Railway Children wants the practice to be outlawed in the latest runaways guidance due to be published in the next few weeks.
The charity wants the guidance to ban the practice ‘in any circumstances’ instead of allowing it in ‘exceptional circumstances’, as is currently the case.
Janet Rich, a trustee of the Care Leavers’ Foundation, cautioned against such a blanket approach but said a culture change was needed to make the use of B&Bs unacceptable.
She said:
“The use of B&Bs is still far too prevalent and shouldn’t happen. There’s still a massive shortage of suitable options but B&Bs are an unsupported accommodation option.
Cash-strapped local authorities can’t wait to get children off their books but they need to think about care leavers as if they were their own children. We don’t write off our own children.”
