A Warm Welcome!‍ ‍

LION Therapy is a safety net offering low-fee psychotherapy for people who have grown up in care or have had a child taken into care. It offers the right kind of psychological therapy, delivered by suitably-experienced clinicians, at a price the care-experienced person can afford.

Will you be part of our Coalition of the Willing to change the cycle of deprivation and trauma?

LION Therapy costs a fraction per person (just £2,000/year per person) of juvenile custody (£129,333/year,) prison (£60,000) or care proceedings (£50,000/case). It makes far more difference to someone being able to live a healthy and happy life than a year in prison, not to mention the trauma of having their child taken into care.

“Into care when I was 6 after my mother had died and my father had been jailed for sexually abusing my sisters while my mum was dying of cancer... After living in four children’s homes and three foster placements (one of which was brilliant and life-changing) I had suffered so much.  My social worker was excellent but I struggled with  anger, anxiety and depression and general PTS until my mid-40s when I finally cracked and went for two years of self-funded psychotherapy costing £10,000). I met my current partner when I was 49 and the relationship works well. Two decades lost to mental health problems that could have been dealt with much earlier on.” Anonymous, Care Leavers Association Report 2017

What is the Scale of the Problem?‍ ‍

• In 2011, the number of children in the care of the English state was 65,510. That number was 83, 630 as of March 2024.

• Every time Social Services take a baby into care, it costs you, the taxpayer, £50,000 to fund the care proceeding. Research indicates that one in three young women, who are care-experienced and have a child removed, are likely to return to family court with subsequent children.

• 50% of children in custody are care-experienced. Juvenile detention places cost £129,333 per child per year (as of Jan 2024) - double the cost of sending them to Eton College.

• 25% of the adult prison population (97,000 as of 2024) grew up in care - it costs you, the  taxpayer, £60,000 per year to keep one person there. Domestic violence costs the UK £47 billion per year (Home Office Report into Domestic Abuse 2019) - growing up in care makes people much more likely to engage in high-conflict relationships.

What Help is There Already?‍ ‍

The latest Care Leavers Association’s report, Caring for Better Health (Department of Health, 2017) noted that:

“The Services and interventions must not just be quick fixes but provide lasting solutions. More focus needs to be placed on mental health which includes emotional well-being. Many care leavers we encountered did not have diagnosed mental health issues, but had serious well-being issues that prevented them from living life fully.”‍ ‍

Since publication of this Report in 2017, we can find no evidence that such a service has been set up, either at a local or a national level.  Care-experienced clients are often highly traumatised but cash-strapped, so they struggle to afford the type of clinician who can handle the significant challenges they present with the risk that their trust is misplaced once again.  

“It’s really f***ed up how Care Leavers end up being stigmatised, how there’s this taboo. And it doesn’t help to have been moved round like a piece of furniture, chucked out with your rubbish bags of all your worldly goods, treated like trash.” Anonymous, Care Leavers Association Report 2017

It is a truism that behind every number is a person.  But LION Therapy knows that every person who has gone into care has had their trust in caregivers shredded. Together we can ensure the care-experienced person builds a bridge back to safely relating with others. So they can thrive, not just survive.

Annie Pesskin, psychotherapist and LION Therapy founder, has been running a pilot for this work for the last few years and she describes a client’s transformation thanks to the work they did with her here.‍ ‍