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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to argue for a strengthening of the relational aspect of social work and for initiatives that involve local people and local communities.Design/methodology/approach A think piece based on observations of the current situation and supporting evidence.Findings Social work has become distanced from those whom it seeks to help. Case management and risk assessment need to be complemented by a more human approach based on positive relationships between professionals and service users.Originality/value An informed discussion on the future of social work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding more about the discharge of care orders is vital—whether a care order remains in place has significant implications for children and their families and for local authorities. While there has been comprehensive research about the process and outcomes of care proceedings, much less is known about the discharge of care orders—particularly how, why and when care orders are ended and the differences between applications that are granted and those that are not. The present study combined data from an anonymized administrative data on discharge applications, a detailed analysis of children's e‐records and qualitative interviews with family justice professionals to create the first detailed profile of discharge applications across England and Wales. This paper reports, for the first time, the number of discharge applications and outcomes across England and Wales, highlighting regional as well as between‐country variation. Drawing on data from children's e‐records and interviews with professionals, highlighting how and why local authorities are more likely to submit discharge applications, and to have applications granted, than parents. Recommendations are made for how to adapt professional practice and policy around discharge applications to better meet the needs of children and families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2023, the UK Government published its long-awaited reform strategy for England's children's social care system. Whilst the strategy set out planned reforms for several aspects of the wider system, an area requiring particular 'priority' was the purported workforce instability seen within child protection social work. However, the strategy has subsequently faced criticism on the basis that the suggested reforms were not satisfactorily informed by the testimonies of practicing social workers. This paper draws from a mixed-method study to report on the lived experiences of a sample of 201 child protection social workers practicing across England, in the context of better understanding the factors which they believed were impacting on workforce stability within England's child protection system. Implications that emerge are the need for an increase in the monetary commitment offered by the UK Government (especially in the context of tackling high caseloads, and improving local authority pay scales to reduce the allure of agency work); a targeted emphasis on challenging local cultures preoccupied with evidencing compliance over time spent with children; and the Government taking a more assertive role in tackling the often-counterproductive commentary perpetuated by politicians and media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) is responsible for inspecting services that care for children and young people in England and Wales. This paper presents findings from an independent study of Ofsted inspections into children's social care in England, covering reports under three inspection frameworks during the period 2009 to 2016. The research aimed to identify the main themes of recommendations made in Ofsted reports and to explore similarities and differences between frameworks and between local authorities. The methodological approach was document analysis. A stratified sample of 60 reports was prepared on the basis of inspection framework and local authority characteristics such as local deprivation, Ofsted rating, and urban/rural category. A thematic analysis was conducted of the recommendations in each report, with emerging themes subjected to an iterative process of coding and categorization. The findings identified nine categories of themes, the most common of which were performance management, casework, oversight of practice, and multiagency working. Overall, the recommendations were strongly oriented towards process issues and compliance with standards. Recommendations were found to differ somewhat between inspection frameworks but remained largely consistent between local authorities with different characteristics. The paper concludes by examining the implications of findings for the current regulatory framework in children's social care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on an empirical study of child protection services in a local authority where rates of investigations and interventions rose to unprecedented levels during the course of a single year. The aim of the research was to explore explanations for this rise in demand among the providers of children's social care in the area. Using an interpretative qualitative design, a series of focus groups and interviews were carried out with practitioners and managers (n = 25) from statutory services and Early Help. The findings identified a combination of long‐term and short‐term drivers of demand. Long‐term factors emphasized the impact of rising levels of deprivation combined with cuts to community‐based services for children and young people. Short‐term factors ranged from a more proactive approach to child neglect to more effective multi‐agency partnerships and joint decision making. The interaction between these factors was found to be accentuating an underlying shift to "late intervention" across the sector. The findings are contextualized in relation to contemporary debates about the crisis of demand for children's social care and the complex relationship between prevention and protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerns about a minority of families have resurfaced in social policy at key moments throughout recent history. Whether these families are viewed as having 'needs' or 'problems'; and whether they are seen as primarily 'troubled' or 'troublesome' shifts and changes along with the solutions put forward. This article considers the 'Troubled Families Programme' (TFP) in England as a contemporary response. It draws on research commissioned by a city local authority concerned with profiling key aspects of the needs of 103 families worked with in the early part of the first phase of the TFP. While research and policy have frequently underlined the multiple needs and high level of service involvement characteristic of these families, remarkably little is known about the lived experience of multiply disadvantaged families and the wider context of their lives. In this paper, we place the 103 families' circumstances within a temporal context by presenting unique historical data on their service involvement. We focus in particular on families' contact histories with Children's Social Care. The research presented in the article reveals an extraordinarily high level of involvement with social services across generations among the families referred to the TFP. The article argues that there is a need to better understand families' pathways through the life course and outwith immediate referral criteria. It also raises important questions about the respective roles for the TFP and social workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The responsibility of local authorities in England to provide children in care with stable, local placements has become increasingly difficult due to the rising number of children in need of care and a shortage of available placements. It is unclear