Written evidence submitted by Cambian (CCH0006)

“The National Audit Office (NAO) has published a new report examining the Department for Education’s (DfE) response to challenges faced by local authorities in placing looked-after children in residential care in England. The NAO drew on a range of evidence sources including interviews with DfE officials, document reviews and an analysis of published statistics”

Southwest 1 region of Cambian have identified numerous barriers to placing children in residential care, there are numerous systemic challenges faced by children in residential care. Firstly, Children homes who are regulated by Ofsted are reluctant to place children with complex needs such as high-risk exploitation and missing from homes. This is due to fear of being downgraded by Ofsted using the SCIFF.

-          There is narrative in CSE that residential homes perpetuate that Children cannot be placed locally to their home area when under care orders due to being too close to the risk. Jay review highlighted those children are being placed hundreds of miles away from their home which causes another type of trauma, loss of identity and loss and loss of protective factors eg schooling, family. The cost is significant in children moving and changes in educations and being re located.

-          The charity become have launched gone too far campaign to advocate for children to be moved closer to home, however lack the missing piece of how to overcome these barriers.

-          The barriers are cultural views and narratives in Residential homes, Local authorities are attempting to create more homes locally for children in residential cares but this does not impact the cost of Private companies due to the choice that residential homes have when placing children in homes.

-          Private company homes who are regulated are do not have the resources of working with risk close to home, the narrative of CSE is to move the children further away. Children end up being place in unregulated placements, with little supervision and safeguarding which causes more damage than good for the children in these homes and strains on resources.

-          Carrs Farm at Cambian have influenced locally in the southwest and nationally within the private sector, we have a model of working with risk closer to home. Our motto is that children should not be removed from their local area and protective factors by being placed further away form their home due to failures in systemic issues and failures in resources to effectively safeguard and work with risk.

-          Carrs farm doesn’t remove liberties from children as a first response, our safeguarding approach is to focus on contextual safeguarding and disruption work to tackle the exploiters. When you focus on safeguarding this way you are able to use local knowledge and geographical advantaged by creating connections with local safeguarding partnerships and agencies. We are more effective in responding to risk outside the home and exploitation when we tackle it head on and in collaboration with others such as police and YJS.

Carrs Farm have advocated and influenced the private sector by delivering their presentation, local home local children. This trains and provides evidence and research-based approaches to contextual safeguarding and child exploitation. The shift in narrative and approach enables stability and secure placements responding safely to risk outside the home.

Private companies have expertise and resources in tackling exploitation and safeguarding. However, the narrative In CSE needs to nationally shift towards the new effective approach. Carrs Farm have successfully documented how to carry this out in practice and have presented this to commissioning managers nationally, charities and other organisations.

“Carrs Farm is a multi-bed Children’s home in Somerset, we provide belonging, safety and growth for children who experience a wide array of complex needs and are at risk or vulnerable to exploitation. We are a local home for local children, we play in the bigger systems in children’s residential care. We have a strong sense of identity as a home, we are proud and confident to be the local home for the home for local children who are skilled is tackling exploitation and contextual safeguarding. Our ability to tackle exploitation and keep our children safe is due to the years of partnerships and relationships we have grown with other professionals and agencies in the wider community and the skilled professionals in our team.

Multi-agency working ensures we can uphold the balance of safeguarding the children by focusing on disruption work and targeting the exploiters rather than removing Liberties of the children. We will always ensure we hold the child’s voice at the centre of our work, we aim to never lose the vision of being child focused, we are aware of the increase in Dols orders and children being moved further away from their home due to concerns of child exploitation. We constantly review those statistics and data around Children being moved further away from their local areas due to lack of suitable homes, the increase use of unregulated homes and the reluctancy from a number of regulated children’s homes to place children with complex.

We are the local home that ensures we focus on our part to play the big picture of looked after children and ensure the children who are local to us have the opportunity to thrive, learn and grow in our homes. The wider systems and national challenges in Children social care are not the fault of children and we will always advocate for supporting children who need a home, we use two hands of parenting to support the children at Carrs Farm. We ensure we always remain Trauma informed and work closely with our clinical team to use an attachment lens and DDP informed bespoke support package for our children.

Carrs Farm is a home of passionate and dedicated people who are committed in providing love care and safety for children who deserve a home closer to them that values working with families and not stripping away any protective factors. It takes a village to raise a child, At Carrs farm we are dedicated in building and growing a warm safe village for children through collaborating with other professionals to ensure the best outcomes for our children.”

“We aim to ensure we maintain the balance between Responding to risk effectively to safeguard the children in our care and provide the opportunities to socialise, grow and develop without restricting any liberties. This balance is upheld by our dedication to go above and beyond in responding to contextual risks, we understand the importance on multi agency working and following the guidelines of working together to safeguard children. We are confident in our ability to protect the children in our care and work in holistic way to effectively carry out disruption work and collaborate with other agencies and professionals to ensure we are not responding in a reactive way which could risk the restricting the children liberties. The Shattered_Lives_Stolen_Futures_Report_-_Full_Report.pdf shared accounts of  “Witnesses emphasised that the focus of legal orders should be to target exploiters in the first instance; children should not have their liberty restricted due to a risk of harm from others, and that ‘sometimes we end up depriving children of their liberty to protect them from others’, an act that is ‘not in accordance with UNCRC at its most basic level’.137 Professor Carlene Firmin noted that ‘Often in our pursuit of disruption, we create environments that are just hostile to children.” These findings are in line with our approach to responding to contextual risks by shifting the focus on to targeting the exploiters and protecting the liberty of our children.”

September 2025