I was homeless at 16 – I was told by A&E staff to just ‘have a bath and journal’

When Chloe Pomfret was taken to A&E by her teachers aged 16, and explained to workers that she was suicidal and homeless, she was told to go home, run a bath and journal. “I remember sitting down and the woman saying she hadn’t read my file and for me to fill her in on what had happened. I explained that I was suicidal, homeless and that I had been in care and had no one around me and didn’t know what to do. The suggestion was, ‘Why don’t you go home and have a bath, go for a walk, journal some things?'” “I’ve just told you I’m homeless. What do you mean go home and have a bath? It’s ridiculous. I just discharged myself. I thought nobody understands, and even when you do reach out for support, there is none that is adequate.” Shorts Pomfret, now 23 and originally from Manchester, had entered the care system aged five. She lived with a foster family for three years before being later “reunified” with her father, and when that relationship broke down she moved in informally with her grandfather. When he died she became homeless at 16. For three months she sofa-surfed, slept in bus shelters and, at one point, spent nights in an A&E waiting room because it had a toilet, a vending machine and a plug socket. “I was struggling, I’d just failed my GCSEs so I was having to resit them, I was struggling to find adequate housing, I was dealing with grief. It was probably the loneliest period of my life.” On 16 December, 2019, she was placed in supported accommodation for young people aged between 16 and 25. She remembers her teachers dropping her there with her belongings, being shown her flat and given a £5 electricity top-up as a “welcome gift”. “Then I was left to it,” she says. “I burst out crying for a good few hours. I had no idea how to unpack, what to do, how to do my own food shop, what I was doing in terms of cooking.” While for most young people learning to live independently happens gradually, surrounded by family, Pomfret, like many care leavers, was thrown into independence as a teenager with no idea how to cope. As a 16 year old with little to no support, she recalls her future feeling bleak. “I think a lot of us in the accommodation struggled with suicidal thoughts, some of us were more vocal than others. You are literally thrown into a flat, given some forms to fill in for your benefits, and you’re left to it. She says support workers could tell her what she needed to do – apply for benefits, stay in education – but often did not have the training to deal with the complexities behind those needs. “A lot of kids in care have been struggling with substance abuse, their mental health, or they have a disability they need support with, and there’s just no overlapping support at all. “The thing I struggled with the most, and a lot of people do, was that we’re leaving the system to do what? To get a job for the sake of paying the bills? Your ambition isn’t encouraged in the care system, it’s squashed and you’re expected to just survive. What sort of a life is that? “I know of friends who have been in the situation where they’ve lost people [to suicide] and they’ve never forgotten that person, it’s horrible.” Her experience is stark in light of a new Government-commissioned review published this week into the deaths of care-experienced young adults. The review, led by broadcaster and care leaver Ashley John-Baptiste and social work leader Clare Chamberlain, examined care leaver deaths in England in 2025. There were 112 deaths among those aged 18 to 24, around three to four times higher than among other people of the same age. Of the 112 deaths, 40 were thought to have been suicides (around 36 per cent of the total) with young women particularly overrepresented. The review identified a pattern of vulnerability as young people move into adulthood, including loneliness, a sharp drop in support and a lack of a workforce equipped to help them make the transition into independence. For Pomfret, the findings were not a surprise. “A lot of people will have experienced this themselves, whether it’s struggling with falling off the care cliff, the mental health support, being around people who they know have died or have been in dangerous situations.” Pomfret, now 23, struggled to get support during the ‘loneliest’ time of her life The “care cliff” describes the abrupt reduction in support that can come when a young person reaches adulthood. Until they turn 18, a child who is looked after by the state is entitled to a home arranged by the local authority, for some in the form of a foster carer and others supported accommodation. From 16, they often begin the formal transition towards leaving care including a “pathway plan” setting out where they will live and their education or employment plans. At 18, they legally leave care, meaning the local authority is no longer responsible for them – although they remain entitled to support, including a personal adviser and help with housing. The review found that this drop-off can leave young people without the trusted adults, practical help and emotional support that most people rely on as they become independent. “I think that’s the main issue with the system,” says Pomfret. “You feel like you’re just another person, like you matter at all. You need somebody who knows what you’ve been through, who knows your life, who can help you celebrate the little achievements or just things like your birthday. Somebody who makes you feel like you matter in this world.” The Government has responded to the review with a £25m investment in its Staying Close programme, which aims to expand housing models that keep care leavers connected to support and other people as they move into adulthood. Chamberlain said: “This review has reinforced what care leavers have told us for years: the state is no substitute for family. We need to do more to prevent the acute loneliness that the most vulnerable experience after leaving care.” Children’s minister Josh MacAlister responded to the review saying that “we owe it to these young people, and to every care-experienced person, to change care so that we make enduring relationships the central obsession of the care system. Care must build and not break the relationships that young people need, and this must be the new north star.” New duties coming into force from 30 September will also require councils to publish how they will support care leavers into independent living, while care leavers will no longer be able to be deemed intentionally homeless. Francesca Salussolia is the founder of Goal 17, a non-profit organisation that has helped thousands of care leavers build meaningful relationships and get support. They provide volunteer mentors to care leavers, helping them into work, employment and build their confidence. Salussolia echoes the need for young people to feel they have someone in their corner that cares, not just a roof over their head. “We’re asking 18-year-old care leavers to do things that we would never ask of a child in a traditional family setting: going to college, having a part-time job in order to top up benefits, pay bills, cook for themselves. Everything that we ask care leavers to do that a typical mother or father or parent would never expect their own child to do. “Some of the care leavers that I’ve worked with say to me, ‘Why should I bother? There’s just no point.’ But once they start to realise that somebody’s in their corner, and they start to take these very tiny steps, we find that ambition comes back or is generated for the first time because they believe they can do something and that they’re not on their own.” She says 69 per cent of Goal 17’s young people make a progression from Neet (not in education, employment or training) into some form of long-term education, employment or training. Pomfret herself is now in her fifth year at Oxford University after using her time in supported accommodation to resit her GCSEs, often spending 10 to 15 hours per day on school work. She hopes to one day work for a charity or the government on helping care leavers like her to have the ambitions to go into higher education, something she says many believe they’ll never be able to achieve. To sign up to be a Goal 17 volunteer to mentor a young care leaver, you can visit their website https://www.goal17.global/