Social workers identifying “more complex” types of demand within children’s social care services

The overall profile of demand for children’s social care and child protection has become “more complex” over the past decade, according to a new study.

The research, carried out by the Nuffield Foundation, Kingston University and the National Children's Bureau, identified 12 categories of demand for children’s social care (CSC) and child protection (CP), finding a “disproportionate rise” in child mental health problems, extra-familial harm, and complexities around parental mental health between 2014 - 2021.

Authors warned that in the absence of sufficient resources to address the variety of demand, the risk is that “many children will not receive the right kind of help early enough and will return into the system when they are older and their problems are more entrenched”.

Average rates of re-referral were 30% over 12 months and 59% over six years. For some categories of demand, these rates were “significantly higher”, the report found.

Children whose assessments recorded a single risk factor of physical or sexual abuse were “relatively less likely” to have a re-referral, repeat CP plan or re-entry to care, and tended to have better educational outcomes, compared to children assessed with multiple risk factors, researchers noted.

The report found that children whose needs were categorised as ‘risks in and outside the home’ and ‘risks outside the home’ “consistently fared worse” on almost every outcome in the study, whether this was measured as repeat involvement with services, educational attainment, or exclusion from school.

Of 12 categories of CSC demand identified by researchers, risks in and outside the home, complex domestic abuse/risks at home and concerns about another person had the highest proportions of child in need episodes lasting more than 12 months.

Single-factor domestic abuse and violence was the most prevalent category of demand, accounting for a fifth of all cases. It was also present in four different complex needs categories, “most of which were associated with a high risk of protective and care interventions”, the study revealed.

The report’s recommendations included:

• Increasing investment in mental health services, with a “sustained policy focus” on child and adolescent mental health.
• Official statistics on CSC should reflect the significance of multiple, complex needs.
• Enhancing training around the links between domestic abuse and social inequality, between early childhood adversity and extra-familial harm, and the evidence for racial and ethnic disparities in assessment.
• Flagging types of needs likely to lead to repeated involvement with services.
• Policies that improve the financial circumstances of families.

The report noted that the ‘toxic trio’ term should not be used as a shorthand for multiple risk factors in CP cases, “as it does not reflect the evidence from social work assessments and is stigmatising to families”.

Researchers noted that demand categories offer one alternative approach to describing complex needs in child safeguarding work.

The Department for Education has been approached for comment.

Lottie Winson