Illegal children's homes... wtf!!

[Wacky Racer]

Who's in charge of dishing this money out??


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy2vxp48y8o

[borcy]

The whole thing is a complete mess from top to bottom, it's like a bottomless pit of money.
Kids desperate for help, councils stuck between a rock and hard place. A complete mess.

[Andeh1]

Article I read with mixed emotions, as within my extended family we have a case of this.

10 year old, who requires specialist education in a children's boarding school type home... c£135k per year. Not an extreme case compared to some in the article ie he generally doesn't need 1:1 care.

His dad was a violent career criminal, mother alcoholic through pregnancy. He was adopted at birth by the family due to social services intervening alwirh original mothe. They are teacher/pastor, very stable family and brilliant extended network, and deep integration with their church. The model environment for children to be supported in. Just a brilliant kind, loving and fun family.

Despite this, and despite adopting him very young, by 9 years old things were unworkable. His levels of aggression, anger, emotions were uncontrollable. The family were on their knees, their other children desperately suffering. Police regularly called to intervene.

Seeing it at family events first hand had me feeling genuinely intimidated by the level of anger from him. He was an overweight age mini Wayne Rooney lookalike but even "play" tackling in family football, tag etc.. I'd have to brace as if he was an adult male coming at me. Any time he was around, everyone was permanently on edge for fear of what could happen in an instant.

The family were broken over either getting him into this specialist school, or declaring a failed adoption, knowing he will crash through foster homes until he is old enough to be imprisoned.

In this case, £135k seems obscene, and it will rise as he gets older... But it remains the cheapest and most effective option long term for him. He is stabalised to a degree, and without this route the alternative of broken foster, eventual abandonement, inevitable assault/crime, jail etc would ultimately cost society more. On top of that the likelihood of him having children on this journey, which would have a good chance of inheriting the sins of the father, means the cycle would continue....

It's an impossible situation, and witnessing so much first hand, and knowing he isn't even that extreme on the spectrum, is eye opening.

Edit:
The system is in an Impossible place... How do you deal with a young teenager, usually bigger/stronger for their age with absolutely no boundary conditions or respect. 24/7 coverage required, violence, aggression, damage etc being the norm. Then add council restricted budgets. A caravan seems shocking, but the alternative is genuinely a prison cell, or homelessness.

Edited by Andeh1 on Thursday 21st May 07:21

[Ian Geary]

I work at a council, but not in children's social care.

They are under a legal duty to act when children are at risk. Foster placements / adoptions don't exist in anywhere near enough volume, regulated placement capacity isn't there, so what do you do?

Just leave the kid in a dangerous situation?

No. The sort of placements in the article are a "least worst" choice. (This is my opinion rather than any official view.)

Like housing homeless families in b&bs.

It would be nice is parents just looked after their kids properly. But if people are starting from that position, they have a lot of catching up to do with reality.

Ironically a huge amount of preventative work being done to supoort famiies was cut in the name of austerity - who knew it would have a long term cost?

(Well, apart from everyone involved)

[Derek Smith]

My mother worked in a council children's home. She was hired as a cleaner but ended up doing a lot of additional work, and for no pay, as did another person. It was intended to be temporary shelter; kids taken from problem homes until they could return, if that was felt better, or put into foster homes.

She didn't talk much about her job, but we knew it upset her. She said that one time she assisted with taking a couple of younger kids, around 8, to 'the park', a little play area an easy walk away from the home. One of the kids had never been on swings before, and didn't know what to do. The accommodation was made up of two three-bed semi-detached houses converted into one, with a room for each child and the live-in manager. There was a large living/dining area where all the kids could sit, and a TV room. It was expensive I suppose, with two staff on duty all the time plus additional non-trained staff. It was well-run, with decent homemade cooking on premises. There were regular supervisory council visits.

The slashing, continual slashing, of council budgets doesn't result in 'cutting out the waste', it has consequences and kids are the victims of this heartless action. The kids in my mother's home had been brought up in circumstances that were horrific. Some didn't know how to use cutlery, or to live in family groups.

Judge a country on how it treats those in need. Nowadays, we fail our kids.

[bloomen]

I knew someone who worked doing this who told me about it 15 or more years ago.

The sheer quantity of these places is incredible. They had 2 or 3 of them in towns and villages with populations of 1000. They were in hamlets too.

No idea if they were illegal, but they are everywhere and you never hear about them.

[s1962a]

no easy answers to this, and it sounds like a lot of waste, but in terms of "low hanging fruit" on where to start cutting costs, childrens care isn't it.

[over_the_hill]

Derek Smith said:

She said that one time she assisted with taking a couple of younger kids, around 8, to 'the park', a little play area an easy walk away from the home. One of the kids had never been on swings before, and didn't know what to do.

Unfortunately this doesn't surprise me. You only need to watch some of these fly on the wall type documentaries where they take a
bunch of teenage inner city kids (not in the care system) to a farm for the week or some such. Most of them have never left the city before.

