By Rachel Downey
Children's services in Humberside are in crisis, according to
the social services director.
Robert Lake says the massive increase in the number of young
people who fit the 'looked after' criteria is placing unbearable
pressure on the system.
The county now has 1,530 young people in care, about 150 of whom
are in its residential homes, which cater for just 125. The rest
sleep on camp beds. About 85 young people are placed outside
Humberside because all residential places are full.
And in the first seven months of the year there were 62 young
people in Hull prison because of the shortage of secure places.
'A 15-year-old boy absconded from a children's home and his
parents would not have him home under any circumstances. We ended
up having to put him in carefully selected lodgings with social
workers visiting,' said Lake.
He added that the department is refusing to bring children into
care who fall within the criteria and so is not fulfiling its
statutory duty.
'There's a shift in society's attitudes from when parents would
move heaven and earth to keep their children out of the care system
- parents want them in there now,' he said.
Humberside's community support team has offered to work with
parents and families but many are turning them down.
Lake wrote to junior health minister John Bowis highlighting the
issue in July and again last month. But he says the Department of
Health is doing what it can by establishing more secure places.
In Calderdale, the difficulty is the increase in the numbers of
young people remanded by magistrates. Social services director
Marel Denton said magistrates were placing conditions on remands,
so local authorities had to ensure certain young people were not
placed with others.
The authority has six children's homes. Denton points out that
at least two are for younger children and 'you cannot easily put a
17-year-old in there'.
'We are not ducking our responsibility,' she said. 'It's just
that we wonder whether such orders with such conditions need to be
so frequent.'