Two-thirds of State care teens end up on the street

UP to two-thirds of teenagers leaving State care end up sleeping on the streets within two years.

Chief executive of children’s support group Barnardos, Owen Keenan, said many of the 4,200 children in care have been failed by the State because of serial neglect by successive governments to invest in childcare services.

Figures released in 2000 found that nearly two-thirds of those leaving health board care, and one-third of those leaving special schools for young offenders, experience homelessness within two years. Mr Keenan said nothing has changed and if anything the situation was now worse.

He said money was urgently needed to tackle the lack of resources for social workers and foster families, chronic staff shortages in the childcare sector caused by poor working conditions and pay, and lack of training for those caring for children in State homes.

“Social workers on the ground are having to prioritise children at risk from violence, abuse or neglect. Those children that are taken into care join a system that is inadequate to meet their needs. Lack of staff means many children are cared for by people with little training, often from a different country, making the child’s experience even more chaotic.

Keenan, who yesterday launched Barnardos’ annual review and its three-year plan.

He said when children do come out of care, their link with the health board is gone, leaving them to join an adult world with a traumatic history that has never been properly addressed.

Mr Keenan said there is an urgent need to invest in the childcare sector so that at least 80% of staff in residential homes are fully qualified.

He also called for recommendations made by successive reports of the Social Services Inspectorate to be implemented, including the creation of individual care plans for each child.

Currently, he said there are no care plans for too many children and those care plans that are created don’t have enough resources to implement them.

Labour party spokeswoman on health and children, Liz McManus, said the record of the FF-PD Government was particularly scandalous because it had so much money at its disposal.

She said homelessness had mushroomed during the economic boom with younger people making up larger numbers of those sleeping rough.