Members of the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel have written to the Government over the shortage of placements for children with complex needs.
The independent panel, which works with the Department of Education to commission reviews of serious child safeguarding cases, has written to officials to highlight issues raised by a 2024 case review about the ‘vanishingly-rare’ provision available for young autistic people who need intensive mental health support.
In a post on LinkedIn, the national panel said it wanted to ‘highlight these issues of concern and to understand what more can be done’, in particular to support children at risk of being placed on, or already subject to, a deprivation of liberty order.
Such orders, issued by the High Court, have become increasingly common in recent years due to a shortfall in appropriate provision.
The concerns were prompted by a child safeguarding practice review report, published last year by Southend Safeguarding Partnership, concerning a young man – ‘Issac’ – who was arrested on suspicion of murder in February 2023 when aged 17.
The panel is notified of many distressing incidents that, upon review, highlight the issues local authorities face when accessing suitable placements for these children and young people that can meet their specialist needs
Diagnosed with autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and type 1 diabetes, he often exhibited distressed behaviours, which had became increasingly challenging and aggressive over time.
In September 2022, after he was arrested for assaulting his mother, Southend-on-Sea council accommodated Issac under section 20 of the Children Act 1989.
Over the next few months, up to his arrest in February 2023, he endured multiple placement breakdowns from children’s homes and semi-independent settings, due to these services being unable to manage his diabetes care or violent behaviour.
He also had several missing episodes, during which he committed assaults, including on police officers.
Clinicians assessed that Issac was not detainable under the Mental Health Act 1983.
And, while the review questioned this judgment, it also warned that the experience of detention on a psychiatric ward, where other patients may have been aggressive or violent, could have been very traumatic for a vulnerable young person.
The review found that the courts would likely have granted the council a secure accommodation order, enabling Issac to be placed in a secure children’s home, following his multiple missing episodes and assaults on police and care staff, had Southend sought one.
However, it said the severe shortage of secure beds meant the local authority would have struggled to find a placement, and also claimed that secure homes did not provide specialist autism care or effective therapeutic support.
The council, meanwhile, deemed a deprivation of liberty order to have been unsuitable, as Issac would likely have responded with aggression to attempts to restrict his liberty, meaning such a placement would have quickly broken down.
The review concluded that what he needed was a specialist residential placement, with intensive mental health support, that was designed for autistic young people.
Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel said: “We know issues regarding the number, availability, and quality of secure placements/beds and appropriate follow-up therapeutic accommodation is frequently raised by local safeguarding partners.
“The panel is notified of many distressing incidents that, upon review, highlight the issues local authorities face when accessing suitable placements for these children and young people that can meet their specialist needs.
“Indeed, too many children with challenging behaviour and complex mental health needs, often linked to trauma, are being placed in unregistered or otherwise unsuitable homes, and even specialist services are not always integrated around the needs of the child.”
Tackling the issue is one of the key aims of the children’s social care reform programme started under the previous government and continued under the new Labour administration.
Earlier this year, the Government said that £53m was being made available to help councils develop 200 placements for children at risk of being deprived of their liberty.
The funding comes with the Government legislating, through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, to create a new registered placement type for children who may need to be deprived of their liberty at times, but for whom restrictions will be able to be increased or decreased according to need.