Newsletters
Our Regional Improvement Plan can be found here
Our Impact Report published in March 2023 can be found here
If you would like to apply to be a SESLIP consultant, please follow this link to Kent Business Portal – KentBusinessPortal and after registering on the portal, search for Ref – SC240046 – SESLIP – DPS
Updates
Children’s Service Spending Report 2025
On 7 April the Children’s Charities Coalition published Children’s services spending report: A long road to recovery – Local authority spending on early intervention children’s services 2010/11 to 2023/24 (pdf, 36 pages, Larkham, Jack and Ren, Antonia (2025))
Headlines
The Children’s Charities Coalition, which includes the NSPCC, has published the latest report in its series on children’s services spending in England. The report analyses published data on local authority spending on children’s services. Key findings show: a fall in spending on early intervention services; funding for children in residential care rose to an all-time high of £3billion; and the number of children in care remains almost 40% higher than it was 20 years ago.
A film for parents with learning difficulties and disabilities: working with a child and family social worker
On 2 April FRG released A film for parents with learning difficulties and disabilities: working with a child and family social worker (YouTube 10 minutes 33 seconds)
Family Rights Group teamed up with Speakup Rotherham—an advocacy organisation for people with learning difficulties and disabilities—alongside parents with lived experience, to create this vital resource.
Headlines
The film breaks down what may happen when a social worker first gets involved in a child’s life through fictional scenes between a social worker and a parent, based on real life examples. It explains some of the steps that child and family social workers can take and what some of the words they use mean in clear, understandable language. It shows how social workers should communicate and work together with parents with difficulties and disabilities and highlights how parents can make their voices heard, including the important role of an advocate.
Case Study: Coventry City Council’s Reunification Project
On 11 March LGA published a case study of Coventry CC’s Reunification Project
Headlines
Coventry Family Valued launched in April 2021 as part of the DfE’s Strengthening Families, Protecting Children Programme. The overarching aim of Coventry Family Valued was to support more children to live safely at home with their families and within their communities; recognising that for most children, their outcomes are better when they live with family. The Reunification Project was implemented as part of Coventry Family Valued. To date the project has delivered the outcomes set out below:
- 44 children reunified and 19 further working towards reunification
- So far saved over £4 million
- 12 Care Orders revoked, 2 more in progress
- All children at home are in education, employment or training
- No missing episode for a child since returned home
- Contributed to wider culture change in Children’s Services around working ‘with’ families
SE Regional Care Cooperative April 2025 Newsletter
On 16 April SERCC published its April 2025 newsletter
Headlines
Director Lucy Butler says:
Welcome to the second newsletter about the South East Regional Care
Cooperative (RCC). These newsletters will update those working in or around
children’s social care on the RCC’s progress as we get closer to go-live.
It has been a busy few months since our last update. The capital projects
funded by the DfE as part of the RCC are almost at completion, bringing 29 new
beds for the region. Work is ongoing to plan how these will be shared among all
LAs in the RCC. Please feel free to get in touch with me via the contact links at
the end of the newsletter if you’d like to discuss anything RCC related.
Reminders From Previous Weeks
Safe podcast: Episode 1 – Carlene Firmin on Contextual Safeguarding
On 13 March Youth Endowment Fund published the Safe podcast
Episode 1 – Carlene Firmin on Contextual Safeguarding (YouTube 43 minutes)
Episode 2 – The Music Mentoring Bus Tackling Territorial Violence (YouTube 46 minutes)
Headlines
Carlene Firmin shares how shop workers can be community guardians, why we are all responsible for keeping young people safe, and what her journey from charity worker to renowned professor has taught her about preventing violence.
To find out more about Contextual Safeguarding and Carlene’s work visit: www.contextualsafeguarding.org.uk
Denial of Liberty applications decline despite ongoing shortage of secure children’s homes
On 7 April MoJ published Family Court Statistics Quarterly: October to December 2024
Applications for deprivation of liberty (DoL) orders for children fell more than 6% last year, latest analysis shows – the first annual decline this decade.
