The Placement

About

At 8:12 on a wet Monday morning, senior social worker Denise Vale receives a forty-seven-minute recording from Bracken House: a bolt thrown on a utility-room door, a young woman asking to be let out, and a foster father saying he will open it when she is safe. Denise has until five o'clock to write the threshold decision that will tell a court whether the only family that ever said yes to Asha Reid is still a home. Asha is nineteen, an adult and still a qualifying care leaver under Northbridge law. She entered care at eleven, survived a failed adoption, and spent three years in units before June and Martin Hale accepted the placement seven other households refused. They know her food, her silences and her college route. They also locked her in a room, failed to report it and changed the log. Asha says she wants to stay. She also wants the life-story box they have kept from her. The Placement is an adult procedural tragedy about the distance between hearing a young person's voice and giving it power. Choices determine what Denise can prove, what the Hales concede, whether Asha's exact words enter the record, how much Denise exposes about her missing brother, and whether a safety plan exists outside an email. Five endings follow the same permanent loss. None returns the home.

Cast

• D Denise Vale protagonist; senior social worker no portrait yet
• A Asha Reid care leaver and photography student no portrait yet
• J June Hale foster carer no portrait yet
• M Martin Hale foster carer no portrait yet
• N Nadia Reid Asha's birth mother no portrait yet
• R Ruth Calder children's service manager no portrait yet
• C Callum Price social worker and confidential reporter no portrait yet
• M Mara Venn Asha's independent solicitor no portrait yet
• D Dr Saira Bell independent reviewing officer no portrait yet