After being hospitalised with paranoia, 17-year-old Marie-Luise says she knew a return home would "trigger things again". So she opted for a children's home, Bridge House, which gave her space "to build on myself and see who I am". A range of staff there with different strengths "all had their own impact on building up a young person", she remembers. "There were more people there I could relate to than in foster care. It was a family."
Children's homes play a unique and vital role for young people like Marie-Luise. According to Department for Education data, around two thirds have clinically significant mental health difficulties, explained and possibly aggravated by councils' widely criticised use of residential care as a last resort for the most troubled. Nearly a third have had six or more placements. Dr Miriam Silver, a clinical psychologist specialising in looked-after children, says these young people's vulnerability from conflict, trauma and abuse is "overlaid with a higher prevalence of neuro-developmental conditions, such as learning disabilities, autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder" made worse for those with parents less able to "scaffold around them and help minimise the impact".
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