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David is a seven-year-old boy of Nigerian heritage living in foster care. When his mother was young, she was sent from Nigeria to live in the UK with extended family. It is understood she had an abusive home life and eventually left the care of her extended family, subsequently becoming estranged from them. David was the product of a brief relationship and no information is known about his father. David's mother suffers from mental health problems and had a psychotic breakdown at the time of his birth. She was hospitalised several times in his early years. During these periods, David was placed in a temporary foster placement and would then return to the care of his mother once she was home. Support was invested to help his mother to care for him; however, eventually it was concluded that due to her health difficulties she was unable to care for him sufficiently and provide him with the safety and stability he needed. In 2008 when David was six, he was removed permanently from her care.
David was placed in a foster home and continued to have regular contact with his mother. However, due to difficulties between him and another child of a similar age in the placement, David was moved to a new foster home. This time he was placed with his current carers, a white Irish couple living with their 21-year-old daughter. David is described as a loving child who gets very anxious when adults leave him. He has a history of bedwetting and soiling. He would often appear to be in a dreamworld and would get very distressed during any points of transition, such as ends of lessons, although he had lots of friends at school.
The long-term plan was for David to be found a permanent family, which would be a closer cultural match for him. A referral was made to his local CAMHS service for intensive psychotherapy to help him with his emotional and behavioural difficulties, in the hope that this would help to increase the chances of a permanent family being found