Childline urges councils to provide adults to speak up for looked after children

The Childline service has urged local authorities to ensure fostered and other looked after children always have an independent adult to speak up for them when they need help.

The call came after Childline revealed that one in 26 looked after children – some 3,196 of the more than 83,000 in care in 2009 – had contacted it about failings and weaknesses in the care system. The number of looked after children to contact Childline has risen by more than 30% over the last five years.

The service, run by charity NSPCC, said many of the children “were suffering physical and sexual abuse and neglect and felt lost and helpless in the care system”.

“Some children were deeply unsettled and traumatised after being moved several times a year, some as many as 15 times while in care,” it added. “Others complained of emotionally abusive or uncaring carers and being bullied by other children. Many looked after children had to be counselled about self-harming or running away. They talked about being 'sick of life' and wanting to 'give up and die'.”

Childline said that at present children only have a right to an 'advocate' if they want to make a formal complaint about their care.

Director of ChildLine Peter Liver said: "Most children in care are well looked after by dedicated carers and professionals. But a minority continue to be failed by the care system. When this happens, children need to know there is someone there to speak up for them who is independent from the local authority.

"Every day, looked after children talk to us about lives filled with pain and hurt. After the trauma they've been through, children need a special quality of care - at least as good as a good parent can offer. Instead, we hear from children who have been beaten or sexually assaulted while in care. Others feel abandoned in care or unloved by their new carers. Some are intimidated by other children. Many have reached crisis point.”

Liver added that the service had highlighted these issues 16 years ago but some of them persist. “These failings go back at least a generation,” he said."

The NSPCC said it planned over the next year to develop a new advocacy service to help keep looked after children safe. Initially it will look to reach out to 600 children in foster and other forms of care in six local areas.