Inspectorates urge greater focus on neglect of older children
A report has urged greater awareness of the neglect of older children, saying that while agencies address neglect in younger children, neglect in older children often goes unrecognised.
The inspection by Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission, and Her Majesty’s Inspectorates of Probation and Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Services highlights that while older children are expected to [...]
No more fat left to trim in children’s services
No more fat left to trim in children’s services: The president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services has warned of a shortage of funding in the children’s social care system.
Speaking at the ADCs annual conference in Manchester, Stuart Gallimore refuted claims that there is enough money in the system but it is disproportionately [...]
Local Safeguarding Childrens Boards scrapped by September 2019
Local Safeguarding Childrens Boards will be scrapped and replaced with multi-agency arrangements by September 2019, the government has announced.
The three safeguarding partners - local authorities, chief officers of police, and clinical commissioning groups - must make arrangements to work together with relevant agencies, as they consider appropriate, to safeguard and protect the welfare of children [...]
Social work caseloads need addressing at Liverpool
Social work capacity and allocation of caseloads needs addressing at Liverpool children’s services, Ofsted has warned.
Rating the authority as ‘requiring improvement to be good,’ Ofsted said that since the joint targeted inspection in 2016, and the subsequent four monitoring visits, senior leaders have made purposeful and targeted progress in strengthening arrangements in the multi-agency safeguarding [...]
1.6 million vulnerable children potentially lacking any support
There are 1.6 million vulnerable children in England where it is unclear whether they are receiving any sort of support, the children’s commissioner for England has warned.
While there are an estimated 2.1 million of England’s 11.8 million children with risks so serious that they require help, there are 1.6 million vulnerable children where the support [...]
ChildLine sees surge in calls about loneliness
There has been a 14% rise in the number of counselling sessions that ChildLine has delivered around loneliness.
Childline carried out 4,636 counselling sessions for loneliness in 2017/18 – a 14% rise on the previous year, the charity revealed.
Almudena Lara, NSPCC Head of Policy and Public Affairs, said: “These Childline figures show that although we might [...]