Headlines
During 2024, there were 1,280 DoL order applications via the courts to detain children compared with 1,368 made in 2023, latest government figures for England and Wales show.The figures have been revealed in the government’s final quarterly family court statistics of 2024. It shows that there were 321 applications – relating to 321 individual children – for DoL orders in the high court between October and December 2024.
Raised by Relatives: the experiences of Black and Asian kinship carers
On 27 March Kinship published Raised by Relatives: the experiences of Black and Asian kinship carers
The full report is here (pdf, 110 pages)
A summary report is here (pdf, 9 pages)
Details
Kinship’s research with Professor Julie Selwyn and Dr Priya Tah from The Rees Centre at Oxford University, supported by the KPMG Foundation, explores the experiences of kinship carers from Black and Asian communities.
Current evidence suggests that 1 in every 5 children living in kinship care in England are being raised by minority ethnic kinship carers. However, there isn’t a lot of research about the experiences of people from Black and Asian families who are raising the child of a relative or friend, which means that organisations don’t know what support and services would be helpful for kinship carers and children from these communities. This research enables us to make recommendations about how Black and Asian families can be better supported in the future.
Tools & Templates
We have produced a Regional Improvement Plan (June 2024)
On 7 April the Children’s Charities Coalition published Children’s services spending report: A long road to recovery – Local authority spending on early intervention children’s services 2010/11 to 2023/24
On 7 April MoJ published Family Court Statistics Quarterly: October to December 2024
On 3 April DfE advertised for a National Safeguarding Partner Multi-agency Facilitator (LA Lead)
On 2 April FRG released A film for parents with learning difficulties and disabilities: working with a child and family social worker (YouTube 10 minutes 33 seconds)
On 27 March Kinship published Raised by Relatives: the experiences of Black and Asian kinship carers
On 26 March Mutual Ventures published a range of case studies and a good practice guide in relation to the DfJ Reducing Time to Family Court programme
On 20 March the DfE published The Families First Partnership (FFP) programme guide
On 20 March DfE published Pupil absence in schools in England data for academic year 2023/24
On 18 March Kinship premiered a A powerful short film revealing what growing up in kinship care is like.
On 13 March Youth Endowment Fund published the Safe podcast
On 11 March LGA published a case study of Coventry CC’s Reunification Project
On 11 March the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel published It’s Silent: Race, racism, and safeguarding children
On 7 March the HoC Committee of Public Accounts published Improving educational outcomes for disadvantaged children
On 7 March NSPCC published ‘Disguised compliance’: learning from case reviews
On 6 March TASO published Pathways into and through higher education for young people with experience of children’s social care
On 27 February ONS published Young people not in education, employment or training (NEET), UK: February 2025
On 27 February the Children’s Commissioner published The educational journeys of children in secure settings
On 27 February DfE published Children’s social work workforce data for 2024
On 25 February Oftsed published Good decisions: supporting children aged 16 and 17 who need help when they are homeless
On 20 February the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman published Fostering better services: Helping to improve council services for foster carers and their children
On 13 February DfE published A level and other 16 to 18 results for academic year 2023-2024
On 7 February Foundations (previously the What Works Centre for Families and Children) published Parenting through adversity, the second in a series of practice guides commissioned by the DfE to support the roll-out of the children’s social care national framework
On 4 February Pause and Listen published In a Mother’s Mind: Birth mothers’ experiences of domestic abuse
On 3 February IJPDS published Estimated cumulative incidence of intervention by children’s social care services to age 18: a whole-of-England administrative data cohort study using the child in need census
On 1 February Centrepoint published Hidden In Plain Sight: Understanding Youth Homelessness in the UK
On 1 February The Fostering Network published State of the Nations’ Foster Care – Full Report 2024