THURROCK Council is spending £4 million a year caring for just ten children with special needs, it has been revealed.

The looked-after youngsters require specialist care and costs a spiralling out of control prompting a senior councillor to say the situation is putting excessive pressure on Thurrock children's services.

Children's Services portfolio holder Cllr Barry Johnson says: "This is a national issue and the increase in weekly costs for fostering and residential placements more recently, have been driven by factors including requests for increases in fees from residential care providers, the increased cost of agency foster care support packages, increased placement costs for children and young people with additional needs and few placements ending during the coronavirus pandemic.

"In Thurrock the ten most expensive vulnerable young people's placements cost the council around £4million per year.

"Most of the placements for vulnerable children with additional needs require additional staffing, some on a ratio of three carers to one young person and this therefore increases the cost of their care."

Caring for vulnerable children costs between £255,650 per year up to £842,976 per year.

The ten most expensive placements are for girls and boys aged 12 to 17. They have all experienced multiple fostering breakdowns before being placed in high needs placements which are hard to obtain, costly and sometimes out of the borough in order to accommodate their needs.

The youngsters have a range of complex disorders such as special educational needs, autism and behavioural difficulties, which can result in extreme violence to themselves and others, self-harming and mental health issues. Some have suffered sexual exploitation and criminal exploitation.

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The council is hoping to attract more foster carers willing to take on children with challenging needs.

Cllr Johnson added: "Increasing the number of foster carers and respite carers who foster directly with the council provides a much more successful outcome for our children and young people, when compared to a fostering agency placement, residential or high cost placement, and significantly eases financial pressures.

"There are many different types of foster care that we look for including short and medium term care, longer term care, caring for children with disabilities, brothers and sisters, teenagers and parent and child placements."