England's children's homes are in crisis, and a British minister went to Denmark to look for answers

In a quiet suburb on the outskirts of Copenhagen, set back from the road behind a purple-leaved plum tree, sits a large white house. There is little outward sign that this is Josephine Schneider's House, considered one of the best children's homes in the world.

Danish children's homes are often cited as the global gold standard of children's residential care. They are now being studied by the British government as it tries to create a roadmap out of the crisis in which its own children's home system has become mired.

Last year there were 669 children living in illegal, unregistered children's homes across England. Councils paid more than 125 million pounds of taxpayers' money to keep them there. Overall spending on children's homes soared 96 percent in five years to over 3.1 billion pounds in 2023-24. At the same time standards have dropped, private firms are cashing in and a growing number of children are being sent to homes hundreds of miles away.

The children's minister, Josh MacAlister, admits the situation is dire. He said: 'We now have this shadow system of unregistered, illegal homes, which is certainly not providing therapeutic support and the costs are huge. We need big changes, a major shake-up.'

Earlier this week, MacAlister visited Denmark to see how its children's homes operate and what can be exported back to England. The visit was part of a Department for Education review into how the sector can be improved.

The 140-year-old Josephine Schneider's House houses 12 children and young adults aged six to 23. It is starkly different from many British equivalents.

In the centre of the house is a spacious kitchen staffed by the head chef, Rasmus, who cooks the children's meals, lunch boxes and after-school snacks — pizza rolls are a particular favourite. He works with the children himself, encouraging them to help make the food and come grocery shopping. The rest of the staff are all degree-level professionals in social pedagogy, a discipline focusing on psychology, child development and ethics. They strive to recreate a traditional family home by cooking, eating and socialising with the children.

Mads Sorensen, deputy director of the home, said: 'We don't have an in-house therapist but everything we do is therapeutic.' One member of staff sleeps in the house at night and wakes the children up each day at 7am. Sorensen said they ask the children how they like to be woken up, to help them feel safe and create that predictability. Many of the children here have suffered physical, emotional and social neglect. Issues such as self-harm, insomnia and eating disorders are common.

Unlike children's homes in England, where many children report being isolated and cut off from family and friends, here children are encouraged to have friends stay at the weekends and holidays. There are regular parents' evenings, including a Christmas banquet.

Each child also has a team of two to three staff members working with them on their education and wellbeing. In a semi-independent flat on the top floor live the older residents, aged 17 and above, who have their own living area and kitchen. The young people buy their own food and do their own chores, under the guidance of staff, preparing them for independent life. They are allowed to stay until the age of 23 and are encouraged to return for regular visits beyond that. In England, teenagers must leave children's homes as soon as they turn 18.

MacAlister said he may change this. He said he is really persuaded by getting rid of the binary date-of-birth point that decides where you live. In his words, children are forced to move when they turn 18, even if they are in the middle of sitting their A-levels, and that has to change.

He also wants to import some of the culture from Danish children's homes, particularly their focus on personal growth and maintaining family relationships. MacAlister said a lot of residential care in England is actually about adults containing their own anxiety and concerns about teenagers, which is a really poor model. The first question is always how to protect ourselves from risk, which is not what should be asked first. It is very different in Denmark.

The quality of staff is crucial and is at the heart of the ongoing review. The review is being led by Emmanuel Akpan-Inwang, the director of Lighthouse Pedagogy Trust, which runs a children's home in Sutton based on pedagogy principles. Akpan-Inwang said what is interesting about Denmark is that working in a children's home is a career people really want to do. It is competitive. Homes are able to select really great people, support and train them, and they stay in the sector for long periods. But he said the system cannot simply be lifted and shifted to England. The Danes have spent more than 40 years developing it. But lessons can be learned from it.

At Josephine Schneider's House, many staff members have been there 10 years or longer. In the UK, about 53 percent of children's home staff have worked in the sector for three years or less. Poor pay, working conditions and a lack of training force many to leave the sector early.

Underpinning Danish children's homes is extensive state funding. A third of homes are publicly owned, 42 percent are not-for-profit and 27 percent are private for-profit. By contrast, in England, 83 percent of children's homes places are now privately run, with some operators recording profit margins of more than 20 percent. The British government has passed laws giving itself the power to intervene and cap profits by private providers but has yet to use it. MacAlister said they need to wait for a new market oversight body to provide full transparency of exactly how much money is being made. The government of Wales is moving more quickly and will ban all for-profit providers in children's social care by 2030. But MacAlister said it would not be easy to replicate this in England, where numbers are much bigger.

MacAlister said: 'We need to massively boost local authorities so they can take back control of the whole purchasing process, curb demand by making sure more children can live in foster homes or kinship arrangements, and shape a system on our terms, not one that is driven by profit.'