults has become increasingly concerned about the dangers facing these ‘farmed out’ children. Without the support of family, friends or local social workers, they can become ‘sitting ducks’ for those who wish to prey on them.
Last week our APPG launched a parliamentary inquiry into the record numbers of children who go missing from out of area placements and the risks they face.
Evidence is mounting that this generation of sent away youngsters can fall victim to paedophiles and drugs gangs, who groom and coerce them into running heroin and crack cocaine in ‘County Lines’ operations. Some become trapped in a brutal and violent world from which it is difficult to escape.
The APPG first raised the alarm about cross-boundary placements in a previous inquiry into children going missing from care in 2012.
The Government responded and accepted it was bad for children to be ‘out of sight, out of mind’ and promised in 2013 to reduce the numbers of out of area placements.
But this promise has been broken and it is bitterly disappointing that the situation has gone from bad to worse. The numbers have soared and now stand at record levels.
Two thirds of all children living in children’s homes now live out of borough (64 per cent), up from 46 per cent in 2012. There has been a 77 per cent increase in the numbers of children uprooted and sent to live out of area.
Worryingly, record numbers of these children are now going missing from out of area placements with 1,000 more individual children going missing from distant children’s homes since 2015, according to new Department for Education figures.
This has more than doubled from 990 in 2015 to 1,990 in 2018 and compares to a 31 per cent increase for children who go missing from children’s homes within their own borough.
This trend is even worse in my own area of Stockport where 73 per cent of children who went missing from local children’s homes last year had been placed out of area.
The APPG is calling for evidence, up until April 26, from individuals, organisations, professionals and crucially from children themselves on their experiences of out of borough placements.
Local police have repeatedly told me of their concerns for the safety of children placed out of area. I have also written to all 43 police chief constables, as part of the inquiry, to ask for their observations about the link between out of area placements and children going missing and being targeted for sexual and criminal exploitation.
The problem is that most children’s homes are bunched into three regions of the country with 25 per cent in the North West alone.
Local authorities have their hands tied with little choice about where children should be placed because of the uneven distribution of children’s homes.
The number of privately owned homes has increased year on year and now accounts for 73 per cent of all children’s homes.
These homes are often not situated in the right place to meet the needs of children. If children’s homes are not providing care where it is best for children, then the market is working in the interests of the provider, not the children themselves.
It is a broken system.
Ann Coffey is an independent MP for Stockport and chair of the APPG for Runaway and Missing Children and Adults
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