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Many young people eventually enter care have experienced chaotic lives.
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They've often been abused or neglected, making them vulnerable to exploitation,
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substance abuse, self-harm, and mental health difficulties.
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When they come into care, some find the residential foster homes they live in aren't enough.
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These young people often moved from placement to placement until eventually it seems
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only secure accommodation can provide the safe environment they need.
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We spent some time talking with young people and their social workers,
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discussing what it's like living in secure accommodation
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Everyone was having meetings and decisions about where I was in my life
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and it just felt like I wasn't being involved in any of it.
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No one gave me a warning that I was going in to secure.
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I didn't know anything about it. I just had a social worker turn up and she was
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talking me through it and then the next minute these men came up behind me
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and picked me up and threw me in the van and I was like, I didn't know what was going on.
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I thought I'd got kidnapped. It was so scary and it was horrible.
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Many young people described poor experiences of secure
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accommodation and had issues with things like being confined and restrained
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They'll put you in a completely empty room with nothing in. Like take the
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mattress out, everything. And the bathroom would always be locked. The door would
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always be locked until you needed a wee. I got dragged down the corridor. He had
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these massive hands as well. Both his fingers were in my eyes when I was being
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dragged down the corridor. I couldn't see nothing. Like literally, it was horrible.
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I don't think he should have done that.
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In contrast, more relaxed homely units do exist
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and young people who stayed in these found life there easier
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That secure I went to, I loved it because it was all not criminal it was
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all welfare so like they were all really nice and it was more understanding.
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Football, gym, cooking - they have like a music suite in there with Apple Mac
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computers and instruments and that. Stuff like that. I feel better in myself and that
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since I've been there - don't take drugs, don't hang around with the same people
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since I've been there.
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Despite this, few received the help they needed for
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behaviour, emotional and mental health problems.
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When leaving secure accommodation, young people followed different pathways
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Just over a third of these young people settled in new placements and progressed well.
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The rest did poorly. Many became troubled by behaviours such as self-harm and going
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missing and many went back into secure accommodation.
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The prevalence of exploitation mixed in with poor mental health, mixed in with neglect that leads
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to secure or mental presentation that might need sectioning they're increasing.
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Studies show this. I almost feel as if we need a social worker who's actually
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clinically trained as well as the normal route that we go through but that's what
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I want to fight. That's what I'm fighting for now and would like to see.
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Positive outcomes appear to be down to the quality of the young person's placements,
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consistent relationships with key adults and access to sufficient mental health support
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In these cases, placements were maintained, young people continued to
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progress positively and even displayed interests in career planning
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To enable this positive progress for all our young people, action needs to be taken