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Understanding Children's Social Care

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Understanding Children's Social Care 5262-Frost FM 3/3/09 4:39 PM Page i Understanding Children’s Social Care 5262-Frost FM 3/3/09 4:39 PM Page ii 5262-Frost FM 3/3/09 4:39 PM Page iii Understanding Children’s Social Care Politics, Policy and Practice Nick Frost and Nigel Parton 5262-Frost FM 3/3/09 4:39 PM Page iv © Nick Frost and Nigel Parton 2009 First published 2009 Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, this publication may be repro- duced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means, only with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or, in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers. SAGE Publications Ltd 1 Oliver’s Yard 55 City Road London EC1Y 1SP SAGE Publications Inc. 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320 SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd B 1/I 1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area Mathura Road New Delhi 110 044 SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte Ltd 33 Pekin Street #02-01 Far East Square Singapore 048763 Library of Congress Control Number: 2008934325 British Library Cataloguing in Publication data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-4129-2349-1 ISBN 978-1-4129-2350-7 (pbk) Typeset by Cepha Imaging Pvt Ltd Printed in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, Wiltshire Printed on paper from sustainable resources 5262-Frost FM 3/3/09 4:39 PM Page v Contents Acknowledgements vii Introduction 1 Part I From Children’s Departments to Departments of Children’s Services 5 Chapter 1 Local Authority Children’s Services in the Post-war Period 7 Chapter 2 New Labour, Social Exclusion and Children 22 Chapter 3 Every Child Matters: Change for Children 35 Part II Different Service Areas 57 Chapter 4 Safeguarding, Child Protection and Children in Need 59 Chapter 5 Youth Offending: Early Intervention, Prevention and Tough Enforcement 80 Chapter 6 Children and the Care System: Reforming Corporate Parenting 95 Chapter 7 Sure Start and Children’s Centres: A Jewel in New Labour’s Crown? 113 Chapter 8 Working with Children and Young People with Complex Needs 128 Chapter 9 A Challenge to Social Care Practice: Working with Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children and Young People 142 Part III Current Issues and Future Prospects 155 Chapter 10 The Current State of Children’s Social Care in England 157 Chapter 11 Being a Social Worker in an Integrated World: Social Care Work with Children and a Positive Future of Social Work 179 References 189 Index 207 5262-Frost FM 3/3/09 4:39 PM Page vi 5262-Frost FM 3/3/09 4:39 PM Page vii Acknowledgements This book has been in the planning and the writing for over two years. Over this period we have benefited from discussions with a whole variety of colleagues, both in Leeds and Huddersfield, and also with practitioners, policy makers, man- agers and researchers all over the country. In particular we would like to acknowledge the contributions from the candidates who have studied for the West Yorkshire Post Qualifying Child Care Award and the MA Child Welfare and Safeguarding at the University of Huddersfield. Their experiences and insights have been invaluable. Finally, we would like to thank Sue Hanson and Pam Irwin for making sure it all came together at the end. We are, of course, completely responsible for what follows. 5262-Frost FM 3/3/09 4:39 PM Page viii 5262-Frost Introduction 3/6/09 10:11 AM Page 1 Introduction The aim of this book is to describe and analyse the nature and development of children’s social care. In doing this we will explicitly locate our discussion in a framework informed by both political and policy contexts and their implications for practice. While our analyses will be of a wider international interest, it is important to state at the outset that our focus is England. In many respects, ‘children’s social care’ is a term that is used mainly in England and to a lesser extent in other parts of the United Kingdom. It is a term very much of the twenty-first century and one closely associated with the major changes introduced in England as part of the Every Child Matters: Change for Children programme (Department for Education and Skills [DfES], 2004a). At its simplest, the term is primarily referring to those services and responsi- bilities previously carried out by local authority social services departments and which have been taken over by the newly created departments of children’s serv- ices. Whereas previously the term might have been ‘child care’ (Packman, 1981), or ‘child welfare’ (Frost and Stein, 1989), the term in official use now is ‘children’s social care’. More generally, ‘social care’ began to be used from the late 1980s onwards as an all-embracing term for what up until that time had usually been called ‘personal social services’. While the term ‘social care’ might include social work, it was introduced in explicit recognition that many people who worked in the services were not qualified social workers and worked in a variety of settings including residential, day-care and community settings. However, the use of the term ‘social care’ has been used primarily to describe the provision of services for adults who require assistance with aspects of daily living as a result of disability, illness or ageing, and the interface with health care is seen as being of particular importance. So that when Dame Denise Platt produced her report on the status of social care (Platt, 2007) and defined it as: the group of services that provide personal care and support to people in a social situation – such as family; the community; a communal setting; to help them achieve independence and to promote their positive contribu- tion as citizens (Platt, 2007: 4) 5262-Frost Introduction 3/6/09 10:11 AM Page 2 2 Understanding Children’s Social Care it was very much services for adults she had in mind. As we will demonstrate, the remit of children’s social care is almost exclusively with ‘children in need’, as defined by the 1989 Children Act, including those in need of protection, those who are looked after and disabled children with complex needs. It provides a range of targeted and specialist services for the most vulnerable children in soci- ety, and in many respects this very particular focus has been reinforced by devel- opments in policy and practice in recent years. A report by the Children’s Workforce Development Council (CWDC, 2008) on the state of the children’s social care workforce provides a good basis for understanding some of the key components of children’s social care. It estimated that in 2006, the local authority social care workforce working specifically with children totalled around 55,000 headcount and 46,700 full-time equivalent (FTE), of which around 67 per cent were employed in fieldwork, 12 per cent in day care, and 21 per cent in residential care/special needs establishments. Total FTE employment in local authorities grew by 15 per cent between 1997 and 2006, mainly due to a 58 per cent rise in ‘area’ employment, whilst day care and residential care fell by 29 per cent and 19 per cent respectively. In addition 5,500 FTE agency staff were engaged, equating to around 13 per cent of the total local authority children’s social care workforce. Sixty-eight per cent of the workforce were full-time, 80 per cent were female, 11 per cent of minority ethnic origin, and around 70 per cent aged between 25 and 49 years, with a slowly ageing profile. In addition, there were over 5,000 education welfare officers employed by local authorities and around 2,950 staff working in children’s social care else- where in the statutory sector, including 1,850 workers in the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS) and 1,050 lead inspec- tors at OFSTED (for the whole of social care). The CWDC report estimated there were 25,340 staff working in private and voluntary children’s residential homes. In addition, 7,180 staff worked in foster- ing and adoption agencies and there were 37,000 foster families in 2006. In total, it was therefore estimated that there were 168,340 working in the children’s social care sector, broken down as follows: Table 0.1 The children’s social care workforce Sector Headcount Local authority 60,085 Other statutory sector 2,955 Voluntary sector 32,300 Private sector 36,000 Other (foster care) 37,000 Total 168,340 Source: CWDC, 2008. [Crown Copyright, reprinted with permission. License # C02W000670.] 5262-Frost Introduction 3/6/09 10:11 AM Page 3 Introduction 3 The children’s social care sector can thus be seen to be growing and changing in important ways. The book is structured into three parts. In Part I we locate children’s social care in its historical and political contexts. In Chapter 1 we look in particular at the changes and developments up until New Labour came to power in 1997. Chapter 2 analyses in some detail the New Labour approach to children and fam- ilies and to social policy and welfare more generally. We then, in Chapter 3, set out the thinking behind and key elements of the Every Child Matters: Change for Children programme.
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