Don’t banish children in care miles from home, urges charity

EFFORTS must be made to stop children being placed in care far from their local communities, a charity has urged, after data showed many are ending up miles away.

Children in care are, on average, placed more than 18 miles from home, the Become organisation said, as it warned that in extreme cases some have been moved 500 miles away.

The national charity for children in care and care leavers said those who have just one placement are moved on average 15.8 miles away from home, while those who have multiple different placements are placed on average 22.4 miles away from home.

Children who are moved more than 20 miles from home are more likely to have lower wellbeing and experience emotional difficulties than children who are placed closer to home, the organisation said.

It said it recognises that for some children it is right for them to be moved away to a different area to ensure their safety, protect them from exploitation or to move them closer to other family members.

But the charity warned that a lack of suitable places in their local area meant more and more children were being moved far away when it was not in their best interests. It is calling on the Government and local authorities to “commit to stop children being placed miles from home, to publish strategies to increase the supply of appropriate local options and to recognise and register the number of times children are moved inappropriately”.

The charity’s findings came from Freedom of Information requests to the Department for Education and to 151 local authorities in England between October 2022 and February this year.

A total of 138 local authorities (91 per cent) responded but the charity said many were unable to provide full responses to the information request and some local authorities were not able to provide any information.

The Department for Education said: “Every child deserves to live in a safe and stable home and local authorities have a responsibility to place children in an environment that is in their best interests, usually within 20 miles of their home.

“We are investing £259m to create more placements for children in high-quality and safe homes, while developing a new model for care placements to keep more children close to home networks.”