Children in care Homes for profit...and lives in limbo

As private equity floods the sector, Charlotte Reck, working undercover in three placements, discovers the daily traumas confronting devoted staff and vulnerable young people

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Home one

It's 7am on a Thursday in late May.

I've been awake for 24 hours, eight of them spent sitting outside the room of a 17-year-old girl who requires a visual check every 30 minutes.

I'm not alone - physically, anyway.

My new colleague is beside me; he's from the agency, too. He has worked six nights a week for eight weeks, and at the start of our shift he told me that he doesn't sleep much during the day.

Now I know why. He sleeps all night.

"Have you ever used a ligature cutter?" he asks. I'm weary so I barely make out what he says.

He unboxes the black package on the windowsill. I squint, trying to grasp the tool's purpose. It's the size of a fist and doubles in length when in use. There's a hook, like the one on a clothes hanger, but stronger.

"It cuts someone down," he says.

He mimes using the device, making a noise that sounds like a slice. "When they're hanging," he confirms, and motions toward the girl's door.

She's a hanging risk, I discover nine hours into my shift - and neither of us has received training on how to use the cutter. It's just there.

A box ticked.

"I think I could do it, though. It seems easy," my colleague almost boasts. I feel sick at the thought of the young girl's life in our useless hands.

This home is hidden away at the end of a long road in Derbyshire. But it is a home. It's a place where a family lives, despite all the problems.

As you get near, light spills out from inside, and the sound of music and games. The staff here work tirelessly to create kindness and compassion in a system that incentivises neither.