As a record number of children join the foster care system in Wales, youngsters as young as 11 are being placed in Airbnbs and B&Bs, and one 17-year-old tells activist actor Michael Sheen in a recent documentary that “jail would have been better.”
When he was 17, Niall was placed in a B&B in South Wales where he shared a room with recently released prisoners.
After being in and out of foster care since he was 14 years old, his place at a children’s home had fallen apart.
He wasn’t the only one, either. Over 250 youngsters were cared for in other unregulated settings while at least 50 were sheltered in B&Bs last year.
In the Michael Sheen: Lifting The Lid On The Care System documentary, it was revealed that an 11-year-old was forced to live with council employees in an Airbnb owing to a lack of other options, and another said she was housed next to a drug dealer after quitting heroin.
In a BBC program, Niall said, “I got robbed a couple of times and someone climbed through my window took my clothes, food, and money.”
In the lodging, he recalled seeing people “kick down doors on a daily basis.”
He said, “There would be people breaking windows and carrying knives.”
Niall said to the hostel where he next resided as “one of the worst places I’ve ever stayed.”
According to him, “at one point, I was just trying to do anything to get behind prison because I know for a fact that prison is a 10 times better place.”
He recalled trying to block access to his room by barricading the door.
He said, “It was like they put all the troublesome teens under one roof.”
As it tried to find Niall a permanent home, the Caerphilly Authority required that the dormitory be supported housing, the council told the BBC.
It also said that Niall received support from council personnel, that the council has subsequently made system improvements, and that no kids were placed in B&Bs last year.
Despite the Government’s desire to “eradicate” the practice six years ago, children, most of whom were 16 to 17, were placed in B&Bs at least 50 times in Wales last year.
At least 285 more people were also given access to uncontrolled housing.
Budget hotels and bed and breakfasts, in contrast to more formal lodging options, are not subject to care watchdog inspections and regulation.
According to local authorities, these choices are frequently a last alternative for children in foster care, with 24-hour support staff in place for those under the age of 16.
According to the BBC, in one instance, an 11-year-old was put in an Airbnb alongside local support personnel because there was “nowhere else to go.”
Hope, a character in the documentary, was placed in foster care at the age of 14, but two years later she ran away because of problems with her placement.
Her grandparents, where she had previously resided, were no longer able to care for her.
She then shared a tent with an adult and camped out.
Nobody was aware of her whereabouts, she told the BBC. I was formally a state-owned child. It wasn’t acceptable. I was in danger.
She claimed in the documentary that the council then put her in a hostel where someone who had abused her lived.
She gets her belongings stolen during that time, Hope claimed.
I will fight to prevent this process from occurring in the same way that it did to me and to ensure that this changes, she continued.
The Wrexham Council stated that it has subsequently changed its services and would use Hope’s knowledge of the care system to make even more advancements.
After becoming addicted to heroin at the age of 14, Gemma, whose name was altered for the documentary, said that older males took advantage of her before she was placed in care.
By the time she was 15 years old, she had relocated 12 times.
When she was 16, she received an offer to stay in a hostel that, according to her, also housed a drug dealer from whom she had previously purchased drugs.
She said, “I had just spent nine months getting clean.” Then, they put me in the hostel where he was already staying. I stayed there for less than a week before I started using narcotics again.
Children’s charities in England and Wales contend that many young people continue to feel as though they aren’t receiving the necessary help.
A record number of kids are in the care of councils in England and Wales, and often the only alternative is emergency housing.
The Welsh Local Government Association, which is in charge of the country’s 22 local governments, declared that it is dedicated to doing its utmost to meet the escalating demands.
Julie Morgan MS, the deputy minister for social services in Wales, said the examples in Sheen’s video are heartbreaking and that the goal should be to prevent so many kids from entering the foster care system.
What she said to Sheen was that “what we truly want to do is offer as much help as we possibly can to parents and children at an earlier age.”
“Crises do happen, placements fall through, families fall apart, and the kids have to go elsewhere.
We don’t accept that should be the case, and we’re trying to do things to stop that,” the organization states.
The majority of those in foster care, it was said, had excellent experiences.
Although it is illegal to host children under 16 at B&Bs in England, the BBC claimed that thousands of children are nevertheless living in unsanitary facilities.
Later this year, the care watchdog is anticipated to release more comprehensive plans.
This morning during his appearance on BBC Breakfast, Mr. Sheen discussed the petition he delivered to the Welsh Government six years ago, urging it to cease placing children in its care system in B&Bs and hostels.
It’s still taking place, he said. “Hundreds of children are living in unlicensed housing, and dozens of children are still placed in situations that put them in danger.”
What bothers me is that these are children—the most defenseless of the defenseless—who are unable to be cared for by their parents or in loving homes and are thus put at risk by the very system that is supposed to be protecting them.
They run the risk of a variety of things after that. There appears to be a fundamental injustice. More than anything else, these kids need to be taken care of.
“The system they’re in only reflects back to them that they don’t matter… that they’re not loved, they have no value,” the author writes.