The government is facing fresh calls to urgently reform and strengthen children’s social care following the publication of the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel’s third annual report.
While new data revealed there was a 21% reduction in serious incident notifications between 2020 and 2021, the need to protect vulnerable children is as urgent as ever.
Indeed, the expert panel’s report revealed there were some 379 serious incident notifications in 2021 despite the decrease. This includes over 150 children who lost their lives.
Therefore, the panel is calling for the government to urgently release its plans to reform children’s social care and to strengthen the child protection system.
Chair of the panel Annie Hudson said “while many professionals work hard to protect children”, there are “fault lines” in the system that “inhibit good information-sharing, risk assessment, and critical analysis and challenge”.
These issues, says Hudson, are “not new”:
“Since the panel was set up in 2018, we have seen again and again how similar issues and problems recur in both local and national reviews. Many of these issues were highlighted in the national review into the tragic deaths of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson.”
Hudson said that “it is now time to make changes in how agencies work together to protect and safeguard children”, something she said is “building on what is working and creating the right conditions to support the very best multi-agency practice”. “Children cannot afford to wait,” concluded Hudson.
The panel said professionals working to protect children have to deal with the most complex challenges and some perpetrators of abuse will evade even the most robust safeguards. However, their analysis of the statistics demonstrated that in too many instances, practitioners are relying on parents reporting a situation rather than engaging directly with children.
To support practitioners, the panel has highlighted six cross-cutting practice themes to make a difference in reducing serious harm and preventing child deaths caused by abuse or neglect:
- Supporting critical thinking and professional challenge through effective leadership and culture
- The importance of a whole family approach to risk assessment and support
- Giving central consideration to racial, ethnic, and cultural identity, and impact on the lived experience of children and families
- Recognising and responding to the vulnerability of babies
- Domestic abuse and harm to children – working across services
- Keeping a focus on risks outside the family
This comes as ADCS’ recent report on child safeguarding pressures revealed there were 2.77 million initial contacts received by children’s social care in 2021/22, an increase of 10% in the last two years.
There were 650,270 subsequent referrals made to children’s social care in 2021/22, an increase of 21% since 2007/08. The number of children subjects of child protection plans in 2021/22 has increased by 74% in the same period, and 217,800 section 47 enquiries were undertaken in 2021/22, up 184%.
The number of children in care has, therefore, increased, up 35% since 2007/08, as has the number of care experienced young people being supported by local authorities.
Parental domestic abuse, substance misuse, and poor parental mental health remain some of the most common reasons why children come to the attention of early help and/or children’s social care services. ‘Abuse or neglect’ remains the predominant reason for referrals to children’s social care services and children coming into care.
