The government’s new policy paper sets out measures to rebalance children’s social care towards early help through boosting family support, curtailing profiteering and creating new provision that better meets needs.

Keeping Families Safe, Helping Children Thrive, the government’s new policy paper for reforming children’s social care, brings together a wide range of measures to improve support for vulnerable children and families covering data sharing, multi-agency working, support for struggling families, residential provision and inspection powers.

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Despite the Care Review recommending the creation of regional care co-operatives (RCCs), the governmental response has been very limited.

The two pathfinders announced are to be local authority-led but are not yet active. There is no evidence that councils can work together to deliver children’s social care. In fact, regional adoption agencies have demonstrated just how dysfunctional such an approach can be.

I proposed a national care service to the Care Review and continue to believe that this is the best way forward. If we created 15 RCCs across England answering to the DfE as an arms-length body then this could be transformative. Sitting above the RCCs could be a flat management structure with five executive directors who would oversee and support three RCCs each, a chief executive, chief financial officer and a marketing and recruitment director.

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​CoramBAAF’s James Bury analyses the government’s plans for kinship care, adoption and fostering.

The Labour government has started to share plans about how it will implement its manifesto commitment to “working with local government, support children in care, including through kinship, foster care, and adoption, as well as strengthening regulation of the children’s social care sector”. Other commitments that impact children’s policy, particularly in relation to education, include changes to school inspections announced and plans to require free breakfast clubs in every primary school. The appointment of a minister for children and families, Janet Daby MP, who has direct social work experience as a former fostering manager is an exciting prospect for the children’s sector.

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​The Department for Education is investing £30mn to increase the reach of a programme to help children in care build and mend relationships with friends, family and trusted adults in their lives such as teachers.

The move has been taken as such relationships often break down when children move into or within the care system.

Through the investment 12 more councils, including those in Brighton and Hove, Salford, Gateshead and Wiltshire, will access the charity Family Rights Group’s Lifelong Links programme.

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New Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has highlighted children’s social care and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) as key issues she plans to prioritise.

Addressing staff at the Department for Education offices in London over the weekend, Phillipson – who was appointed Secretary of State for Education by Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday - said boosting education opportunities would be at the heart of the new Labour government’s strategy for the country.

The MP for Houghton and Sunderland reiterated Labour's general election campaign pledges to boost breakfast club and childcare provision, expand speech and language support, reform Ofsted and improve mental health support for children.

In addition, she flagged up boosting support and outcomes for children with SEND and their families, reforming children’s social care to improve opportunities for the most vulnerable children, and the state of university finances as key issues to address.

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Chair of the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care Josh MacAlister has been elected as a Labour MP as the party celebrates a landslide general election victory.

MacAlister, who chaired the year-long review published in 2022, took the Whitehaven and Workington seat with 53% of the votes.

His new constituency is one of five seats in Cumbria lost by the Conservatives in the Labour Party’s landslide election win.

In his final report to government in 2022, MacAlister made more than 80 recommendations, many of which were taken forward by ministers in the Conservative government’s report Stable Homes Built on Love.

Key recommendations made by MacAlister centred on plans to keep families together when possible in a bid to reduce the numbers of children entering care and implement a shift away from crisis intervention to early help across the children’s social care system.

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The University of Roehampton has launched a new programme designed to make healthcare careers accessible to young care leavers.

The I-CAN programme (Initiating and Supporting Care Leavers into Apprenticeships in Nursing), will run as a 12-month pilot scheme supporting care experienced 18- to 29-year-olds through a paid learning pathway.

Funded by the South West London Integrated Care Board, those on the scheme will take part in an eight-week programme building on employability and functional training skills for nursing.

Upon completing the scheme, participants will have the opportunity to go onto the University of Roehamption’s paid Nursing Associate apprenticeship programme, lasting two years and regulated by The Nursing and Midwifery Council.

Financial assistance of up to £2,000 will also be provided to young people to assist with food and travel costs.

Phillip Mills, I-CAN's project manager, said: “We recognise that prospective participants may have concerns regarding the financing of this course. We will support them to cover travel expenses within London to attend sessions, and for the time dedicated to the I-CAN programme. We want to remove as many barriers as possible to ensure that this training is as accessible as possible.”

At the launch of the scheme on 15 May, Professor Richard Keogh, pro vice-chancellor for research and external engagement at the University of Roehampton, said: “We are on a mission to widen participation from people from all walks of life, providing opportunities for people in the community for the community.”

I-CAN team leaders are also looking to meet employers in the sector to expand the number of opportunities for those who complete the eight-week scheme.

Mills added that the emphasis isn’t just on nursing, but on a range of healthcare careers. For example it would be suitable for those who may want to explore the managerial side of nursing.

The first training programme is set to start on 3 July.

Students and employers can register their interest for I-CAN on the University of Roehampton website.

Source:
www.cypnow.co.uk/

A new anthology containing the voices of 100 children and adults about their experience in care is now available in bookshops.

Free Loaves on Fridays contains stories, letters and poems from care-experienced people aged 13 to 68.

