Help for homeless 16 year old

[Sad16yearold]

I’ve name changed for this as it could be outing but I am desperate for help/advice. 2 weeks ago my daughter’s 16 year old friend was thrown out of her family home by her mother. All her belongings put out in bin bags on the pavement at night in the rain. Baby photos, passport included. Since then she has been staying at various friends’ houses, including mine.

Her mother has not been in contact with her to find out how she is or where she is. The rest of the family have also turned their backs. I won’t go into too much detail about what has gone on but I can say with confidence that this girl does not deserve to be treated like this. I think the mum has chosen step dad over her own daughter.

Anyway, social worker wants to place her over an hour a way from our local area. She is due to start college on Monday and has a job here so that would be disastrous for her, not to mention being alone and vulnerable away from friends etc. How the hell can I help?

She can keep moving around between friends but that’s not sustainable, she needs a base. We are currently looking at student accommodation for her but not sure if they’ll accept a 16 year old? Does anyone know what benefits she might be entitled to? I’m going to take her to college on Monday and see if we can chat to the welfare team. I’d appreciate any input. Thanks.

I left at 16 in similar circumstances. I was lucky though as I knew it was coming my connextions advisor at my school helped me arrange housing in a local Foyer with The Guinness Trust. But I don't know if anyone replaced that service.

It did mean I was an independent claiming income support at the time, and tbh it was terrifying at first but some of my friends parents did help a bit to settle me in which helped and the support worker at the foyer did a lot as well.

However becoming a looked after person sounds much better to be honest if they can find a placement nearby. Nightstop is a good short term option for a sofa surfing break.

Just don't accept the first lazy offer the SW has made. It's likely she's expecting a resounding no to the offer made so keep pushing esp as her job and college are where she is now

@stripedbananas

Just don't accept the first lazy offer the SW has made. It's likely she's expecting a resounding no to the offer made so keep pushing esp as her job and college are where she is now

@stripedbananas - I’ve made it clear that she isn’t happy about the offer and explained about work and college. Unfortunately there is no change in the situation. It’s all about different Councils, budgets and approved housing. In the meantime a bright, disadvantaged, abandoned kid is falling through the cracks.

DSL - Designated Safeguarding Lead. The person responsible for safeguarding and who will be liaising with SS and other agencies to support this girl.

@NeverDropYourMooncup - thanks 👍

It would be worth looking at the Southwark judgement in relation to homeless teenagers, it clearly sets out the LAs responsibilities and ensures LAs have to give homeless Young People to right to become Looked After under the Children Act if that's what they choose, this is different to the local Council Housing legislation.

What I would say is that each pathway doesn't always result in any difference in accommodation offer. For example in the LA where I work the difference would be about who funds the accommodation, if Looked After the LA would pay, if not it would be Housings duty, and a claim for Housing Benefit to over rent but this may well be the same semi independent accommodation. Often, depending in the individual child's needs of course, it would be unlikely to get agreement for a foster placement for a child that could live somewhere like a Foyer or YMCA type place, you'd just get agreement for funding for semi independent. Sadly Foster placements are very expensive and hard to come by, you can be S20 LAC and still offered semi independent. Hopefully I've explained that in a way that makes sense!

At 16 she is entitled to support from social care. They will explore placements in supported living but can only use certain ones and unfortunately they are extremely limited. I dont think its fair to say its a lazy offer as social care dont have a range of placements they can put children in and is often really frustrating for the social worker.

If you are prepared to keep her for few weeks you can speak to worker about this as it is much better to do these things in planned way.

She will be entitled to 16 plus homeless allowance whilst she is set up with Universal credit. Same as when placements are located. Social care will fund this whilst UC is applied for.

Few have mentioned foster care. Whilst this would be great, i have experience as a SW that placements for young children, finding one for 16 is unfortunately next to impossible

A few have mentioned housing they will simply refer to social care.

It is frustrating and SW will want to place nearer to home to minimise disruption and where support such as you will be, however this is not always possible

Can a parent legally just dump all responsibility for their child ? Do they not have a duty of care ? Even if the home situation is not possible they should be held responsible for helping to find or fund an alternative. I don't understand how you can get fined if your child doesn't go to school yet you can put your 16 year old child on the street.

Poor girl. Glad she has people like you. X

What would this poor young girl do without your help.

You should keep a diary of her day to day struggles etc to highlight how difficult this situation is for a young girl made homeless by her family and the difficulties you as a mother of her friend faces by trying to help.

These struggles need to be made aware of and how drastically it can affect her life esp if she is to to be housed so very far away from everything she knows.

It's so sad.

I guess they need more foster parents to but of course these and the children are all so vastly different that it isn't always a good fit.

Thank goodness she's got you. You sound a loving, caring person.

I wonder if making contact with supported lodgings locally might be of use to her? If she's not had previous lived experience of the care system, it's likely that her perception of things such as fostering may have been informed by Tracy Beaker and the like whereas the reality is that all sorts of set ups exist.

@tenredthings

Can a parent legally just dump all responsibility for their child ? Do they not have a duty of care ? Even if the home situation is not possible they should be held responsible for helping to find or fund an alternative. I don't understand how you can get fined if your child doesn't go to school yet you can put your 16 year old child on the street.

Thanks again for all your kind words and helpful suggestions which I will follow up.

@tenredthings - I totally agree. I thought it was illegal to give up responsibility for an under 18 year old and really thought her parents would get into more trouble than they are. The social worker has been to see the mother but I don’t know what’s been said. Her mum is just carrying on as normal. The day after she chucked her out she posted a photo of herself on FB drinking and enjoying herself at a friend’s garden party 😡

@Sad16yearold have you tried contacting step by step?

My first husband was chucked out at 16 and though I'm certain he was a nightmare, he was abandoned in a way that never quite healed. Thank you for being someone she was able to turn to to get longer term support set up.

@theedgeofglory - I looked at the link that SE13mummy posted but it says under 18’s have to be referred by a social worker. I’m assuming her social worker has exhausted all options before coming up with the accommodation he is suggesting. I will talk to him again to double check.