Why are young people in public care?

There are many reasons why young people are in public care, but the main cause is due to families experiencing some form of hardship, upheaval or break-down. Other children or young people are placed in public care because their families cannot adequately care for them, or because a parent has an illness or has died. Also many have been affected by suffering physical and other types of abuse and neglect. It is important to realize that less than 2 per cent of young people were in public care in 1999 (DoH, 1999: 26), because of offences that they had committed.