Structural change
New official figures show that the number of children looked after by local authorities in Wales is continuing to rise. There were 4, 431 children in care on 31 March 2005 - one per cent higher than the level for the previous year and 10 per cent higher than in 2002, reports Amy Taylor.
The figures have prompted many in the social care sector to ask what could be behind the increase and what can be done to try to halt the trend.
Penny Lloyd, professional officer for Wales at the British Association of Social Workers, said that the rise is likely to be down to a number of issues and that the changes in practice faced by Welsh social workers over recent years could be partly responsible.
“If you get involved in structural change and reform then staff take their eye off the clientele and part of their brain is focussed on what’s happening,” she said.
Lloyd added that in such situations the amount of time staff spent on preventive work is reduced.
Absence of support
Although social workers in Wales have been faced with upheaval with some Welsh local authorities moving into merged children’s social services and education departments and then back to separate services, arguably this have been even greater for professionals in England due to the advent of children’s trusts.
Lloyd said that while there hadn’t been an equal rise in the number of children being looked after in England, figures coming through for this year might show an increase as a result of the reforms.
| Garthwaite: problem is
absence of support |
Tony Garthwaite, director of personal services at Bridgend Council, said that in his area the increase in looked-after children had been even higher than the national average.
He puts the increase down to the council insufficiently investing in an appropriate range of preventive services in the past arguing that social workers’ access to such provision is critical to enabling children to stay at home.
“The greatest single problem is the absence of alternative family support that enables us to do that,” he said.
Financial implications
Jayne Isaac, public policy officer for Wales for NCH Cymru, said there are effective family support services in Wales but that statutory agencies needed to develop a more strategic approach to identifying where such services are needed and who they should be delivered.
As well as the humane aspect of not wanting to take children away from their families looking after large numbers of children has big financial implications for local authorities
Garthwaite says that his looked-after children budget is constantly overspent. He explains that the cost of caring for the youngsters, such as through foster carers or in residential homes, is now decided by independent providers who set the ever increasing market rate.
Minimal rise
For Lloyd social workers’ fear of being held responsible for children being harmed and their subsequent desire to avoid risks could also be fuelling the figures.
A lack of risk taking is difficult to pin down but Lloyd says that based on conversations she has had with child protection social workers there seems to be more of a view that if they have carried out an assessment and there is a risk to a child that they then might go down a care route.
The Welsh Assembly has indicated that figures on the number of children looked-after in Wales for this year seems to be coming down. Lloyd says that this is due to professional’s recognition that the figures were too high and attempts to try to deal with this. Garthwaite also points out that an increase of one per cent is minimal compared to those in some of the previous years and therefore the rising trend is slowing. Maybe the next set of figures could be the ones to show the beginning of a decline.
Performance statistics from: www.wales.gov.uk/keypubstatisticsforwales/