if the trend of outsourcing children's social care to private companies has exacerbated this challenge. This paper examines how the outsourcing of children's social care to the private market has influenced placement locality and long-term stability over time. We created a novel dataset of multiple administrative data sources on the outsourcing, placement locality and stability, and characteristics of children in care between 2011 and 2022. We conducted time-series fixed-effects regression analysis of the impact of for-profit outsourcing on placement locality and stability from 2011 to 2022. Our fully adjusted models demonstrate that for-profit outsourcing is consistently associated with more children being placed outside their home local authority and greater placement instability. We found that an increase of 1 % point of for-profit outsourcing was associated with an average increase of 0.10 % points (95 % CI 0.02–0.17; p = 0.01) more children experiencing placement disruption, and 0.23 % points (95 % CI 0.15–0.30; p < 0.001) more children being placed outside their home local authority. We estimate that an additional 17,001 (95 % CI 9015–24,987) out-of-area placements can be attributed to increases in for-profit provision. Our analyses show that placement stability and distance have deteriorated or stagnated over the last decade, and that the local authorities that rely most on outsourcing have the highest rates of placement disruptions and out-of-area placements. • Social care services struggle to find children suitably located and stable care. • England's services are frequently, and increasingly, outsourced to for-profits. • For-profit outsourcing is linked with more placements away from the child's home. • For-profit outsourcing is linked with more unstable, short-term placements. • Further outsourcing to for-profits may not improve quality of care for children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most residential children's social care services in England, including children's homes, are operated by for-profit companies, but the implications of this development are not well understood. This paper aims to address this gap by undertaking the first longitudinal and comprehensive evaluation of the associations between for-profit outsourcing and quality of service provision among English local authorities and children's homes. To enable investigation of the implications of outsourcing children's residential social care services, we create and analyse a novel and longitudinal dataset covering more than 13,000 children's home inspections by Ofsted (the independent regulator of children's social care in England) over a period of 7 years (2014–2021). We also investigate the association between Ofsted local authority (LA) ratings and the reliance of LAs on for-profit and third sector outsourcing of children in care placements. Our analysis shows that for-profit providers are statistically significantly more likely to be rated of lower quality than both public and third sector services. For-profit children's homes also violate a greater number of requirements and receive more recommendations compared to other ownership types. These findings are robust to model specification and consistent over the full analysed period. At LA level, we find provisional evidence that LA Ofsted ratings are negatively correlated with the percentage of for-profit outsourcing, suggesting that LAs which outsource a greater amount of their children in care placements perform less well than those which do not. These findings are of significant concern given the focus of these services on society's most vulnerable service users. However, caution is needed in terms of regulating the sector going forward, as the role of for-profit provision cannot be replaced without substantial coordination and long-term planning. • Most children's homes in England are operated by for-profit companies. • We analysed more than 13,000 children's home inspections by Ofsted. • For-profit children's homes are generally rated of lower quality than other provision types. • For-profit children's homes violate more requirements and receive more recommendations. • Local authority Ofsted ratings are negatively correlated with for-profit outsourcing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: A multiagency approach to supporting and enhancing child welfare lies at the heart of policies and practice in England and many other countries. The assumption is that if professionals together from different disciplines share their knowledge and skills this will lead to better outcomes for children and their families. The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the "normal practice" of such arrangements. This research explored how the pandemic's disruption led to new ways of communicating and professional behaviour, while exploring the potential for longer-term impact in England and other jurisdictions. Design/methodology/approach: Case studies were conducted in 2020 in five English local authorities to explore how schools worked with Children's Social Care and other professionals during the COVID-19 period. It was supplemented by a survey of schools and discussions with and reflections from those with relevant experience in five other countries. Findings: Many schools played an extended role in supporting vulnerable and "in need" families during this period. Children's Social Care recognised their contributions and the improved communication achieved, although schools were divided over whether relationships had improved. Most communication and meetings were online; while benefits were noted there were concerns for families who were digitally disadvantaged. Originality/value: The work provides a contemporary picture of multiagency work during the 2020 pandemic and identifies factors which may shape this work in the future in England and internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Rates of child welfare interventions rose in the year of an Ofsted inspection. • Spikes in intervention were greatest for local authorities judged inadequate. • Post-inspection, expenditure and agency workers rose steeply for inadequate LAs. • Good or outstanding LAs saw a fall in intervention rates, spend and agency workers. • These were unintended consequences and not linked to inspection recommendations. • The inspectorate is encouraged to study the impact of its own activities on provision. Children's social care services in England are inspected by a government agency, Ofsted. This paper reports on the impact of Ofsted inspections on rates of intervention and other performance measures, such as expenditure and workforce, drawing on a quantitative analysis of national datasets. Annual published returns from 150 English local authorities from 2009 to 19 were combined with results from Ofsted inspections under the Single Inspection Framework (2014–17), which covered all local authorities. Interrupted time series (ITS) analysis was undertaken to find out whether an inspection had a significant effect on performance in the context of trends pre- and post-inspection, and whether this effect varied according to the type of judgement. The results showed discontinuities in a range of indicators in the year of an inspection and the year afterwards. An increase in rates of child protection interventions occurred at the time of an inspection, which was most pronounced in local authorities receiving an inadequate judgement. An inadequate judgement led to a steep rise in spending and use of agency workers compared to other local authorities. The findings suggest that a short-term spike in intervention rates is an unintended consequence of inspections, which is sustained only in local authorities judged to be performing badly. Implications are discussed for performance in the sector and the purpose of inspection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]