Sheffield Council approves new children’s home plan to stop youngsters being placed outside city

The council has put in a bid to the Department for Education (DfE) Children’s Home Capital Fund for 50% of the costs of building a new children’s home on council land. It will house two to three children.

A report to the council’s strategy and resources committee says the home will “meet the needs of young people with additional complexity and vulnerability”.

The report says: “Sheffield does not currently operate any smaller children’s homes and over the last 18 months Sheffield has experienced increasing challenge in sourcing and providing placements for young people who present with a higher level of need and who require a smaller residential home environment.”

The council wants to invest the land value of £300,000, together with an initial estimated cost of £68,000, with a request of £368,000 from the DfE.

If the bid is approved, building work should start next year and be completed by March 2025.

Sheffield currently operates five children’s homes, offering 19 mainstream placements and six placements for looked-after children with disabilities.

Sheffield City Council also directly provides a further four homes offering overnight residential short breaks to children with disabilities.

At present, council homes have to run at reduced capacity in order to care for children with complex needs.

The report says: “Sheffield has experienced an increase in the number and complexity of our looked-after children population.

“The number of looked-after children has increased significantly, from 628 in March 2020 to 675 at the end of March 22.

“In addition, more young people are being looked after in external residential provision, from 16 in March 2020 to 31 in March 22.

‘We want our children to be living in Sheffield’

“The market for independent residential placements does not provide sufficient placements for the combined needs of local authorities in Sheffield, the Yorkshire and Humber region or nationally, with demand outstripping supply.

“This results in the potential for more looked-after children to be placed outside of the city, in independent provisions often at a distance.”

Caring for children with higher-level needs currently costs around £8,311 per week.

The government’s Competition and Markets Authority has described the market in care placements as increasingly ‘broken’.

Council LibDem group leader Coun Shaffaq Mohammed said: “We endorse this bid 110 percent.

"We are corporate parents, we want our children to be living in Sheffield. We don’t want our children to be living in Blackpool.”

He said that neighbours had been concerned in the past when children’s homes were opened near them but those had faded away when they realised there would be no problems.

Council leader Coun Terry Fox said: “We wholeheartedly back this. As someone who came out of care, we’re not all bad ‘uns.”

The council’s one-year plan pledges to ensure that all looked-after children get the opportunity to fulfill their potential.

Council staff will talk to young people through the Children in Care Council and Sheffield Care Leavers Union during the process to help decide on the internal design and appearance of the home.

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