Written Evidence Submitted by 4Children

Written evidence submitted by 4Children Introduction 1. 4Children is the national charity all about children and families. We have spearheaded a joined-up, integrated approach to children’s services and work with a wide range of partners around the country to ensure children and families have access to the services and support they need in their communities. We run Sure Start Children’s Centres as well as family and youth services across Britain. 2. We develop, influence and shape national policy on all aspects of the lives of children, young people and families. As the Government’s lead strategic partner for early years and childcare we have a crucial role in co-producing policy with the Department of Education and representing the sector’s views and experiences. Our national campaigns, like Give Me Strength, change policy and practice and put the needs of children and families on the political and policy agenda. 3. Our family outreach workers work with parents in their own homes, providing help, advice and practical help and our specialist teams work to support vulnerable families experiencing drug or alcohol addiction, domestic violence and post-natal depression. 4. 4Children welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this important inquiry. There is no more important issue that how we can ensure the children and young people in the United Kingdom are kept safe from harm, neglect and abuse. 5. 4Children is concerned that the current debate about child protection is too polarised around the issue of whether or not children are taken into care expeditiously enough. Vitally important as this issue is, the risk is that it skews focus and resources away from the much larger group of children suffering from harm, neglect or whose life chances are being seriously compromised. These children will only be effectively protected from harm by the effective provision of the kind of ‘early help’ or ‘early intervention’ recommended by Professor Eileen Munro and Graham Allen MP but which is currently not a reality in too many communities, for too many children. Principles of effective child protection 6. The Munro report set out the following as the principles of an effective child protection system1: • Child-centred • Family usually the best place for bringing up children • Working with children and families • Early help is better • A variety of responses needed 1 The Munro Review of Child Protection: Final Report (2011), Pg 23 • Good practise is informed by research • Uncertainty and risk are features of child protection work • The measure of success is whether children are getting the help they need 7. Professor Munro’s report also highlighted the value placed on reliability, honesty and continuity2 and on the importance of on-going support3. This strongly resonates with 4Children research which showed that families felt very frustrated when professionals promised things they did not deliver; were not open with them about what was happening; or when services were ‘here today gone tomorrow’4. 8. In addition to these principles, 4Children would add: • Taking a strengths-based approach. This means working from a starting point that recognises that all families have strengths which can be built upon. A strengths-based approach to child protection services means: Deficit approach Strengths-based approach Focuses on a family’s Focuses on a family’s strengths, weaknesses, disabilities & abilities & capabilities dysfunction Professionals – ‘do to’ Professionals - ‘work-with’. Providing support for intrinsic change & self motivation Silo approach by agencies Collaboration between agencies with where families fall through gaps a truly integrated, web of support Family members are clients and Family members are citizens and victims of problems – ‘do for’ active participants in solutions – ‘do with’ 9. Professor Munro also rightly highlighted that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child places a duty on states not just to intervene when neglect or abuse is taking place but also to provide the necessary support to reduce incidence of maltreatment5. This makes it clear that providing an effective child protection system requires not just timely and impactful social work interventions but also a wider range of children and family services capable of meeting this objective. 10. Therefore, 4Children believes it is important that this inquiry does not focus too narrowly on the work and role of social workers – an area which has already faced considerable scrutiny in recent years from the Social Work Taskforce as well as Professor Munro - but instead considers the full range of services and professionals who work with families and children and the role that those services and interventions can play in keeping children safe and supporting families to thrive. 2 Ibid Pg 24 3 Ibid Pg 26 4 4Children (2010) Starting a Family Revolution: putting families in charge. 5 Munro Report, Pg 36 Consultation questions Whether the child protection system allows for effective identification of, and early help to, children at risk of different forms of abuse and exploitation; 11. The simple answer to this question is ‘no’. The system is not currently as effective as it must be. Too often Serious Case Reviews offer stark reminders of the cases in which not enough was done to ensure children were safe despite numerous opportunities to intervene – in spite of the best intentions of all those who work with vulnerable children and families. 12. In addition, as the Munro report makes clear an increasing emphasis on identification and assessment processes in the past has meant that not enough emphasis was being placed on providing the impactful support that can change children’s lives and de-escalate risk. This has meant that too many children are growing up in families where health, social and behavioural issues are having a detrimental impact on their well-being and long term life chances. 13. 4Children research6 shows that key causes of family instability and child vulnerability including postnatal depression, parental alcohol abuse and domestic violence are not being tackled effectively or early enough. 14. The Munro report makes many sensible recommendations about how to improve the system of child protection including reforms to the inspection system to ensure services are judged by the effectiveness of the work they undertake with children and families rather than the quality of their paper trail; a greater focus on developing capabilities within the workforce and recognising the value of good professional judgement; and the need for strategic re-shape in the way that child protection social work is organised. 15. We also support the work of the Social Work Taskforce and Board which over time are likely to improve the quality of social work practise and the morale of the profession. 16. However, we do not believe that even reform on this ambitious scale will be enough to bring about the kind of revolution we need to see in the way children and family services are delivered. It is our contention that simply improving the way the current system operates is not sufficient to see the step change that is necessary. Instead we need a more radical rethink about how you effectively deliver the shift to an early intervention and prevention approach – of the kind envisaged by Graham Allen and Frank Field – from the ‘foundation years’ onwards. 17. There is now an overwhelming consensus in favour of this approach from policy makers, opinion formers, service providers and the public7 and yet the reality on the ground is that early intervention services are being scaled back 6 4Children (2011) Crash Barriers: a new approach to preventing family crisis 4Children (2011) Suffering in Silence: how support for postnatal depression needs to be better 7 A survey commissioned by 4Children in May 2011 from Consumer Analysis Ltd found that 70% of the public agreed that ‘more money should be spent on preventing problems and keeping more families together’. www.givemestrength.org.uk in some areas as a result of spending reductions. With record numbers of referrals to social services about children and rising numbers of children in the care system many local authorities are focusing the overwhelming majority of their ‘non-school’ resources on statutory social work and other highly targeted interventions. 18. Breaking the cycle of spending on late - and in many cases ineffective – interventions will be like turning around the Titanic. But it must be done and 4Children believes it will only happen with sufficient leadership from Central Government – even in this era of localism. 19. 4Children believes that an important first step to this would be the adoption of Professor Munro’s recommendation for a new duty on Local Authorities and their partners to secure sufficient provision for early help and to set out arrangements for delivering this locally8. We note that Government has said that it supports this goal in principle and is considering how best to give it effect9. The Committee might usefully consider the options available to Ministers and the benefits of a statutory approach versus the alternatives. 20. In addition to this 4Children believes that there needs to be a strategic re- shaping of children and family services – universal, early intervention and targeted - so that they are based on the following foundations: 21. Seeing families as part of the solution. Families 4Children interviewed as part of the Family Commission inquiry10 expressed their frustration at feeling like passive recipients of services. They felt their views were rarely sought on what they believed would be most effective in turning their family around. Families – even those facing considerable challenges – spoke of wanting to be more active in shaping interventions and solutions. a. This requires support that ‘gets behind’ families and where relationships of trust can be established between families and professionals. Best practise identified by the Family Commission in Dundee, Knowsley, Camden and Cardiff showed how professionals can ‘get behind’ families – focusing on the causes of problems in their lives, identifying what their capacity for change was and agreeing with them what had to be done.

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