The British Association of Social Work Conference April 2014

1. The British Association of Social Work Conference April 2014 Isabelle Trowler Chief Social Worker for England Children & Families

2. Current Key Messages • Critical importance of family and community • Beyond good exam results and good dentistry • Proportionate state intervention • Low-level impact of early intervention on high risk families?? • Empathy not blame. Support not punishment (Selwyn et al 2014) • We must rethink skill set and practice support • Towards a theory of service

3. Practice Skill • Regulation and endorsement • Knowledge and Skills • Initial qualifications • Assessed year in employment • Licence to practice – refocusing on responsibility • Teaching Partnerships (supply and demand)

4. Rethinking Children’s Social Work • Building on Munro • The watchers • Responsibility with authority • Retention & practice based career pathways • Bureaucracy at its best • Who does what? The role of health and the non-qualified

5. Rethinking Support For Adolescents • Looks at support for adolescent entrants or potential entrants to the care system and those in residential care • Adolescents (11+) account for 39% of care entrants, and are at increased risk of having multiple placements, cycling in and out of care, and facing problems on leaving care • Adolescents make up the bulk of children in residential care but only 9% of the total number of children in care. We spend a third of our total spend, or £1 billion, on their care

6. Context: Vulnerable Children The number of children supported by children’s social care is increasing 1 Department for Education, Characteristics of children in need in England : 2012 to 2013. Estimates of children in need started being collected in 2009/10

7. Context: Spend On Children’s Social Care This is in the context of significant cuts to other LA budgets And annual gross expenditure on children’s social care is increasing 1 Department for Education, Section 251 data collection, budget summary 2008-09 to 20013-14. Collection of expenditure on children’s services began in 2008-09 in the S25 collection. LA functions in relation to child protection is grouped together with the line on commissioning and social work in the 2012/13 and 2013/14 planned expenditure releases. Previously the two items were separate.

8. The system doesn’t appear to incentivise or support better-performing LAs to innovate and improve. 1 Proportion of children looked after continuously for at least 12 months attaining five A*-Cs at GCSE minus proportion of all children attaining five A*-Cs

9. Comparing across LAs, there is unacceptable variation in proxy measures of outcomes, quality, value and pace of improvement 95.3% £686,389 4% 17.2% 80% £3,720,353 -1.4% 67.1% 1 Proportion of children looked after continuously for at least 12 months attaining five A*-Cs at GCSE minus proportion of all children attaining five A*-Cs

10. Towards A Theory Of Service • SCRs, Ofsted, evidence and innovation • Lead responsibility for child protection is with local government (not social work) • Usual suspects in unusual roles? • Focus on decisions about children key focus • Too much ££ spent on plugging the gaps – deficit model • Engagement with the challenge, not a random solution • Sign up at a system level • Accelerate and replicate