Children in care are in danger. They are in danger because they’re being placed with foster carers who are unqualified, unskilled and uninformed.
They’re in danger because 48% of foster carers say the child is unsupported for mental health needs, and 50% that their child has either self-harmed, caused violence in the home, gone missing or been involved with the police. They’re in danger because a high percentage are saying: “We don’t know what to do on a day-to-day basis.” And 26% are saying it’s not clear what day-to-day decisions they have the authority to make.
Four-fifths of all the children in care are fostered. That’s really worrying. Often, these are traumatised children who have been put in an alien environment with strangers. And what I’ve seen is that when these children rebel or test their foster carers – which is what children tend to do – they get the blame. And then they have issues with trust and with staying power and they leave with the idea that it’s their fault.
For me, the question is: how do we value our children in care? If we don’t, we are not going to value the people who look after them. Only 60% of foster carers are paid a fee, and only 9% of those are paid at or above the national living wage for a 40-hour week. As a result, foster children are being moved around the country to cheaper areas where fostering is more of an income stream. What effect does that have on their mental stability?
I also hear stories of children in care whose food is separated in the fridge from the food for the rest of the family, because they are bought cheap budget food.
Yes, foster carers need more training, more resources, more support. But what this report is telling me is that there are a lot of extremely vulnerable children in homes with families who are not able to care for them. And to me, the scandal is the damage that this is doing to the children.
Lemn Sissay, an author and broadcaster, grew up in care
