Children in care ‘vulnerable to county lines drugs gangs’
CHILDREN in care are being increasingly moved away from their family, putting them at greater risk of county lines exploitation, the Children’s Commissioner has warned.
Anne Longfield, Children’s Commissioner for England, publishes a report today detailing how thousands of children in the care system are placed miles from family and friends. The total living “out of area” has risen 13 per cent in five years, with 11,000 more than 20 miles from their home postcode.
There were also almost 1,000 living more than 150 miles from their home, according to the report, “Pass the Parcel: Children Posted Around the Care System”. It warns that children living far away are at a higher risk of going missing.
“Their vulnerability also means that they are easy targets for exploitation by criminal gangs, who are expanding drugs markets through ‘county lines’ activity into semi-rural areas,” the report states. “As a result of this exploitation, and the fact that many go missing, we hear a lot about the challenges these children pose to services: the difficulties for the police, health and education services of having a constant flux of very vulnerable children concentrated in one area.” County lines networks have been blamed for a huge rise in children with links to gangs. The report quotes one teenage girl in care more than 100 miles from home saying: “I feel like a parcel getting moved around all the time, getting opened up and sent back and moved on.”
Ms Longfield said: “Many children in care are living many miles away from the place they call home because councils have nowhere suitable for them to live. Some children in care have told me they feel like parcels – passed from pillar to post, unsure where they even are on a map. We wouldn’t want this for our own children, and we shouldn’t accept it either for those children who rely on the state to look after them.
“The Government has a manifesto commitment to review the children’s care system. They need to launch it in the new year and it must be wide-ranging, independent and lead to concerted action and improvement.”