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Care kids to go home to cut costs

Michael Byrne
7/ 4/2006

TROUBLED children in out-of-town care homes are likely to go back to their parents as social services chiefs look to balance the books.

Last year the department's budget for placing children with foster carers and residential units outside the borough was overspent by £810,000.

In some cases a child in a residential unit was costing the council more than £2,000 per week.

A report to Monday's corporate services committee showed that to keep within this year's budget the number of new placements has to be reduced by threequarters.

Currently there 27 children in external residential care and officers hope to reduce that to 18 by next March. This means that more children will be placed with foster carers in the borough or will live back with their families, who will be offered extra support.

The children affected are those with emotional and behavioural difficulties and some will have criminal records.

Despite the cuts, officers have said the children will get the care they need.

Steve Titcombe, Rochdale Council head of childcare, said: "Instead of placing children in residential care, they will now be placed with specially-trained foster carers or be supported in living with their own families. We've not had the expertise to do that in the past, but we do now and the foster carers will be hand-picked.

"Some of the children who have been in residential care are now able to live back with their familes. Children and parents will get the support they need.

"We will be giving the parents advice and looking to our colleagues and the education department to help children with issues such as school attendance.

"Children will now go into residential care as a last resort, but looking after children with these needs is not an exact set of variables. If we do have cases where a child has to go into residential care and doing that will make us go over budget we will have to look at savings in other areas."