Backed by £200 million over the next two years, a new, ambitious and wide-ranging Children’s Social Care Implementation Strategy will transform the current care system to focus on more early support for families, reducing the need for crisis response at a later stage. Families will receive local early help and intervention with challenges such as addiction, domestic abuse or mental health, to help families to stay together where possible and overcome adversity. This will start in 12 local authorities and is backed by £45m to embed a best practice model that will then be shared more widely.
The shake-up of children’s social care follows a series of inquiries into the system, including the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel review which followed the fatal abuses suffered by Arthur, six, and Star, 16 months.
Arthur was murdered in June 2020 by his stepmother Emma Tustin at their home in Solihull, West Midlands. His father Thomas Hughes, 29, was found guilty of his son’s manslaughter.
Star was murdered by her mother’s girlfriend at her home in Keighley, West Yorkshire, in September 2020. Star’s mother Frankie Smith, 20, was found guilty of causing or allowing the youngster’s death.
However is the £200 million enough? Many local authorities are now at breaking point as they struggle with years of reduced funding alongside increased demand due to Covid and the cost-of-living crisis. Is this a weak, unambitious strategy or is the focus on early intervention a positive one?
Laura Wood, LSW Care Solutions.