04/04/2025: DoL applications decline despite ongoing shortage of secure children’s homes
Applications for deprivation of liberty (DoL) orders for children fell more than 6% last year, latest analysis shows – the first annual decline this decade.
03/04/2025: MPs call for action on record number of children in temporary accommodation
Government action is needed to address the record high number of children living in temporary accommodation, with many “in appalling conditions”, say MPs.
25/03/2025: Survey reveals doubts over residential child care reforms
Children’s social care professionals have little confidence that planned government reforms to the residential child care sector will deliver savings and improve services over the next five years, a CYP Now survey suggests.
22/03/2025: ‘Society thinks you are a child abuser’
A mother whose children were taken into care says she no longer feels “shame” and has “recovered hope” after joining an art therapy support group for women in the same position.
13/03/2025: Care-experience duty to expand across public sector
The government has amended its Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to expand corporate parenting responsibilities of councils across the public sector.
06/03/2025: Care-experienced young people four times less likely to go to university
Top academics are calling for universities to do more to support the entry and retention of care-experienced students, after research revealed this group is four times less likely to enter higher education than their peers.
20/02/2025: Host families sought for teenage care leavers
People in Cornwall are being asked to come forward to host young people who have just left the care system.
27/01/2025: ‘Flawed statistics’ undermine understanding of children in care outcomes, warns regional body
Available figures do not enable councils to determine whether they are purchasing the right kinds of placement, according to ‘co-operative’ set up to test region-wide commissioning of care
03/01/2025: Care leavers missing out on home ‘essentials’, research finds
Care leavers in England are at risk of missing out on essential items when setting up their first home due to the lack of clear national guidelines on the levels of support offered by councils, latest research shows.
12/12/2024: Care-experienced group launches in Parliament
Campaigners and MPs advocating for care-experienced young people have formed a new cross-party group in Parliament.