@martinbarrow
Local authority foster carer, journalist. Sharing news and views about the care system, children and young people. Subscribe to my weekly bulletin via weekincare@gmail.com
London has more‘ outstanding’ children’s services than any other region in England. London also has very few children’s homes, so ‘outstanding’ councils banish more children in care to other regions…1/
The latest Week in Care is out, rounding up news and views about children’s services and the care of young people from the past seven days. Sign up for your free weekly email via weekincare@gmail.com
FosterWiki is fostering’s equivalent of Nigel Farage & Reform. Do social workers have too much power/is immigration out of control? “We’re just asking the question…”
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Quite the stat, via @londoncentric.media “the 119,000 residents of Camden who pay income tax contribute more (£4.7bn) than all the residents of Birmingham and Glasgow combined (£4bn).”
The state of supported accommodation is even worse. More than half of properties deliver “inconsistent quality of service” or “serious or widespread weakness”
Almost 1 in 5 registered homes fail to meet the standard of ‘good’ (in itself, not a particularly high standard).
Private companies are opening homes where they can maximise profits, not where children need them. North west England has almost four times the number of homes as London.
There are now more than 15,000 places in registered children’s homes, compared to around 10,000 children actually living in registered children’s homes. Increasingly, children over 16 live in supported accommodation, which is a separate category.
The number of places in children’s homes has risen by 13% year on year and by 46% over five years.
The scale of the explosion in for-profit children’s homes in England is revealed in the latest Ofsted stats: the number of homes has risen by 20% in the last year and by 70% since 2022.
Middlesbrough children’s services, judged to require improvement to be good, have had no fewer than four directors in a short period of time.
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The three directors of the children’s homes company Your Chapter have paid themselves total dividends of £11 million for 2025. Context: turnover from continuing operations was *only* £20 million.
Thanks to Anjum Mehmood for describing the bleak state of the market in children in care better than I ever could.
The latest Week in Care is out, rounding up news and views about children’s services and the care of young people from the past seven days (albeit delayed by a day for reshuffle news).
On its website Theracare makes BIG promises: “Goals to Greatness, Inspiring Hearts, Guiding Choices, Shaping Bright Futures”
The home sought to deceive Ofsted by keeping the children away from the home during the inspection.
Ofsted has published one of the worst inspection reports into a children’s home I have read. It says: “Children are currently unsafe. Allegations of harm…have not been investigated. There is a culture of fear …this has contributed to children being harmed.” reports.ofsted.gov.uk/provider/2/2...
The latest Week in Care is out, rounding up news and views about children’s services and the care of young people from the past seven days. Sign up for your free weekly email via weekincare@gmail.com