Child Care Solicitors

The Secretary of State for Education Nicky Morgan has set out her vision for children’s social care and social work, saying that social services are the backstop of society, offering early help to families in need and intervening where things go wrong.

Ms Morgan said that, for most people, the support network provided by family, friends, communities, schools and health services would usually be enough to enable them to give their children a safe, stable and nurturing home. She added, however, that a smaller group of the country’s most vulnerable children needed “much more intensive help” in order to have the same stable foundations that others take for granted.

The Education Secretary said that struggling parents must be supported to provide the best possible care for their children – and where a birth parent was unable to provide a stable, happy home, government must “step in”.

She added that the costs were “simply too great” without intervention – and could be “a matter of life and death”.

Ms Morgan launched her plan for the widest reaching reforms to children’s social care and social work in a generation – and said the strategy would deliver a system staffed and led by the best trained professionals, who would be “dynamic and free” to innovate in the interests of children, with less bureaucracy and new checks and balances designed to hold the system to account “in the right ways”.

She added that there would also be “new ways” to intervene more quickly where services consistently failed the most vulnerable children.

“The best social workers and many fantastic foster carers change children’s lives immeasurably for the better,” said Ms Morgan.

“But the quality of the help and support children get is far too variable – only one-quarter of local authorities that have been reviewed by the new Ofsted inspection regime are classed as ‘good’ or better – which is in no way good enough.

“I am determined to raise standards so that all vulnerable children get the best quality care and support – there can be no compromise,” she added.

The plan will involve making sure that children’s services employ the best social work leaders, who can make sure frontline staff have the right knowledge and skills, including radical reforms to raise the quality and status of the profession, with investment in graduate schemes – and a new social work training programme that will look at the development of those making the transition from frontline practice into practice supervision.

Ms Morgan said that this vision would put innovation at its heart, with the Children and Social Work Bill creating a new power to innovate, which would be used to give leading local authorities the freedom to test out innovative new ways of working.

“This builds on the £200 million we are making available to drive innovation and spread excellence in children’s services,” said the Education Secretary.

“The very best councils have so much to share – and we must learn from their approach.”

Ms Morgan added that the government must take swift action where services were letting children down. She announced that Norfolk children’s services would begin working with Barnardo’s to establish a joint looked-after children service – the first in the country – and the government’s work to set up voluntary trusts in Sunderland and Birmingham would continue.

She also said that the government must reform how children are protected, with the Children and Social Work Bill introducing landmark measures to improve how agencies shared information – and proposals for a national learning panel, so that services could learn “as a country” from serious cases of child abuse.

Ms Morgan added that the Barnardo’s review into children’s homes in England had made clear that children needed ongoing help once they left residential care – and the government would pilot a scheme which would enable young adults leaving children’s homes to live nearby and retain links with those who had cared for them

“Our children’s social care system faces significant challenges – but by building on its strengths, we can deliver a system that is well and truly up to the task of caring for the most vulnerable children in our society, in a way that any good parent would,” said Ms Morgan.

Duncan Lewis Children Lawyers

Duncan Lewis children lawyers offer specialist legal advice on child care law and family law, including advising on:

• Adoption/international adoption
• Child abuse (inc FGM, forced marriage)
• Child care arrangements
• Children in Local Authority care
• Court orders (Leave to Remove, etc)
• Court of Protection
• Domestic violence
• Guardianship
• International parent child abduction
• Maternity/paternity rights and pay
• Parental responsibility
• Section 38 enquiries/pre-proceedings meetings
• Spouse/child abandonment
• Wardship.

There are Duncan Lewis offices nationwide and Duncan Lewis is a leading firm of Legal Aid solicitors.

For expert legal advice on child care law and family law, call Duncan Lewis child care solicitors on 0333 772 0409.