Six children in each area ‘too dangerous to place’

There are at least six children in each local authority who are hard to place in services because they are considered to be too dangerous, professionals told a parliamentary seminar yesterday.

Renuka Jeyarajah Dent, director of the Bridge Child Care Development Service at charity NCH, said social workers were finding it difficult to place children with a history of physical or sexual violence because of a lack of resources.

She highlighted research by the service and the Nuffield Foundation that found around six children in each council were hard to place because they posed a danger to other children.

However, former MP Hilton Dawson, now chief executive of children’s provider Shaftesbury Homes and Arethusa, called the figure a “gross underestimate” and said more needed to be done to recognise the problem.

The seminar, at the House of Lords, was organised by NCH.