ABSTRACT

Secure Children’s Homes (SCH) in the UK are locked establishments for children perceived to be at serious risk and referred through welfare or youth justice systems. The UK SCH population has recently decreased, but the percentage accommodated for welfare concerns has not. It is of concern that some of the children referred to SCHs through the welfare system cannot be placed and are therefore found an alternative accommodation. This article is concerned with children from England referred to SCHs for welfare reasons particularly the process of trying to find a SCH place, the characteristics of children placed in alternative accommodations and the residences used for alternative accommodation. Findings show that two-fifths of the children, typically older males with challenging, offending, or sexually harmful behaviors were not placed in a SCH. While the children’s behaviors contributed to SCH refusals, the situations were more nuanced with other contributory factors including children not meeting secure accommodation criteria, non-implementation of secure orders and children entering different secure settings. The study returns attention to the difficulty of finding an SCH place for extremely vulnerable children and raises concerns about current SCH service capacity and the unknown nature of alternative accommodations.

摘要

英国的安全儿童之家 (SCH) 是为被认为面临严重风险并通过福利或青少年司法系统转介的儿童提供的上锁场所。英国 SCH 人口最近有所减少，但考虑到福利问题的百分比并未下降。令人担忧的是，一些通过福利系统转介到 SCH 的儿童无法安置，因此被找到了替代住宿。本文关注因福利原因被提到 SCH 的英格兰儿童，特别是试图找到 SCH 地方的过程、被安置在替代住宿场所的儿童的特征以及用于替代住宿的住所。调查结果表明，五分之二的儿童，通常是具有挑战性、冒犯性或性有害行为的年龄较大的男性，没有被安置在 SCH 中。虽然儿童的行为导致 SCH 拒绝，但与其他促成因素有关的情况更为微妙，包括儿童不符合安全住宿标准、不执行安全命令和儿童进入不同的安全环境。该研究重新关注为极度脆弱的儿童寻找 SCH 地方的困难，并提出了对当前 SCH 服务能力和替代住宿的未知性质的担忧。