UPDATE NO 451 30 April 2021

Children in care

The House of Commons Library has published a briefing on out of area placements and unregulated or unregistered accommodation for children in care. 

The briefing gives an overview of definitions and relevant legislation across the UK and provides data and statistics on placements in England. The briefing also signposts other reports and debates on these topics.

The full report is here

APSW Knowledge and Evidence Events in connection with the DfE Social Care Review

The Association of Professors of Social Work has organised a series of four Knowledge and Evidence Events in May and June in connection with the DfE Social Care Review

• KEE 1: Alternative Child Care Social Work Service Delivery Models on Tuesday May 18 1600-1700
• KEE 2: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Children’s Social Care and Social Work on Monday May 24 1200-1300
• KEE 3: Everyday Social Work with Children and Families on Tuesday June 8 1600-1700
• KEE 4: Looked After Children and Care Leavers on Wednesday June 16 1600-1730

Each of the four events are focused on key messages delivered by leading researchers in the fields of Children’s Social Work and Social Care. At each event there will be the opportunity for those attending to contribute by posting their comments and responses via the chat function.

These events will be recorded and details will be provided in due course on how to access them; after each event, knowledge briefings, developed in collaboration with Research in Practice, will be made available.

Registration is free, follow the eventbrite links at the APSW events page or in the event flyer

You can download a flyer for these events here

APSW Knowledge and Evidence Events in connection with the DfE Social Care Review

The Association of Professors of Social Work has organised a series of four Knowledge and Evidence Events in May and June in connection with the DfE Social Care Review

• KEE 1: Alternative Child Care Social Work Service Delivery Models on Tuesday May 18 1600-1700
• KEE 2: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Children’s Social Care and Social Work on Monday May 24 1200-1300
• KEE 3: Everyday Social Work with Children and Families on Tuesday June 8 1600-1700
• KEE 4: Looked After Children and Care Leavers on Wednesday June 16 1600-1730

Each of the four events are focused on key messages delivered by leading researchers in the fields of Children’s Social Work and Social Care. At each event there will be the opportunity for those attending to contribute by posting their comments and responses via the chat function.

These events will be recorded and details will be provided in due course on how to access them; after each event, knowledge briefings, developed in collaboration with Research in Practice, will be made available.

Registration is free, follow the eventbrite links at the APSW events page or in the event flyer

You can download a flyer for these events here

Effective Children’s Social Work in a Pandemic: What we’ve learned. Wed 26 May

Essex County Council were commissioned by the DfE to do a peer review of social work practice during the pandemic in order to capture learning and insights. 

The findings from that exercise, which involved six local authorities (including Medway Youth Services), will be shared via a free online conference featuring keynotes and panel inputs from Prof. Harry Ferguson, Yvette Stanley, Isabelle Trowler, Jenny Coles and a group of young people. The event, which will take place on Wednesday 26 May, 9.30am – 3.30pm, also features a series of workshops including: leadership; virtual assessments; anti-racist practice; home working; CPD; and, the experiences of children and young people with SEND.

In order to allow as many authorities as possible to benefit from this learning there are regional ticket allocations, please coordinate local attendance to ensure maximum benefit. If tickets are sold out for your region, please select from general admission tickets.

Please see the event flyer here, the booking form is here.

Future dates for network meetings

Lead Members Group: More information from Alison Michalska (contact details below)

Data Benchmarking: Tuesday 13 July 2021. More information from Alastair Lee (contact details below)

Adoption and Special Guardianship Leadership Board: Tuesday 13 July 2021. More information from Rebecca Eligon (contact details below)

AD Education: Friday 7 May 2021 – 10.30am. More information from Chris Owen (contact details below)

AD Safeguarding: Friday 11 June 2021. More information from Mark Evans (contact details below)

QA Network: More information from Amanda Meadows (contact details below)

Fostering Network: 10.30am 19 July 2021. More information from Rebecca Eligon (contact details below)

SEND SE19: More information from Tracey Maytas (contact details below)

Improving Commissioning and Sufficiency Planning to Increase Stability and Permanence for Children in Care

Rosemary Perry (contact details below) writes

Through an open request,  the DfE project has gathered views from 19 providers of residential and fostering services (some small and some large) about how they would like to engage with local authorities in developing more local and flexible services for children and young people in the south east. The overwhelming theme from the survey is the importance of developing trusting and long term relationships between local authorities and providers. Alongside this, the project has also collected more detailed information from the 4 local authorities involved in this phase of the project (West Sussex, Kent, Milton Keynes and Portsmouth) and is starting to formulate a view about the type of service which should be commissioned to meet need. 

Both reports have been added to the secure area of the website as well as being circulated to Board members. The provider report has been sent to the commissioners network.  The next step of the project is to enter a period of co-production, starting in the middle of May; this will take the form of a further request to the market with invitations to attend a series of workshops based around a series of themes and geographical areas.  This is the most critical part of the project so far.  Recognising the importance of this work, the Board has agreed to extend the project by 2 months to the end of September, to ensure that a further dialogue with the market can take place later in the summer, focussing on a definitive specification and contract. This is within the timescales set by the DfE. The project has been made aware of parallel work in a local authority outside of the region and it is hoped that the learning from this work can be shared with DCSs and commissioners in the coming weeks.

Ofsted issue revised education inspection framework and handbooks

On 19 April Ofsted published a revised education inspection framework (EIF) which applies to maintained schools and academies, non-association independent schools, further education and skills providers and early years settings. 

The revised EIF is here

Also revised are the following inspection handbooks and guidance:

• Early years inspection handbook
• School inspection handbook 
• Section 8 school inspection handbook
• Further education and skills inspection handbook
• Inspecting schools: guide for maintained and academy schools

High needs provision capital allocations

On 9 April 2021, DfE announced local authority capital funding to support the provision of new places for children with special educational needs and disabilities or requiring alternative provision.

High needs provision capital allocations (HNPCA) are provided to local authorities to support the provision of places for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and pupils requiring alternative provision (AP).

In April 2021 we announced allocations totalling £280 million, intended to provide places needed for September 2022. The allocations spreadsheet shows how much funding has been allocated to each local authority.