Nine in ten felt lonely and isolated during their time as a child in care
‘I was always the new kid at school… I lived out of a suitcase and never felt settled.’
Last updated 9th Sep 2024
A new Action for Children report reveals more than nine in ten (91%) care-experienced adults in the UK felt lonely and isolated during their time as a child in care – with nearly one in five (18%) reporting having felt like this all the time1.
Whilst two thirds (66%) of the care-experienced 18–44-year-olds polled said they had a generally positive experience of their homes in care, nearly three in ten (28%) had a negative experience, nearly one in four (23%) said they didn’t feel at home, and one in five (20%) didn’t feel loved by their carers.
‘I never felt I had a home in care, just a placement.’
Emrys from Lancashire was taken into care at the age of 14 because their mum had health problems and couldn’t look after them anymore.
They had two foster homes which they struggled to settle in. They said, ‘it felt like they were sort of trying to be my parents. There were a lot of rules and control. I had just come out of a home environment that wasn’t great, so it was difficult anyway. But I didn’t really feel cared for.’
One month before Emrys’s GCSE’s, they were moved to a residential children’s home 30 miles away from where they were from and went to school.
‘I was told it was temporary for a week until they could find me a foster placement. But I ended up being there for 11 months.’
Emrys found the way things worked in the residential home easier to cope with. ‘There were always people to chat to and hang out with. We weren’t at the same schools, so it wasn’t like we were forced together all the time.
‘The staff in the home weren’t trying to be like parents either. I felt more settled than I did in foster care, but it wasn’t home. I never felt I had a home in care, just a placement.’
The report ‘A Place to Call Home: Understanding placement quality in the children’s social care system in England’ argues that for more children to have positive experiences of care and improved life chances, the system needs to ensure:
- A good matching of children with homes which can meet their unique needs; and
- A warm, caring, and child-centred approach within homes.
However, interviews revealed these elements are too often absent. The report authors held in-depth interviews with six recently care-experienced young people, as well as seven frontline workers from the care system in England and found a consensus that:
- The quality of care provided was inconsistent;
- Many children in care are still not being listened to;
- Their needs are lacking attention;
- Many placements don’t have the ‘family feel’ that helps children feel at home; and that
- There is a huge shortfall in support and training for carers.
There are more than 83,000 children in care in England, a number that has risen steadily in recent years.2 The government-commissioned independent review of children’s social care in 2022 called for an additional £2.6bn to address the existing crisis in the sector.
In February 2023, the previous government published its response, ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, which committed to adopting most but not all the recommendations. Yet very little progress has been made, or investment committed.
Action for Children argues that whilst there has been a big debate about a shortage of both children’s homes and foster homes for children in care - as well as a recruitment crisis in the social care sector -there has been very little focus on the quality of homes and the impact this has on the children and young people who live there.
It says there is a risk the government could consign more highly vulnerable children to unacceptably low standards of care, if increased numbers of homes are not of good quality.