45 unaccompanied asylum seeking children went missing from unlawful accommodation
The Home Office placed unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in unlawful accommodation which resulted in 45 children going missing over a 10-month period, a charity has claimed.
Parliamentary Question responses show the Home Office has housed 1,606 children in hotels between July 2021 and June 2022, even though this is unlawful and despite unaccompanied asylum-seeking children being [...]
More children in receipt of Free School Meals following COVID
The percentage of children in receipt of Free School Meals has risen over the past year, Department for Education figures have shown.
The number of children eligible to have free school meals rose from 20.8% in 2021 to 22.5% this year, representing just under 1.9 million pupils. This is an increase of nearly 160,000 pupils [...]
Josh MacAlister defends recommendation to scrap IROs and ‘reset’ advocacy
The chair of the independent care review has defended his plans to ‘reset’ children’s advocacy following the publication of the review.
The independent review published last week recommends removing the requirement to appoint an Independent Reviewing Officer alongside the introduction of Independent Advocacy on an opt-out basis, something Josh MacAlister recognises has been “a [...]
What are people saying about the independent care review?
Find out how the children’s social care sector has responded to the recommendations in the independent review of children’s social care final report.
Josh MacAlister, chair of independent review of children's social careBASW
“The British Association of Social Workers (BASW) welcomes the report’s stated aims: to develop and advance the children’s social care system; to [...]
Care review: Radical reset for children's social care is now unavoidable
There will be approaching 100,000 children in care and a flawed children’s social care system will cost over £15 billion per year by this time next year unless radical reform happens urgently, the independent review of children’s social care has stated.
The system is currently increasingly skewed to crisis intervention, with outcomes for children that [...]
Peer on peer sexual abuse rises
Reports of peer-on-peer sexual abuse have risen, the NSPCC has warned.
The child protection charity said calls to their helpline about young people experiencing harmful sexual behaviour had increased significantly following the Everyone’s Invited movement which enabled victims to anonymously post their experiences of sexual abuse on the website gained more than 11,000 posts, [...]
