Most people listening to this podcast will likely have been able to take for granted having a loving family to look after them as they grew up.

But for tens of thousands of children in the North, that is not the case. For a host of reasons, whether it’s a risk of harm, their parents being too unwell to look after them or just the absence of any one to take parental responsibility, they have been put into the care of the state.

And the North has way more looked after children than it should do. And that’s bad news not just for the children themselves - because children in care tend to have worse health and educational outcomes - but for the local authorities who are responsible for looking after them.

In the fourth episode of The Northern Agenda's Our Kids In The North series, Rob Parsons and Annie Gouk look into why there are so many children in care in the North and what this tells us about the failings of society.

We hear from a Northern mayor who grew up in care, an MP from our region wrote an influential report into how to fix our broken care system and a young care leaver from Blackpool, the seaside town with the highest rate of children in care of anywhere in the country.

And listen out to hear about a pioneering scheme in Greater Manchester that could finally put an end to the profiteering of private care homes.

If you want to read more on this subject, please check out this report by Health Equity North that we leaned on heavily when putting together this episode: https://www.healthequitynorth.co.uk/app/uploads/Children-in-Care-Report-2024-FINAL-2.pdf

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