Government Policy Is Putting Foster Children At Risk Of Exploitation. Why?

Alarm bells about the dangers faced by vulnerable children being sent to live many miles away from home were first raised in a parliamentary inquiry in 2012.

A report by the All Party Group for Runaway and Missing Children and Adults warned then that placing looked after children a long way from home was causing them to go missing. We raised the same concerns in 2016.

Now, in 2019, we have reached crisis point. Today, our group has published a new inquiry – ‘No Place at Home’ – into the increasing dangers faced by this sent away generation, who are magnets for paedophiles and County Lines drugs gangs.

Despite a government pledge to clampdown on the numbers of ‘out of area’ placements, the figures have hit record levels along with record numbers of children going missing.

Two thirds of all children in children’s homes now live out of area and the numbers going missing from those placements has more than doubled since 2015.

So, after years of enduring warm words and broken promises from government, we have not pulled our punches about the dangers of distant placements in today’s report. Urgent action is now needed.