The government has launched a project which aims to keep children out of the care system. The £84 million initiative will target councils with the highest numbers of children in care across the country, but will not include bids from failing councils.
The project comes at a time when the child protection sector is seeing unprecedented levels of children in care.
Up to twenty councils will receive a share of the £84m set aside for the “Strengthening Families, Protecting Children” project over a period of five years. The project offers three programmes designed to improve the safety and stability of vulnerable children and to reduce the need for families to access services. Selected councils will implement one of the three featured programmes.
Three ‘early adopters’ have already been chosen to test the project and will begin implementing the programmes in the Spring. The selected councils are Darlington, Cambridgeshire and Middlesbrough.
Only councils with an Ofsted rating of ‘requires improvement to be good’ can make bids for the funding and take part in the project, making the project’s aims questionable. The current ratings offered by Ofsted are Oustanding, Good, Requires Improvement and Inadequate.
The What Works Centre for children’s social care will evaluate the success of the project sometime after 2024, but as the project will not be allowing councils with an inadequate rating to join the programme, arguably councils in most need of the support, it is unclear what use the evaluation will be in assessing the viability of the programmes in the project.
The Department for Education’s press release offers more detail on the programmes being offered:
- Leeds Family Valued: working with the whole family unit and any support network to encourage long term changes at home that keep children safe, working with families rather than imposing measures on them. Independent evaluation of the project’s impact on the target population shows that between 2011 and 2017, Leeds reduced the number of children on children’s services Protection Plans by nearly 50% (974 in 2011 down to 515 in 2017).
- Hertfordshire Family Safeguarding: creates teams consisting of mental health practitioners, domestic abuse workers, probation officers and children’s social workers to strengthen the bond between couples, support fathers and male partners to prevent violent behaviour. Evaluation shows this resulted in a 39% reduction in the number of days children spent in care, for cases allocated to the safeguarding team, a 53% drop in in hospital admissions for adults in that family, and a 66% reduction in contact with the police.
- North Yorkshire No Wrong Door: creates ‘hubs’ where young people at risk of going into care get targeted support to cope with the multiple issues they face, including lack of accommodation or contact with the police. Independent evaluation showed the programme saw a 38% fall in arrests of individuals involved during the first 18 months of the programme and a 57% reduction in A&E visits.
The launch of the project coincides with the Children Act 1989’s thirtieth anniversary.
The press release can be read here.
The criteria for entry onto the project can be found here.
Ofsted’s Local Authority Children’s Social Care reports can be accessed here.
Many thanks to Michele Simmons for alerting us to this project.
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Perhaps I have the wrong grasp on the problems outlined , but I cannot help thinking many problems could be bypassed if local authorities gave more support to the children and young people of so called ‘problem families’.
The care system has been proved inadequate, and often seems to do more harm than good in the final outcome. Money spent on fostering would be so much better invested in giving a hand up to the ‘problem’ families, rather than handouts to foster parents who may not have the best interests heart at of the children entrusted to their care.
Like all such decisions, there will be good and not so good foster parents,but we really should not be playing Russian Roulette with the lives of our future generations. .
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The project comes at a time when the child protection sector is seeing unprecedented levels of children in care.
Up to twenty councils will receive a share of the £84m set aside for the “Strengthening Families, Protecting Children” project over a period of five years. The project offers three programmes designed to improve the safety and stability of vulnerable children and to reduce the need for families to access services. Selected councils will implement one of the three featured programmes.
Three ‘early adopters’ have already been chosen to test the project and will begin implementing the programmes in the Spring. The selected councils are Darlington, Cambridgeshire and Middlesbrough.
Only councils with an Ofsted rating of ‘requires improvement to be good’ can make bids for the funding and take part in the project, making the project’s aims questionable. The current ratings offered by Ofsted are Oustanding, Good, Requires Improvement and Inadequate.
