Stockton children's charity calls for people to contact their MP
A charity for children in care has called for people to lobby their MPs for more help finding homes for vulnerable young people.
Katharine Sacks-Jones, CEO of the Become charity for children in care and care leavers, has made an impassioned plea for residents to push for loving and supportive homes rather than objecting to plans for children’s homes in their neighbourhoods. One local MP has responded saying children’s care needs a “radical reset”.
Ms Sacks-Jones was moved to speak out following the approval of plans for homes to accommodate small numbers of children in care in Acklam, Middlesbrough, while one plan was withdrawn in Billingham. Both proposals were met with objections.
Stockton Council is planning new children’s homes in residential areas, preventing young people being sent out of their home area. The authority’s cabinet member for children and young people had challenged myths and perceptions about children in care and asked for people to show them kindness and compassion.
Ms Sacks-Jones said: “Planning for the home has been approved, allowing children in care who live locally to stay close to the people and places that matter to them.
“Our recent campaign, #GoneTooFar, highlights the hundreds of children in care who are moved away to areas they don’t know, far from their friends, school and community because of a lack of suitable places for them to live locally. This can happen multiple times a year.
“Imagine the impact that would have on your own child: to move away from everything that’s familiar (often without warning) and adapt to a different home, different carer, different school – without knowing how long they’ll be there for. This is what the children we work with experience over and over again.
“Care-experienced children are still children – and all children need love, kindness, and stability to thrive. Children in the care system have often faced significant trauma, abuse, or neglect before being removed from their families.
“This is not their fault. Care should then be a place they can recover, a place of safety, stability, and kindness – but sadly, for far too many children, it’s not.
“To then go through life facing the stigma of being in care is yet another barrier they face. Rather than respond to planning applications for children’s homes, we ask the people to write to their local MP and ask why more isn’t being done by the government to give all children in care the loving and supportive homes they need to heal and thrive.
“Care-experienced young people deserve to love and be loved by their local communities. Please welcome them with compassion, understanding, and friendship.”
This week marks a year since a landmark independent review called for a “fundamental reset” including a windfall tax for private children’s care providers to overhaul the crisis-hit system. It warned there would be 100,000 vulnerable youngsters in care by 2032.
The review called for investment of about £2.6 billion in four years to fund reforms. The government pledged £200m over two years in its children in social care strategy in February.
Alex Cunningham, Labour MP for Stockton North, said: “Care-experienced children have often faced trauma, abuse and neglect, and our society has a duty to ensure children in care are not just ‘looked after’ but given the best possible support they need to thrive in a safe and loving environment.
“Those working with children in the care sector do a tremendous job often in the most difficult circumstances but they, and the children they look after, need to be supported by a government willing to provide much-needed funding and resources. Although the £200m promised by the government following its review of children’s care is welcome, their response falls well short of the radical reset that children’s care desperately needs.
“We need to see a clear strategy to tackle failings in children’s care services across the country, to ensure kinship carers are not pushed into poverty, and to ensure money being spent is providing the best quality care and support of young people, not being banked as profit by private care providers.”
Other MPs have been contacted for comment.