The death of 18-year-old care leaver Nonita Grabovskyte is a devastating reminder of how fragile the support structures for vulnerable young people have become. Sky’s recent documentary about her final months is powerful and clearly made with compassion. It highlights the emotional devastation felt by those who knew her and brings overdue attention to the challenges faced by teenagers in and leaving care. But the story it tells is partial, and at key points, misleading. For a tragedy as serious as this, accuracy matters.

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The film concentrates heavily on the supported accommodation where Nonita lived. What it does not do is place her experience within the wider landscape that shaped her circumstances. This includes overstretched mental health services, fractured transitions to adulthood, inconsistent multi-agency practice and a regulatory system still struggling to meet demand. Without that context, the documentary risks directing public anger at a single service rather than at the structural failures that allowed her to fall through the gaps.

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From what is publicly known, the picture is stark. In May 2022, after a serious incident, Nonita entered the care of Barnet Council. She had multiple and complex needs, including autism, trauma, disordered eating and repeated suicidal ideation with a clearly stated method involving the railway. As she approached 18, her CAMHS support began to fragment, a situation well recognised by professionals but still unresolved nationally. In May 2023 she was placed in The Singhing Tree, a semi-independent setting for young people considered ready for greater autonomy. On 28 December 2023, shortly after her 18th birthday, she died by suicide at a railway track.

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The documentary draws attention to the vulnerability of care leavers, and it humanises Nonita with dignity and care. But in several respects, its narrative is too narrow. One of the film’s central claims, that The Singhing Tree was operating illegally when Nonita lived there, is not correct. Providers of supported accommodation were not legally required to register with Ofsted until 28 October 2023. A service cannot be illegal before a law comes into force, and the setting was never a children’s home. Its later registration delays were concerning but conflating them with criminality misrepresents the regulatory reality and distracts from the more urgent questions about how placement decisions were made.

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The film also presents financial data without context and invites viewers to draw conclusions it cannot support. A figure is described as “not insignificant for a small, unregistered children’s home”, even though the setting was not a children’s home and no comparison is offered with similar provision. In a sector under scrutiny, numbers without context risk becoming insinuation rather than evidence.

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The film’s narrative is further shaped by a small number of lived-experience commentators, including Samantha Morton and Terry Galloway. Their contributions are powerful and significant, and their perspectives deserve to be heard. But lived experience, however compelling, represents only one part of the picture. Understanding what happened to Nonita requires the perspectives of practitioners, clinicians, commissioners, researchers, legal experts, young people currently living in supported accommodation and Ofsted. Without this wider range of voices, the documentary offers important personal insight but not the fuller systemic explanation needed to understand the complexity of her case.

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The framing is skewed further by an interview in which the minister is asked whether she would allow her own 16-year-old children to live in a flat with adults they do not know, followed by the presenter’s assertion that he would not. It is a striking line, but a misleading one. Looked-after 16 and 17 year olds cannot lawfully be placed in general housing alongside unrelated adults. Homeless teenagers of the same age should not be either, since they must be assessed under the Children Act. Inviting viewers to judge the system based on a hypothetical scenario risks obscuring the statutory duties that actually apply.

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Equally significant is what the documentary leaves out. Supported accommodation is designed for young people assessed as ready for greater independence. Yet in a system under immense pressure, it is too often used for teenagers whose needs are far more complex than the model was created to support. The issue is not supported accommodation itself but its misuse. When mental health services are stretched, placement options limited and risk management inconsistent, young people with acute needs can end up in settings that were never intended for them. That is a systemic failure.

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The film also presents the decision of several organisations not to participate as evasive. In reality, providers, local authorities and regulators are often limited in what they can say even after an inquest has concluded. Safeguarding reviews may still be underway, internal investigations may be active, and legal or regulatory processes can continue long after a verdict is delivered. Confidentiality, data protection and procedural fairness restrict public comment. Without this context, viewers are left to assume reluctance or concealment where procedural duty or ongoing review is the real reason.

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Other pressures go unmentioned. Supported accommodation for 16 and 17 year olds was entirely unregulated until October 2023, and Ofsted continues to face significant backlogs and limited enforcement powers during the transition. The Singhing Tree was far from the only setting affected. At the same time, England continues to rely on unregistered placements, including for children subject to Deprivation of Liberty orders, simply because no regulated alternatives exist. These practices reflect a system operating beyond capacity and leave local authorities with impossible choices.

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When this wider context is omitted, the focus falls on one service rather than the network of failures that shaped Nonita’s life. The regulatory framework was weak. Mental health services were fragmented. Information was not shared. Statutory responsibilities were inconsistently delivered. These are the conditions in which tragedies like this occur.

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The central question is why a young woman with well-documented, high-risk mental health needs was ever placed in semi-independent accommodation intended for low-risk young people preparing for adulthood. That decision, not the regulatory status of the setting, was the critical failure. Supported accommodation is not inherently unsafe. Many young people thrive in it when it is used appropriately and when the systems around it function properly. It becomes unsafe only when risk is misunderstood, assessment weak, mental health support absent and oversight inconsistent. These were the failures that surrounded Nonita, yet the documentary pays them limited attention.

 

Honouring her life requires acknowledging the full complexity of what went wrong. It means examining how assessment, commissioning, mental health provision, statutory duties, the delayed involvement of children’s social care and regulation interact. And it means moving beyond narratives that cast semi-independent provision or for-profit providers as the primary danger. The issues are deeper and more systemic. The documentary begins an important conversation, but if we want to protect future young people, we must ensure it is the right one.

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13 November 2025