The Door Is Closed

Summary

In 2013-14, Coram Voice helped over 200 children and young people to challenge decisions by Children’s Social Care which had led to them becoming homeless.

A young person told Coram Voice:  “I was homeless. I had nowhere to go. Social Services helped me only because they didn’t want to go to court… I was not of an age to do anything. Social Services should have done what they ended up doing: found me somewhere to live temporarily until I was settled.”

By failing to help, Children’s Social Care Services leave this most vulnerable group of children and young people sleeping rough, at the mercy of people who would do them harm, suffering physical and mental ill health. When these children ask an advocacy organisation to help them challenge the system, they are too often turned away by services that will not help them precisely because they are not ‒ and never were ‒ in care: the very issue that they are asking for help with.

This report attempts to tell the story of how and why these children are so badly let down by the system which is supposed to help them, but also the story of how Coram Voice’s advocates, and the solicitors we work with, have found a way to make that system do its job properly.