Vulnerable children are 'being housed in caravans and Airbnbs'

Vulnerable children are being housed in caravans and Airbnbs in a ‘stark failure of the social care system’, the Children’s Commissioner reports today.

Dame Rachel de Souza found that a shortage of placements has led to youngsters being put in ‘highly unsuitable’ accommodation.

She conducted an investigation into children who have to be secured and monitored at all times for their own protection.

They are often teenagers in the care system who have mental health problems, severe disabilities or are vulnerable to abuse.

Ideally, they should be in a secure children’s home, which would have the therapeutic facilities and staff for their needs.

But when no place is available, councils can apply to the High Court for a ‘deprivation of liberty’ (DoL) order, which allows children to be housed elsewhere and monitored by security guards.

This often leads to them being placed in unsuitable makeshift provision. One autistic teenager was put in an Airbnb property with an open balcony and two sets of stairs, which was unsuitable for his complex needs.

A severely disabled child was kept in such ramshackle accommodation that rats were nibbling through her feeding tubes.

Another teenager who had suffered parental domestic violence and neglect was given a supervised ‘crisis placement’ in a caravan.

She was later housed in a children’s home 120 miles from her grandparents.

Others have been housed in tents, said Dame Rachel. The children are usually housed solo, far from family, and although they are visited by carers, many of their other needs are not met.

A shortage of secure children’s home places has led to a massive rise in DoL orders, from 359 in 2021 to 1,368 in 2023, the report said.

Dame Rachel called these make-shift arrangements ‘illegal children’s homes’ because they are not registered with Ofsted and therefore cannot be regulated properly.

‘Far from providing the environment they need to help them with the behaviours that have caused concern, this leads to children feeling unsafe and uncared for, further adding to their trauma,’ she said.

‘They are enduring things no child should ever have to: contained, often in isolation, in illegal children’s homes without the opportunity for their voices to be heard.’

Often such placements come at huge cost to the taxpayer because private businesses and landlords charge over-inflated prices as they know councils are desperate.

The individual cost of caring for some children in care now exceeds £1 million a year.

Dame Rachel added that children’s rights to safety and happiness are ‘too often being ignored in a system that puts profit-making above protection’.

The Department for Education is today pledging to develop new ‘community-based provision’. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said the reforms will tackle profiteering and unregistered placements plus shift ‘the focus back to earlier intervention to help children achieve and thrive’.