Shocking number of children in care live without consistent love and support of an adult

The government released new statistics this week showing that 10,840 children aged 16-18 are living in so-called ‘supported accommodation’, more than one in 10 (13%) of all children in care. 

Despite being widely used, this kind of accommodation is not suitable for children. Legally, supported accommodation only provides its occupants with ‘support’ and not ‘care’, and the regulations governing this type of living arrangement are much weaker than those for children’s homes or foster carers.

It is nothing close to loving or to what most of us would consider to be family. Staff, for example, are not expected to provide the daily care and oversight that you would expect any child to have; they are simply required to maintain ‘regular and sufficient contact’ to be able to identify any safeguarding risks, mental health concerns or if the young person has gone missing.

Read more:

• Mental health support while I was in care wasn’t perfect – but now children are being turned away
• ‘Children in care shouldn’t be a route to profit’: Baroness Lola Young on privatisation of children’s homes
• ‘You’re basically abandoned’: How care leavers are forced from foster homes as soon as they turn 18

Children in supported accommodation (who might be living in a shared house with other children and/or adults or on their own in a small bedsit) usually manage their own finances, shop and cook for themselves, and make everyday decisions about how they spend their time – largely without the consistent input of adults. Some report only seeing support staff once a week, and a social worker once every six weeks.

Children in care can live in supported accommodation because the law in England and Wales only requires them to live under adult supervision and protection until they are 16. So it is currently legal for a 16 or 17-year-old ‘in care’ to live in this kind of accommodation despite the obvious contradiction that they are not receiving appropriate ‘care’ at all.

And while supported accommodation is often cited as offering a valuable stepping stone for young people in preparation for adult living, the reality is that children are being placed in supported accommodation because there is a severe shortage of foster carers and children’s homes.

We would not tolerate these circumstances for our own children, so why do we allow it for children who are in the care of the state? 

As I argued in Generation abandoned?, the gap between the experiences of care leavers and their peers is actually becoming wider. In recent years, the journey to adulthood for teenagers is more prolonged and, in some ways, more challenging for all young people. It takes longer to gain financial independent, and many young people struggle to find a job and affordable housing. In the last 25 years, we have seen a 13 percentage point rise in the number of 23-year-olds still living with their parents. Many rely on the Bank of Mum and Dad and the safety blanket of supportive family relationships to sustain them through the challenging transition to adulthood. This is not the case for children in care.

Children in care are expected to live independently from as young as 16. Yet given the trauma that will have precipitated their entry into care, they are likely to need extra love and intensive care to help them on their way to adulthood. Their journey through primary and secondary school is more likely to have been interrupted. They are at higher risk of becoming a teenage parent. And their physical and mental health is likely to be worse than that of their peers. None of these things is pre-determined, of course. Some young people in care thrive. But given that children are taken into care because of concerns about their welfare, we should be taking extra care of them, not less.

Expecting 16 or 17-year-olds to live alone, without a loving adult in supported accommodation, is irresponsible. The harrowing account of Nonita, a 17-year-old living in supported accommodation who died by suicide, was recently the subject of a Sky news investigation. Her story paints a vivid picture of the consequences of failing to provide adequate, consistent care to highly vulnerable children –even those like Nonita who repeatedly asked for more help and support.

For decades, policy makers have sought to address the gap in life chances by improving the support care leavers receive at the point of leaving care (such as access to a personal advisor). But the most important foundation for life is having stable, loving, guiding relationships. Children in care should not be expected to live without the consistent guidance, love, care and day-to-day support of adults.

Last month, the Children’s Commissioner for England called for universal care standards to be introduced so that all homes where children live provide them with care and not just support. I think the government should go further and set a target to phase out the use of supported accommodation for children in care altogether. It is time to recognise that every child in care deserves better.

Lisa Harker is the director of the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory and a contributor to the Nuffield Foundation’s Grown up? programme.

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