I have quite a few friends who are teachers. One at an inner city Comprehensive managed to get some grant funding to take some kids
on sailing trip for a week. Again these would have been about age 14+. The vast majority had never seen the sea before let alone been on a boat.

[768]

s1962a said:

no easy answers to this, and it sounds like a lot of waste, but in terms of "low hanging fruit" on where to start cutting costs, childrens care isn't it.

I'm not sure councils paying illegal, unregistered, care homes is just about cost?

[CMTMB]

over_the_hill said:

Derek Smith said:

She said that one time she assisted with taking a couple of younger kids, around 8, to 'the park', a little play area an easy walk away from the home. One of the kids had never been on swings before, and didn't know what to do.

Unfortunately this doesn't surprise me. You only need to watch some of these fly on the wall type documentaries where they take a
bunch of teenage inner city kids (not in the care system) to a farm for the week or some such. Most of them have never left the city before.

I have quite a few friends who are teachers. One at an inner city Comprehensive managed to get some grant funding to take some kids
on sailing trip for a week. Again these would have been about age 14+. The vast majority had never seen the sea before let alone been on a boat.

I've got two adopted daughters. When she first arrived with us my youngest would often be found sleeping on the bedroom floor, despite us tucking her into bed every night. Her social worker reassured us this was quite common because she'd likely never slept in a bed before and found comfort by lying on the carpet. I found that quite tough to get my head around. Even four years on there's little reminders of the neglect they suffered, like constantly obsessing about food because they used to not know when they'd get their next meal. It's heartbreaking.

[pavarotti1980]

There was a special edition on this on the Crime Agents podcast.

[scenario8]

CMTMB said:

I've got two adopted daughters. When she first arrived with us my youngest would often be found sleeping on the bedroom floor, despite us tucking her into bed every night. Her social worker reassured us this was quite common because she'd likely never slept in a bed before and found comfort by lying on the carpet. I found that quite tough to get my head around. Even four years on there's little reminders of the neglect they suffered, like constantly obsessing about food because they used to not know when they'd get their next meal. It's heartbreaking.

Just a note of thanks from a total stranger for your actions. My wife and I considered it as we ve had issues conceiving and are very aware of the needs out there that can t be adequately answered but when being brutally honest with ourselves we concluded we wouldn t be up to it.

I m not proud.

We have (infertile) friends who have adopted two young girls from within their family. Nieces. It took years and was hellish from almost every perspective. Their adopted children are doing as well as could be expected and immeasurably better than they would have done had they been left with their birth parent(s). I d happily bet all the money I would ever earn that they would have gone into the Care system, very possibly separately. Those alternative lives don t bear thinking of. They’re superheroes, those friends of ours. My wife met the mother this morning for coffee as it happens. There ll be tears in our house this evening.

Thanks again.

Edit - FWIW we do have a (surviving) son. He s 12 now.

You ve set me off!

Edited by scenario8 on Friday 22 May 14:15

[Derek Smith]

CMTMB said:

over_the_hill said:

Derek Smith said:

She said that one time she assisted with taking a couple of younger kids, around 8, to 'the park', a little play area an easy walk away from the home. One of the kids had never been on swings before, and didn't know what to do.

Unfortunately this doesn't surprise me. You only need to watch some of these fly on the wall type documentaries where they take a
bunch of teenage inner city kids (not in the care system) to a farm for the week or some such. Most of them have never left the city before.

I have quite a few friends who are teachers. One at an inner city Comprehensive managed to get some grant funding to take some kids
on sailing trip for a week. Again these would have been about age 14+. The vast majority had never seen the sea before let alone been on a boat.

I've got two adopted daughters. When she first arrived with us my youngest would often be found sleeping on the bedroom floor, despite us tucking her into bed every night. Her social worker reassured us this was quite common because she'd likely never slept in a bed before and found comfort by lying on the carpet. I found that quite tough to get my head around. Even four years on there's little reminders of the neglect they suffered, like constantly obsessing about food because they used to not know when they'd get their next meal. It's heartbreaking.

I was told to go to a wake in place of someone of higher rank in my police force. It was for the woman, mother in reality, who was a temporary foster parent for dozens of children. She'd done it for years. I'd been to her house a few times when the kids got in trouble and she was always ready to tell their stories. They were all meant to move on to be adopted but some stayed for years.

The place was full of men and women up to the age of 55 or so. Most were crying. I recognised a couple, spoke with them, no resentment on their behalf. Everyone had stories. It was both heart-breaking and reassuring at the same time. What a couple. He'd died some years before. They all called her something like mum, mummy. I had the feeling I'd wasted my life. They were heroes, but my chief inspector couldn't be arsed. He asked if I'd extended his apologies. As if.

That wake stayed with me for years.

The sort of cruelty you are talking about needs people like her and your family. Well done. Feel proud of what you are doing.