Addressing the needs of adolescents

Abstract

It is hard to find much that is optimistic about children’s services at the moment. Bad news always displaces good but reports from local authorities and charities continually broadcast worrying news. Among those concerned is Anne Longfield, the former Children’s Commissioner for England and now Director of the Commission on Young Lives. She states that the children’s social care system in England is ‘unfit for purpose’ and gives examples of dangerous practices such as ‘handing over’ some vulnerable teenagers to criminals and abusers by moving them ‘out of area’ to live in dangerous unregulated accommodation. Many of the problems making the news have been exacerbated by Covid, so there is a feeling that things should improve once things return to ‘normal’. But one statement in her 2021 report deals with a more enduring issue: