National Charity, 'Become' Says More Than 1,000 Children in Care Moved Home Over Christmas

It's shocking that so many children, some just toddlers, were moved like parcels from foster home to care home over the Christmas period. Become, a charity that offers support to children in care, is calling on the Government for more foster carers and investment in care. Same old story?

Isn't it time instead to call on policy makers and politicians everywhere to reduce the number of children in care by proper investment in our families? We may not like the way that some parents parent, but it can't be the case that only poor parents need to have their children placed in care. The difference between the children in care and those not in care is not the standard in parenting, it's their level of deprivation (see, for example, the classic Bebbington and Miles study).

Let's ask Become, policy makers and politicians to look again at the support given to our poorest families, not only in monetary terms, but in terms of freely accessible and readily accessible services that are not gate-kept by the very people vulnerable parents fear, child protection.