Thinking of fostering but heard you can’t? There are many myths around who can foster resulting in many people ruling themselves out unnecessarily. Some things we often hear are: I’m too old to foster I’m too young to foster I can’t foster as I don’t own my own home I can’t foster because I am […]
Scottish government to assist English councils placing children north of border§
The Scottish Government plans to make it easier for English and Welsh councils to transfer vulnerable children in their care to facilities north of the border. Holyrood said the current system for placing children with deprivation of liberty orders in Scotland was “unsustainable and does not serve the best interests of children and young […]
Children and young people’s open access hubs for mental health needs
The Children’s Society has published a briefing on open access hubs which are designed to offer easy-to-access, drop in support on a self-referral basis for children and young people with emotional health and well-being needs, up to age of 25. Read the news story here > Read the briefing here > […]
Cafcass Care Order Applications: March 2019 & 2018-19 Totals
Cafcass (the Children and Family Child Advisory and Support Service) has published its latest statistics on care order applications. In March 2019, Cafcass received a total of 1,117 new care applications, which is a 9.9% decrease on those received in March 2018. The annual summary figures show that between April 2018 and March 2019 Cafcass […]
Unexplained Pupil Exits from Schools Report: Consultation
The Education Policy Institute (EPI) is seeking feedback on how it analysed pupil mobility data and defined ‘explained’ and ‘unexplained’ moves in its recent report on the problem of unexplained pupil exits from schools. An open consultation asks for suggested changes or additions to the analysis in the working paper, alternative explanations for school moves […]
Survey of the Mental Health of Looked After Children: Consultation
NHS Digital is preparing to undertake a survey of the mental health of children looked after by local authorities in England, as well as those who have recently ceased to be looked after. The last survey on the Mental Health of Children Looked After (MHCLA) was conducted in 2002 and NHS Digital has issued a […]
Ofsted Social Care Online Surveys 2019
Ofsted has issued its annual point-in-time online surveys giving children and young people, parents, staff, social workers and other professionals an opportunity to comment on a range of service providers including children’s homes, adoption agencies, adoption support agencies, fostering services and residential family centres. The surveys are sent to social care providers who send out […]
Charity receives £4m gift for legal rights advice
Hundreds more families and young people are set to benefit from a £4m boost to a charity’s rights advice service, after Coram received the largest single gift in its near 300-year history. The donation made by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation (PHF) will be used to fund an endowment, enabling the charity to scale up its […]
Online child sexual abuse
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has released figures which show that 105,047 webpages showing child sexual abuse material were removed from the internet by the charity in 2018. The figures show that 4 out of 10 webpages actioned for removal displayed the sexual abuse of children aged 10-years-old and younger, with infants and babies featuring […]
Children’s social care
The National Audit Office (NAO) has published a report setting out recent trends in pressures on children’s social care demand and activity in England and the response of both national and local government to these pressures. Findings include: there was a 26% increase between 2010/11 and 2017/18 in the number of children who were the […]