The latest items about children in care:

• Children in care could be sent to boarding schools under new government scheme
• Torfaen council chief executive warning over number of children going into care
• More than 150 children still not allocated a social worker by Northamptonshire social services

The latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:

• DfE plans compulsory register of home-schooled children
• Doctor who assessed Alesha’s killer calls for psychopathic behaviour screening for children
• Newham Council social services criticised in Ofsted report
• Home Office set to place legal duty on doctors, teachers and social workers to spot signs of knife crime involvement

The child welfare stories that should be right on your radar:

• Ellie Yarrow-Sanders: Missing mum and son Olly, three, found after family court dispute
• Adoption services ‘in crisis’ due to cutbacks
• Adoption Register for England to close on Friday 29th March 2019 (referrals stopped on 22 March)

The latest child welfare news:

• Investigative journalist tells child abuse inquiry he was given a list of ’16 paedophile MPs’ but it was seized in raid
• Twenty arrested in Wakefield child sexual exploitation inquiry
• Trump officials won’t talk to Congress about sexual abuse of kids they stole

The latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:

• Child abuse images being traded via secure apps
• The hidden epidemic of vulnerable girls being exploited by county lines gangs
• Project 17 campaign to make sure all children have a right to a home and enough to eat, regardless of their parents’ immigration status

The child welfare items that should be right on your radar:

• Child abuse images hidden in crypto-currency blockchain
• Online child abuse cases reported to Metropolitan Police more than double in year
• Pope Francis admits clerical abuse of nuns including sexual slavery

Rise of The Parents’ Guardians

Social workers with a passion for family welfare have launched an organisation called Parents Advocacy and Rights (PAR), dedicated to representing parents as they go through child protection proceedings. Researching Reform was the first project to do this, with the hope that the sector would implement this working strategy into their practice so we are thrilled to see this happen.

The lead social worker for this project is Maggie Mellon, an outspoken child welfare professional and former Vice Chair for the British Association of Social Workers, who has been openly vocal about the need to treat parents with dignity and compassion during child protection work. The organisation is based in Scotland, and we hope that genuinely passionate and compassionate social workers will think about doing the same in other parts of the country. Maggie, any plans for a branch in England?

Images courtesy of @weirhopper (Twitter)

BASW Magazine, February 2019

New Social Care Evidence Store Launched By Social Work England Partner

The What Works Centre has unveiled a new evidence library for children’s social work, which currently includes 11 reviews of interventions and practice areas. The Centre’s press release offers more information on the library, which aims to highlight which social work practices have a proven track record of working and which do not. What Works is collaborating with new regulatory body Social Work England (SWE) to try to improve the state of children’s social care in the UK.

The new library uses a “Plus and Minus” ratings system: one plus means the practice or policy is supported by evidence which suggests it works; two plusses mean the evidence available suggests the practice appears to be consistently effective;  a zero sign means that the evidence if available shows mixed to no results and a minus sign indicates that the current evidence for the practice suggests the policy tends to make things worse. This however, does not mean the evidence being used is automatically considered to be robust or accurate. In order to address the variations in quality and availability of evidence, the Centre has added another layer to the ratings system which measures the quality of the evidence used as well. Check out the Signs of Safety ratings, which have already ruffled a few feathers.

The latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:

• The startling toll on children who witness domestic violence is just now being understood
• Judges to undergo psychological domestic abuse training
• One of the UK’s youngest-ever female paedophiles has been jailed for sexually abusing children as young as two years old

The child welfare items that should be right on your radar:

• Child abuse scandal whistleblower to create advice chatbot
• Council refuses to answer questions on trafficked children ‘missing’ from their care
• Research: divorce less harmful to children if it takes place earlier in childhood