Published today (18 April), the book, edited by Rebekah Pierre, care-experienced social worker and professional officer at the British Association of Social Workers (BASW), features both seasoned writers like Lemn Sissay, as well as those who have put pen to paper for the very first time.​

It aims to counteract headlines written about care-experienced people which “often entrench negative stereotypes and dominate the narrative, leaving care-experienced people with nothing but crumbs”, Pierre explained.

She added: “For far too long, care-experienced people have been the subject, but rarely the author of our own words in assessments, files, and reports.

“This is something I know all too well. When I penned an Open Letter to the Social Worker Who Wrote My Case Files a couple of years ago, which unexpectedly went viral, it resonated with many care-experienced people who longed to have more ownership over their own stories.”

Pierre described Free Loaves on Fridays as a “tangible way in which to invite other people with lived experience of care to set the score”.

“In a radical move in the publishing industry, we had a no rejection policy, meaning anyone – regardless of their age or former writing experience – could submit a piece. The result is a rich tapestry of courageous, original and powerful voices which would ordinarily have gone under the radar,” she said.

“The book holds up a mirror to the system, exposing both the wonderful potential that good, well-funded social work can have, as well as the lifelong consequences when children are let down.

“Representation is crucial; I didn’t open up about my care-experience until my late twenties, such was the stigma. So it means everything that the next generation of children in care and care leavers will see themselves proudly represented in bookshops, by people who really get it.”

Emma Lewell-Buck, MP for South Shields, and a former social worker, said: “So often, care-experienced people are not listened to, their exclusion from policy setting and decision making is ever apparent. Often those who have experienced care are spoken about as though they are all one homogenous group. They aren’t. Their diverse experiences are brought to life in this book. Please do read Free Loaves on Fridays, it’s an emotional journey that will make you cry and laugh. But most of all understand the reality of our care system and why it absolutely must change.”

Maris Stratulis, the national director for BASW (England) added: Free Loaves is an incredibly poignant and powerful book and shines a light on the courage, bravery, creativity and individual uniqueness of each care-experienced child, young person and adult contributor. It has been a privilege and honour to read this book.

“This is a must-read for every social worker, we must hear and learn from the voices of the care-experienced community, and influence and change practice and systems for the better.”

Free Loaves on Fridays is available to order online and in buy in mainstream bookshops with proceeds going to Article 39 and The Together Trust: https://unbound.com/books/free-loaves-on-fridays

Source:
www.cypnow.co.uk/news/

The Social Worker of the Year Awards 2024 have opened for entries.

Eighteen categories are up for grabs this year in the England-based scheme, alongside the overall social worker of the year prize.

New this year is an award for practitioner-led research, which is open to social workers and managers who have carried out research or helped build a research culture within their organisations.

Organising charity Social Work Awards Ltd has also replaced the previous digital transformation in social work category with one for technology-enabled lives and innovation in practice.

This is for social workers, teams or local authorities who have sought to improve the lives of people with lived experience through the use of technology.

Meanwhile, the charity has dropped the previous supporting children in education prize.

Entries are open until 12pm on 3 June, after which entries will be shortlisted by the awards’ judging panel of social work experts, people with lived experience and former winners.

You can enter the awards here and read the entry rules here. The full list of categories is below:

• Children’s social worker of the year
• Adult social worker of the year
• Newly qualified children’s social worker of the year
• Newly qualified adult social worker of the year
• Team of the year, children’s services
• Team of the year, adult services (including multidisciplinary teams)
• Team leader of the year, children’s services
• Team leader of the year, adult services
• Mental health social worker of the year
• Approved mental health professional (AMHP) of the year
• Social work student of the year
• Practice educator of the year
• University social work lecturer of the year
• Practitioner-led research award
• Technology-enabled lives and innovation in practice award
• Supportive social work employer
• Social justice advocate of the year
• Lifetime achievement award

Source:
www.communitycare.co.uk

The number of initial enquiries from potential foster carers in England has fallen to its lowest level in five years.

According to latest figures from the Department for Education, 125,195 initial applications were received by local authorities and independent foster agencies in 2022/23.

This is the lowest number of applications to become mainstream foster carers – which excludes family and friends foster carers - since current recording began in 2017/18, the statistics show.

A peak in initial enquiries was seen in 2020/21 when 160,635 were received.

In 2022/23, local authorities received around a quarter of the number of initial enquiries received by independent foster agencies which had 99, 375 enquiries.

Of applications received by independent foster agencies and local authorities in 2022/23, 3,680 were accepted.

Meanwhile, in the same year more households deregistered (5,125) than were approved (4,080).

There were 275 households that were both approved and deregistered within the same year.

“The largest proportion of newly approved carers in 2022 to 2023 were in their 40s and 50s.

“Of the carers who deregistered this year, the highest proportion were aged 50 or over, at 64%. Those aged 60 or over made up 30%.

“These proportions have remained similar for the 4 years that we have collected data on carers’ ages,” the report states.

At the end of March 2023, there were 43,405 fostering households in England, including family and friends foster carers.​

Source:
www.cypnow.co.uk