One in five children in care in England were self-harming and likely to have mental ill health during the Covid-19 pandemic, research published on Wednesday reveals.
The study by the University of Bristol is the first to analyse the mental health of children and young people in local authority care during the pandemic. At any given time in England, there are about 80,000 children and young people in care.
Researchers surveyed more than 1,300 11- to 18-year-olds in care from 18 council areas in 2020 and 2021. They found that 20% reported that they had self-harmed before and 18% during the pandemic, while 29% said that they were bullied face to face or online.
The findings also showed that young people in care were more than twice as likely to have mental ill-health than the wider population.
Nearly one quarter of looked after 11- to 18-year-olds were likely to have mental ill health – compared with 10% of all young people during the pandemic, according to the Understanding Society Covid-19 Youth Survey.
Nearly 40% said they needed help with their mental health at some point before the survey, while more than 20% said that they needed mental health support in the preceding month.
But access to support is becoming harder, the report found. About one in eight children in care had their request for mental health support denied in 2020, but this had risen to one-fifth of respondents in 2021. And about one quarter said that they no longer had access to any mental health support during the pandemic.
The findings showed having positive relationships with friends was twice as influential on their mental health as those with care workers, and three times more influential than relationships with social workers.
Living with a relative or a sibling also aided wellbeing. But despite more than 90% having at least one brother or sister, only 35-40% were living with a sibling, the study found.
“Irrespective of the length of time in care or the number of previous placements, what matters most to the mental health of children and young people is the continuity, stability and quality of relationships with key people, as well as how settled they feel in their current schools and placements,” said Dinithi Wijedasa, senior lecturer at the school for policy studies at the University of Bristol and lead author of the study.
John Simmonds, director of policy, research and development at CoramBAAF Adoption & Fostering Academy, said: “Services provided to children in care must be informed by detailed understanding of mental health and integrated into every individual child’s care plan. The next step must be to act – they need and deserve no less.”
The president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, Charlotte Ramsden, said there were “some important messages” in the report. She said: “While the impact of successive lockdowns and ensuing restrictions on children and young people will have varied, we cannot ignore that there is a rising tide of poor mental health amongst children and young people.
“Too many children continue to face long waits to access appropriate help and accessing mental health support for children has long been an issue for children in care – we must do better for them.
“Local authorities are absolutely committed to finding stable, loving homes for the children in our care and recruiting and retaining enough social workers so that we can meet children’s needs, but we need government to support us with this via a nationally led and funded campaign to encourage more social workers into the profession and to want to stay.”