It’s for children with multiple complex needs linked to trauma
The new home will look after one or two children at a time(Image: Getty Images)
A new high-security care home will be set up costing almost £1 million for two children with severe mental illness. The specialist home is designed for children with multiple complex needs linked to trauma, whose freedom has been restricted by a judge in a bid to keep them safe.
The latest figures show there were nine children from Bristol with a deprivation of liberty order. At the moment, Bristol City Council is paying care homes an average of £13,000 per week to look after each child, and up to a staggering £25,000 a week — £1.3 million a year for one child.
Each year the council expects to spend between £824,000 to £930,000 running the new home. Despite only looking after one or two children at a time, these figures are still lower than how much the council pays private companies elsewhere to provide similar care.
The Department for Education would pay £426,000 to help set up the home, which could open late next year, with the council providing a similar amount. The plans were approved by councillors on the children and young people policy committee.
Charlotte MacDiarmid, a council commissioning manager, said: “This proposal came from growing concern about the number of children in care placed under deprivation of liberty orders to keep them safe, who are currently in unsuitable placements, or being sent out of area for often quite costly placements, because there is no appropriate, specialist provision in Bristol.”
A deprivation of liberty order is made on a child with “extremely challenging behaviours”, such as self-harming or running away. Staff apply to the High Court for permission to take away some of their freedom, such as by locking them in or taking away their phones, to keep them safe.
These orders are always only temporary. Sometimes they are in place for a very short amount of time, such as transporting a child from one care home to another. And other orders prevent children from being in Bristol at all. Children would stay in this new home from six to 12 months.
Labour Cllr Katja Hornchen added: “With the sexual exploitation of young girls, sometimes they don’t necessarily recognise that they are being sexually exploited. To keep them safe, you sometimes have to have a deprivation of liberty order, which is incredibly tragic.”
Numbers of children in care are rising, with 768 in Bristol in care at the moment, up from 690 in 2022. Children in the new secure home will receive wraparound care from social care and health staff, with the aim of eventually stepping them down into a foster home or back with their family. The council is working with the local NHS care board on setting up the planned support.