ABSTRACT

There are approximately 70,000 children (DCSF 2008a; Welsh Assembly Government 2008; The Scottish Government 2008) who are in the care of the state within the UK and they are formally referred to as ‘looked-after children’. Looked-after children is a term that was first used in the 1989 Children Act and subsequent Acts in the various jurisdictions that make up the legal system within the UK. This comparatively small number represents a tiny percentage of the 13.1 million children under the age of 18 who live in the UK. Yet with the state as their parent, the life chances and experience of being in the care system can only be desribed as appalling for substantial numbers of looked-after children. It should be noted that not all looked-after children suffer the outcomes described below. The challenges that looked-after children face are extensive. Firstly, the experiences leading up to and entering the care system are often traumatic for the child. For many children the experiences of the care system can be just as traumatic as their experiences before entering the system, if not more so. The final challenge is the attitude towards looked-after children by the wider society. All these elements come together to create a childhood that some individuals find almost impossible to overcome, with the resultant poor life chances.