Sarah Champion MP highlights the needs of young people in care, and Steven Walker points to the underfunding of child and adolescent mental health services
Your report (4 February) on the rise in mental health problems among children was an incredibly important insight into the challenges they are facing. But for children and young people who have been in care, the situation is even more dire.
Looked-after children are already at significantly higher risk of experiencing poor mental health than their peers. Despite there only being 67 children in care for every 10,000, these individuals make up 24% of the prison population and 25% of the homeless population in the UK. What’s more, as stated in a recent report by the children’s rights campaign Hope Instead of Handcuffs, young people who have spent time in care are significantly more likely than their peers to find themselves classified as not in education, employment or training.
