Vulnerable Kent kids are being placed in care outside their home county due to the influx of unaccompanied child asylum seekers from across the English Channel.
Kent County Council (KCC) has said they have no choice but to place local children elsewhere.
Many of the migrants have come via the 4,000-strong Calais camp dubbed the Jungle - crossing the Channel into eastern Kent.
As the first county they reach, it becomes KCC's legal responsibility to care for unaccompanied kids.
The council currently has 924 unaccompanied under-18s in its care, compared to less than 630 at the start of last August.
KCC's cabinet member for specialist children's services, Coun Peter Oakford, said the authority has seen a 30 per cent rise in looked-after children in the last seven months, as families make the dangerous trip from war-torn countries in north Africa and the Middle East.
He told the children's social care and health cabinet committee: "We have had to place Kent children outside of Kent due to the influx of unaccompanied asylum seeking children, which is not a good position to be in and is not a position we want to be in."
The council was forced to place six kids into residential care, a far more expensive option than normal foster care, he added.
KCC has had its services stretched since the start of the migrant crisis last summer.
Some 22 councils said they would help KCC by taking in some of the children, although one said it would only accept youths under the age of five.
Coun Oakford
Coun Oakford said: "It's a little bit of a challenge for an under five-year-old to walk all the way from Afghanistan on their own."
Whilst the number of child asylum seekers coming into KCC's care has slowed to around 15 a week during the winter, there are fears the numbers will pick up again as spring approaches.
On the winter arrival rate, Coun Oakford added: "That's around 45-50 a month, which will add an additional 200 between now and April.
"Then, if the numbers start to increase like they did last year, we will be in significant difficulties."
James Brokenshire MP
Immigration minister and Old Bexley and Sidcup MP James Brokenshire said the government was working to ensure the burden of taking in asylum seeking children is spread out across the country, during an urgent question in the House of Commons.
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