The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have argued for more stability for children in care, warning the “emotionally exhausting” process of moving too often puts them at risk of “short and shallow” relationships as adults.
The Duke, visiting the Foundling Museum in London, said the problems for children growing up without a stable home foreshadowed those of homeless adults, who “go through hoops and hurdles, tell so many people in authority and nothing changes”.
The couple visited the museum in their first public engagement since their Christmas holidays, spending time with young people who have left the care system and are now training to work at the museum to help others.
They took part in “ice-breaker” activities, which saw them join a drawing session with three-foot-long pencils to create a priceless piece of artwork from a future king and queen.
Duke asked if he supports Prince Andrew
As they left the engagement, the Duke ignored a question shouted from Sky News as a reporter asked him: “Do you support Prince Andrew?”
The Foundling Hospital, the UK’s first children’s charity, was created in 1739 as a home for children whose mothers could not keep or care for them.
The Duchess has made several visits previously.
Joining a roundtable meeting on Wednesday, the Duchess asked experts: “From your experience what makes the difference between a young person succeeding after leaving foster care and when they do not?”
They heard about “challenges for young people” when they regularly move home and are sometimes exploited by the criminal world.
The Duke added: “If you keep moving a child around when they are an adult their relationships are so short and shallow.”
Emotionally exhausting
The Duchess said she was concerned that without providing stable homes for children they risk being moved around and having to “tell their story again and again”.
“That may become emotionally exhausting to tell the story again and again,” the Duke said.
“We’ve had that in the mental health side of things; people end up on the street, go through hoops and hurdles, tell so many people in authority and nothing changes.
“You have to get to them a lot earlier so they don’t have to keep doing this.”
The couple added they were worried about the “consistency in care”.
