The care system is in ‘tatters’ with almost a quarter of girls in care becoming teenage mothers and thousands regularly ‘going missing’ – a report claims.
Research from the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has found 22% of women leaving care become teenage mothers, around three times the national average.
Highlighting a ‘cycle of disadvantage’, the CSJ said at least one in 10 care leavers aged 16-21 who were parents have had a child taken into care in the past year.
CSJ policy director, Alex Burghart, said there was a ‘unique opportunity’ to break this cycle when children were in care but ‘too often this isn’t happening’.
At least 4,452 children went missing from care for over a day last year, with 707 out of care for over a week and 252 for more than 28 days. Yet with only two thirds of councils responding to freedom of information requests from CSJ, this figure is expected to be far higher.
CSJ said such figures were symptoms of a system ‘at breaking point’ and called for introduction of scorecards to highlight which councils were failing children and young people.
‘If this many children were going missing from their families it would spark national outrage,’ Burghart said. ‘Children in the care system need proper support and protection. We need to learn the lessons of what can happen to children who are not cared for – as we saw in Rotherham.’
The think tank also highlighted that those leaving the care system were now twice as likely not to be in education, employment or training at the age of 19 than the national average.
‘Many parts of the care system are in tatters and we desperately need to rescue it to protect our most vulnerable children,’ Burghart added.
