UPDATE NO 380 29 November 2019

Frontline Blueprint for Children’s Social Care

Social work charity Frontline and the Centre for Public Impact, a not-for-profit foundation focused on government innovation, have launched a blueprint outlining a new model for children’s social care.

The model puts relationships over bureaucracy and provides a potential path for how a local authorities could do children’s social care differently. In the longer term, this model hopes to promote a more sustainable system, with social workers spending more time with families and standards improving through increased supervision and transparency. With the aim of increasing the quality of care, help families stay together safely and reduce the number of children going into care.

The aims of the blueprint are:

• For social workers to spend c.60% more time with children and families and a 20% reduction in average caseloads
• Social workers who are empowered to make decisions for children and families, while maintaining access to support, expert advice and supervision via their peers and a dedicated team of advanced practitioners

More details are here, the full report is here

The impact of county lines on youth crime

Dr Paul Andell, senior criminology lecturer, and John Pitts, visiting professor of criminology at the University of Suffolk explore, through local research, young people’s gang involvement and subsequent engagement with the national and international drugs trade.

This article describes a Rapid Assessment Exercise commissioned by a local authority to inform an evidence-based multi-agency response to the involvement of vulnerable children and younger adolescents in illicit drug trafficking. The research was commissioned by a local authority in an English County Town. 

The article is published by Youth and Policy a critical space for the discussion of youth policy and youth work theory and practice. 

The researchers analysed relevant quantitative data held by social welfare, health, educational and criminal justice agencies. Interviews were conducted with professionals from these agencies and three key informants previously involved in the illicit drugs trade. Two focus groups were conducted with professionals and three with gang-involved and gang-affected children and young people. The quotations in this article were all derived from these individual interviews and focus groups.  The article considers whether the emergence of this problem is simply a result of local contingencies or whether it represents an instance, and a moment, in the evolution and transformation of, the English street gang and the ‘County Lines’ model of drug distribution. In an attempt to answer this question the article considers three models of gang and drug market evolution and assesses their relevance to developments in the Town.

The article is here

AD Education Network – next meeting Friday 24 January 2020. Please note the change of date.

The next meeting of the AD Education Networ will be on Friday 24th January 2020 – 10.30-12.30.

For more details of this meeting and the AD Education Network activity please click here or contact Chris Owen (details below).

The following dates have also been fixed: 

• 6 March 2020 – Joint meeting with SEND Network with a focus on the inclusion and achievement of vulnerable learners at SEN support
• 5 June 2020                
• 25 September 2020

Ofsted’s social care questionnaires 2019

What children and young people told Ofsted – Ofsted uses questionnaires to capture views about social care settings, including children’s homes, boarding schools and living with foster carers and adopters. The questionnaires Ofsted sent out in 2019 differed from the one they sent out the previous year.

They reviewed the questions asked last year and made some changes. Ofsted use the responses, along with other information they have, such as previous inspection findings or any concerns, to decide when to inspect and what to focus on when we do.

The landing page for the report and supporting data can be found here

The annual report is here

The children’s data is here

The adult’s data is here

Complex LAC Project – Hold the date Friday 17 January 2020

The Complex LAC Project is reaching an important stage and we will be holding an event in Central London on Friday 17 January 2020. There will be two parts to the day: 

Part 1 9.30-13.30 – DCS and Chief Financial Officers session – We would like to invite a representative group of Directors and Senior Finance Officers to join with the Complex LAC steering group (which includes chief executives from provider umbrella organisations ICHA and NAFP) to a meeting to explore the business case and potential options for more collaborative commissioning across the region. The meeting will explore opportunities for how we could gain better value for the £200+million spent annually purchasing and providing the most expensive looked after children placements.

If you would like to attend this session please contact Mark Evans (details below).

Part 2 14.00-17.00 – Premiere of the South East Looked After Children Film – As part of the Complex LAC Project we have worked in partnership with The Care Leaders to co-produce a film in which 19 young people from 5 SE authorities have been working together to highlight the perspectives of children who have experienced care. Collectively they have planned, interviewed and directed films to provide those who provide care with motivational media that highlight their experience with a view to identifying how we can improve placements and support for young people. This part of the day is open to Lead Members for Children’s Services, Directors of Children’s Services, Senior Leaders for Looked After Children’s Services, Foster Carers, Residential Workers, Commissioners and others who are committed to improving services for young people.  Ticketing will be via the Eventbrite platform.

If you would like more information ahead of the Eventbrite notification please contact Mark Evans (details below).

DCMS consultation on LA role to provide statutory youth services closes 1 December

DCMS consultation on LA role to provide statutory youth services closes 23.45 1 December 2019

The call for evidence and other materials are available here.

National Youth Agency commentary can be found here

The government is revising the guidance relating to Section 507B of the Education and Inspections Act, which sets government expectations of (upper tier) local authorities when they are securing services and activities for young people, and want evidence from young people, local authorities, youth sector organisations and other interested parties before the closing date of 23:45 on 1 December 2019.

You can find out more and submit evidence by clicking here

ADCS 2019 Elective Home Education Survey published

The ADCS recently surveyed local authorities in England for the fourth consecutive year to gather a snapshot of the cohort of children and young people that are being electively home educated (EHE).

Over 85% of local authorities (132 LAs) responded to the survey, the highest ever response rate, using data from the first school census day of the current academic year, Thursday 3 October 2019

The analysis suggests that somewhere in the region of 78,800 children and young people were home educated at some point during the academic year 2018/19, up from 2017/18. ADCS continue to see year-on-year increases in the known EHE cohort by an average of 20% since 2013.

The full report is here    The press release is here