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Cafcass will defer allocating “less urgent” private law cases to family court advisers (FCAs) in six areas of the West Midlands for up to 20 weeks due to “unsustainable caseloads”. The family courts body’s chief executive said the prioritisation policy would leave children in situations of family conflict for longer, but was necessary to deal … Continue reading ‘Unsustainable pressures’ lead Cafcass to leave ‘less urgent’ cases unallocated across region

Sources: BBC News and ADCS North East Region Submission to IRCSC Children's social care in England is failing, particularly in the North East, 12 councils in the North East of England have said. In comments reported by BBC News, Director of Children’s Services John Pearce said: "The numbers of children needing care are unsustainable and … Continue reading Care Review urged to press for significant investment to reverse the loss of early help capacity

Thanks to ExChange Wales for this open access recording on motivational interviewing for working with children and families: a conversation with Donald Forrester, David Wilkins, Charlotte Whittaker and Steve Rollnick. The recording is from an event held on 15th July 2021. https://youtu.be/0xzRCQyX4K4 Please feel free to share with your colleagues. Continuing Professional Development - use the … Continue reading Motivational Interviewing for working with children and families: a conversation | ExChange Wales

Sources: Ofsted and Community Care Off the back of an updated report published on 22nd July, sector leaders have issued yet more warnings about the the risks associated with fostering provision and sufficiency issues across England. Ofsted data demonstrates that two companies accounted for one-third of independent placements (as at 31 March 2021). Ofsted said … Continue reading Largest national providers of private and voluntary social care (March 2021)

Children’s social care services focus increasingly on poorer households the more they intervene in family life, according to a new report which calls for fewer child protection cases and action to tackle poverty. The social gradient in English child welfare services, a study by Kingston University academics and Ofsted analysts, said that children from the … Continue reading Children’s services focus ever more on poorer households the more they intervene in family life, research finds

The Social Mobility Commission (SMC) has called for a shake-up of child welfare benefits and significant investment in education to put disadvantaged children and young people at centre stage of the government’s recovery plan. Its State of the nation report 2021, published on 20 July 2021, unveils in detail the devastating impact of coronavirus (COVID-19) on … Continue reading Social Mobility Commission recommends action on child poverty

Source: Alliance for Youth Justice Published 28 Apr, 2021 In January 2021, Agenda and AYJ published the Young Women’s Justice Project literature review, mapping the evidence-base around young women (aged 17–25) in contact with the criminal justice system and identifying gaps in knowledge to inform the direction of future work. Girls’ experience of the transition to … Continue reading Falling Through the Gaps: Young Women’s Justice Project Briefing

Source: Early Intervention Foundation This new report on adolescent mental health is the most significant UK review of the evidence on supporting positive mental health in schools for at least a decade, and the first to focus squarely on what works in secondary schools to support pupils’ wellbeing during their critical teenage years. Drawing on … Continue reading Adolescent mental health: A systematic review on the effectiveness of school-based interventions

It’s how we do things round here Organisational culture can be a slippery concept. It’s not something we often talk about in organisations (apart from saying “of course the culture is crucial”). We don’t need to talk about it because, at least when we’ve worked somewhere for a while, we just know how to behave. This … Continue reading How to see the water… understanding the culture you work in

Dozens of MPs have joined forces to call on the government to ban the use of handcuffs on children in care. Ministers are backing the Hope Instead of Handcuffs campaign, launched by Emily Aklan, chief executive of children’s social care provider Serenity Welfare, which is calling for legislation allowing a child in care to be handcuffed … Continue reading MPs call to end use of handcuffs on children in care