YOIs and STCs to be phased out in 10 years under care review recommendations
The state of child detention in England is abysmal with both Young Offender Institutions and Secure Training Centres being “wholly unsuitable” for children, the independent review of children’s social care has warned.
Secure children’s homes are almost always better able to provide a more caring, less institutionalised and more supportive environment for young people to [...]
Great variation in recording of suspected sexual abuse between local authorities
There is great variance in the recording of suspected child sexual abuse between local authorities the Centre for Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse has warned.
Across the year 2020-2021, local authority children’s services in England recorded concerns about child sexual abuse in 29,640 assessments of children, and about child sexual exploitation, which is treated differently, [...]
UK has ‘sleepwalked’ into dysfunctional children’s social care market
Some children are not getting the right care from their placement due to a shortage of appropriate places in children’s homes and with foster carers, a report by the Competition and Markets Authority has found.
The CMA launched a market study into children’s social care in March 2021 and the final report finds that the [...]
Children at risk of CSE as councils and police fail to keep pace with change
Police and local authorities are failing to keep pace with the changing nature of child sexual exploitation by networks, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has warned.
Many children are being raped or sexually assaulted repeatedly over a period of months or even years as children are being sexually exploited by networks in all [...]
TACT urges creation of National Care Service
The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care should recommend the establishment of a new national care service to the Department for Education, a leading fostering agency has urged.
TACT is calling for the DfE establish a ground-breaking new national care service – the National Care Family – which would encompass fostering, adoption, kinship, residential, [...]
Local authorities ill prepared for future growth in foster care
The number of children needing foster care is set to increase by 30% by 2030, but many local authorities are already failing to fulfill their legal obligations to children in foster care, the Social Market Foundation has warned.
The cross-party thinktank predicts a 30% rise in the number of foster children by 2030 meaning 77,000 [...]
