Children in care ”need to live locally” Thursday, January 27, 2011

Children in care ”need to live locally”

Public Service Thursday, January 27, 2011

Children who are in care a long way from their original homes – sometimes hundreds of miles away – are especially likely to move into crime and drug abuse and be exploited, according to Barnardo’s and other charities.

More than 30 per cent of the 64,000 children who are in foster care or children’s homes live a distance from where they were born, the charities said, and this can be traumatic for them. But the government has said that from this April, local authorities have a responsibility to keep as many local children as possible in the region.

The problem stems from a shortage of children’s homes run by the council and the use of private homes which are often outside the local region and in rural areas