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When it comes to FC transparency, that is only a part of the problem. Prompted by a post online this morning I was led to this info which highlights the main problem to me, and that is, that judges are relying on inadequate social work assessment and plans as exemplified by this LA in Redcar and Cleveland. It has had failing Ofsted reports for at least ELEVEN years now including its SEND serices. It has had multiple complaints upheld against it by local families in recent years and yet this is what a Dec 2018 Ofsted report had to say about it.
“Most assessments seen by inspectors are not good enough. Information is not always sought or considered from significant members of the wider family, even when they provide a caring and protective role for children. Assessments do not routinely reflect children’s unique characteristics within their family or community.
For these children, their world is not sufficiently analysed or understood to inform decision-making, and this leads to weaker plans to manage risk and meet
children’s needs. ….. In some cases, staff focus too much on the presenting issue, to the detriment of fully understanding the cumulative impact of harm. For a small number of children, there is delay in having their needs assessed early enough through a social work assessment. This results in repeat contacts for some children as they do not consistently have their needs met at the earliest opportunity…….
Children’s views are not always clearly recorded as part of the enquiry, despite social workers knowing their children well and being able to articulate children’s views. a lack of robust improvement planning have impeded the pace of change. Managers recognise that improvement has not been quick enough. Despite their actions, weaker practice identified at the last inspection is still evident. This includes the quality of assessments and plans”
(And the judiciary are relying on these inadequate assessments done by inadequate social workers, when deciding to rip children’s lives apart).
And by it’s own stats recently published, this same council also show they’ve increased the numbers of kids in care over the last four years from 150 to 260 (phew, that’s nearly double) and the biggest reason for taking kids into care is because of ‘family dysfuntion’, and that they estimate that they will spend over ten million, £10,883.100 to be precise (£43,5324 per child) to have them fostered or adopted in the next year, that figure is PER CHILD PER YEAR moving forwards.
So why don’t they spent that sort of money doing what section 17(i) of the Children’s Act legally requires them to do – but which they don’t do in any significant way even when families are crying out to them to help them – support families to keep their children. Maybe their Children’s Social Services will then get a Good Ofsted rating for a change instead of the repeated ‘Requires Improvement’ (including Management and Leadership Requires Improvement).
In their stats they compare themselves to Middlesbrough, Stockton, Darlington, Hartlepool councils, but they’re comparing themselves to three councils whom Ofsted have also rated as Inadequate. Duh! I see they don’t compare themselves to North Yorkshire, whom Ofsted have rated as Outstanding in all areas of Children’s Services. I wonder why not?
Even deprived nearby Hartlepool got a Good with outstanding features on its last Ofsted of Children’s Services. They need to be following the PAUSE programme which has been rolled out VERY successfully in places like Leeds, Lincolnshire etc. In point of fact, all LAs should be mandated to implement the Pause programme.
You could hold Redcar and Cleveland Council’s Children’s Social Services up as the very epitome of what is wrong with the UK’s child welfare and protection system before it even ever reaches court.
Click on the link to Redcar council below to access their own report.
https://www.redcar-cleveland.gov.uk/resident/adult-children-health/children-services/looked-after-children/Documents/Placement%20Sufficiency%20Strategy%202019%20-%202022.pdf https://www.pause.org.uk
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Will councils really be that interested.
These Adoption Grant figures are from the Govt website.
Inter-agency adoption fee: grant for local authorities.
£27,000 for placing 1 child
£43,000 for placing 2 siblings in 1 adoptive family
£60,000 for placing 3 siblings in 1 adoptive family
£68,000 for placing 4 siblings in 1 adoptive family
£80,000 for placing 5 or more siblings in 1 adoptive family
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/inter-agency-adoption-fee-grant-for-local-authorities?fbclid=IwAR1oAQgVxuPa7M35m0X7CySH2mtdvAYcel16fDRX-UAZR24-kNyHr3siPxM
Now you know why so many parents are losing their Children when you see the Cash incentives being offered.what we dont know is who gets a slice of the pie.
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