Ombudsman criticises council's failure to support homeless 16-year-old

A report published today by LGO Jane Martin is highly critical of the way Doncaster Council dealt with the case of a 16-year-old girl with mental health problems who had been thrown out of her house by her mother in December 2014.

The council recommended she live with her father, who was known to social services for substance misuse problems and having a history of emotional abuse.

It also failed to tell her immediately that it had rejected her homelessness application and she was forced to live in interim accommodation and survive on food parcels.

Over the next three months she lived in a hostel and received no support from the council. By April, her situation worsened, when police intervened after reports were made that a boyfriend was harassing her. By this stage she was also being prescribed anti-depressants by her doctor.

The ombudsman found the council’s children’s services team had failed to follow national guidance around youth homelessness or take into account her mental health problems.

It also failed to follow its own policies around supporting young homeless people, which had been brought in following a similar complaint to the LGO in March 2014.

This previous report found the council had failed to support another teenager who was being threatened by her family. In that case the council told her that she was not their responsibility and to return home.

Martin said: “Just a few months after the new policy had been agreed, the council again failed to act properly when a teenager called on it for support.”

She added: “The suffering this young woman has gone through could have been prevented if the council had learned the lessons from our report last year. It is not enough to simply change a policy, officers need to be aware of and implement those changes too.

“It is disappointing that more concrete improvements were not made after my previous investigation. I hope that the opportunity will now be taken to ensure that a situation like this cannot happen again.”

The council has accepted the LGO’s recommendations to apologise to the girl and backdate its support to December 2014 as well as pay her an additional £2,000 for the “avoidable distress caused”.

The council has also been recommended to provide training to all staff dealing with homeless 16- and 17-year-olds to ensure they are properly assessed.

Mark Douglas, chief operating officer at Doncaster Children’s Services Trust, which has taken over the running of children’s services from the council, said: “We fully acknowledge the findings of the Ombudsman’s report. Over the last 12 months we have been working rigorously to transform children’s services in Doncaster and develop more effective ways to solve longstanding problems.

“As part of this work we have been working closely with our partners to develop a new protocol which will ensure all young people in Doncaster get the appropriate support when seeking suitable accommodation.”