Extra £18 million injected into councils in England to roll out children’s social care reforms that prioritise earlier intervention
Vulnerable children are to be better protected from harm after the government speeds up children’s social care reforms that prioritise prevention through its Plan for Change.
An extra £18 million will be spent on rolling out early intervention child protection reforms to councils in England to stop families from reaching crisis by strengthening leadership and speed up delivery.
The reforms include the roll out of Family Group Decision Making, an approach to involve extended family members in helping keep children at home rather than in care, and thousands more family help workers to provide earlier support for families experiencing challenges, such as substance misuse or poor mental health.
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It comes after funding for this vital work has already been doubled to £523 million compared to last year, with a further commitment to increase funding by at least £300 million over the next two years.
Plans are also progressing to test the NHS number as a unique identifier to help piece data together across frontline health, schools and police services to detect concerns about children before they escalate.
A pilot between Wigan Council and NHS England is live and testing linking their systems to use the NHS number as the unique identifier. This will then be assessed to see how efficiently it helps to share information about safeguarding concerns with children before rolling it out further.
The identifier will ensure there is a more joined up and less piecemeal approach that ensures frontline safeguarding professionals share concerns about a child as early as possible to provide a holistic picture of when they may be, or are at risk of harm, before it escalates even further.
These updates mark significant progress in delivering key measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, the biggest piece of safeguarding legislation in a generation.
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Children and Families Minister Janet Daby:
Minister of State for Local Government and English Devolution Jim McMahon OBE:
Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza said:
The latest announcements help to deliver on key measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, including:
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It comes hand-in-hand with the government rolling out Best Start Family Hubs across every local authority to support 500,000 more children. The hubs will act as a one stop shop for parents seeking a range of support, including on difficulty breastfeeding, housing issues or children’s early development and language, reassuring families that they have convenient access to support in their local area or can be efficiently connected to specialist local services.
It also comes on top of £555m that was announced at the Spending Review to deliver children’s social care reforms and £560 million to refurbish and expand children’s homes, bringing the total investment to over £2 billion.