Joint working between adults’ and children’s services must improve, says minister

Improving joint working between children’s and adults’ services is the “next big challenge” facing the social care sector, the children’s minister told delegates at an event in London today.
 
Speaking at a Local Government Association conference, Beverley Hughes said that “a lot had been achieved” in terms of integration in children’s services but joint working between children’s and adults services now had to improve.
 
Hughes said that professionals needed to ensure that they were meeting the needs of families as a whole as there were many client groups, such as disabled parents and young carers, who crossed the children’s and adults’ services divide.
 
“Reallly I think it’s about time that we can show that we can actually do this,” she said.
 
Hughes also warned against looking back to when children’s and adults services were in one department as a “golden era”.
 
“The truth is joint working has always been hard,” she concluded.