As a new councillor in 1998, I  led a programme to improve life chances for children looked after by the Council.  Children in care are some of the most vulnerable and excluded members of our community, with lower than average educational achievement and an increased likelihood of ending up in jail. In Lambeth, there had even been a horrific child abuse case dating back to the early 1990s which exposed major problems with the way children in care were looked after.

Part of the problem is that children in care are not listened to.  So I won Council support to bring in the Children’s Society to run a new service to listen to looked-after children and make sure their voices are heard by those responsible for taking decisions about their lives. 

I also took a direct interest in the lives of individual young care leavers.  One young man asked for my help when he was allocated an uninhabitable council flat.  The flat was so damp that the electrics didn’t work.  The young man had spent months sleeping on a friend’s floor, but the Council – responsible for the  young person’s welfare – had kept charging him rent until he’d run up a huge debt and was now threatening to blacklist him.   I immediately intervened, took the local housing manager to see the state of the flat and got the debt cancelled.  The young man was then properly rehoused and council procedures changed to ensure that children leaving care are allocated a key worker to make sure they are given the help they need to successfully make the transition from council care to independent adulthood.