A growing proportion of children in Lambeth are being taken into care because their parents are hooked on drugs or are in violent relationships.

Lambeth has the highest rates of domestic violence in London and three quarters of children on a council protection plan have been exposed to domestic violence in the home, according to a council report.

Lambeth’s biannual safeguarding report into looked after children describes “an increased proportion of new entries into care for deficiencies in parental capacity due to substance misuse, domestic violence and parental mental illness”.

In total some 38 per cent of the children in care at the end of March 2009 were taken from families in acute stress or in dysfunction - the categories linked to drug use and domestic violence - well above the national average of 22 per cent.

The report points to a lack of specialist programmes and support packages nationally that allow children to stay at home safely when their parents are struggling with substance abuse.

The increase is despite the numbers of children in care falling from 570 in 2007-2008 to 546 in the year ending March 2009, and 173 new children going into care in 2008-2009 compared to 237 during 2007-2008.

Abuse and neglect is still the most common reason for children to be taken into care. But the percentage of total cases in the borough is 30 per cent, less than the national average of 48 per cent.

A Lambeth Council spokesperson, said: "Lambeth Council has a number of early preventative programmes in place to ensure children continue to live at home wherever possible.

"This includes the council’s ‘Team Around the Children’ programme which works closely with schools and children’s centres across the borough."

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