Number of street children in UK underestimated by 66%!

I have just been listening to the BBC news and there was a segment which mentioned a study undertaken by various childrens protection agencies/charities in which the number of children classified as street children(children who have no permanent home or carer) has been underestimated by TWO THIRDS!

This in 21st Century Britain FFS! not a Brazillian Favelo or a Mombassa Shanty town, but cities like London,Manchester,Edinburgh.Now I am not saying that the plight of UK street children is in any way more important than the plight of street children everywhere,but a truly worrying aspect of this was that of 1,000 respondants interviewed by save the children who were asked if they would be willing to help the main children's protection charities and agencies find these children a safe place to live less than 10% said that they would,really 10%!.these are children aged from 5 to 16 and less than 1 in 10 would be willing to do something about it?

What I found truly sickening though was the next news segment that Adele, the singer, has been listed as Britain's richest young pop star with 20 Million pounds to her credit and this segment merited 30 seconds more coverage than the news item regarding the street children!

Oh well that's alright then as long as those least deserving are amassing obscene amounts of money,who cares about those who have no voice eh?

people staying in hostels in the uk are classed as homeless and they are not living on the streets. Infact I have personal experience of being classed as homeless and it took less than a week to get my own room in a hostel with breakfast and a hot meal every evening.

Also I am wondering how many we are talking about here, are there 5 when it was previously thought to be only 3, or are we talking about tens of thousands.

reply to post by lewman

These were children who had slipped off the radar as far as social services and child protection agencies were concerned and the numbers are now being estimated at 10,000 plus as oposed to "official government figures" who put the number of children outwith the mainstream at 3,500,the 10,000 figure does include children from travelling families(approx 3-4,000) and you are correct in pointing out that homelessness can include those living in hostel type accomodation,however,the main concern of the study was with the number of children who are not attending schools,are not registered with health care services and are in effect living on the streets whilst their main carer is unable to look after these children,i.e through working long hours,through drug addiction or being unable to source childcare whilst they are not available.

reply to post by lewman

That was my question to, anyway here are some numbers, it dosn't say how many are permanently street children.

www.streetchildren.org.uk...

A report by the Children’s Society in the UK found that: o 100,000 young people run away in the UK each year. 47 o 1 in 6 young runaways sleep rough. 48 o There are only 10 registered refuge bedspaces for young runaways in the UK 49 o There are at least 66,000 first-time runaways per year in England. 50 o Just over 12% of females had run away overnight compared to 8% of males. The peak age of first running away within the sample was 14. 51 o 6.7% of UK runaways had both birth parents , 13% had only a single birth parent, 18% had a step family, and 30.8% had ‘other family form’.

www.childrenssociety.org.uk...

reply to post by nake13


Children have no voice. Kudos to you for being a voice for them. Children are everyone's responsibility. If our hearts have turned to ice and we are incapable of loving them, the least we should do is give them a warm safe place to sleep and healthy meals. This is our future generation. These are the next shapers of our world. We only get the one chance to show them that they are more valuable than anything else we hold dear or they will grow up to behave toward other children as we have behaved toward them.