Who profits from being in care? It's not the children

Who profits from being in care? It's not the children


Too many children are being forced to leave foster care or residential care at 16. Even if they hadn't already had difficult lives, they wouldn't be ready for independence, as you can see from looking at any other 16-year-old. Charities that help in this circumstance say kids often arrive without the slightest means of looking after themselves, without birth certificates or National Insurance numbers, having been allocated totally unsuitable, ramshackle accommodation miles away from their foster homes or anyone they might have known or relied on during the "cared-for" period of their lives. Why would a local authority be so heartless? Shouldn't kids who have been taken into care expect the local authority to act in loco parentis, in its truest sense, as if it has a meaningful, protective impulse?