tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14274850469200741252024-03-14T04:44:19.817+00:00Chris Mills Child Protection BlogLearning and improvement in child protection practiceChris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comBlogger790125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-31279959911623271422020-08-21T22:02:00.000+01:002020-08-21T22:02:03.296+01:00Not alone<p><span face="" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;">Southampton City Council Children’s Services Department <a href="https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2020/08/21/culture-fear-childrens-services-heads-unilaterally-overrode-practice-decisions-finds-probe/ ">has been found </a>by an independent investigation to have fostered a ‘culture of fear’ and allowed senior managers to override practice decisions taken in children’s best interests.</span><span style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">Southampton is not alone. The same report could have been written about many local authorities in Britain today. Cash-strapped and overstretched, managers resort to coercion and oppression to get the job done. The victims are children (service users) and frontline staff. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">It is not good enough. No, it is unacceptable!<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">One of the most telling findings in <a href="http://www.southampton.gov.uk/modernGov/documents/s47329/Appendix%201%20-%20Learning%20Report.pdf">Malcom Newsam’s report </a>is that Southampton Council fostered a culture of fear in children’s services. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">He found the following:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>“An expressed fear of speaking out- this included highlighting errors, challenging tactics, offering a different opinion to some leaders</li><li>“The current working environment is chaotic. It was described as a blame culture</li><li>“Communication at all levels was considered to be ineffective and uncoordinated</li><li>“There was a strong sense of a top down imposition. A high number of the problems and challenges were known about and had been reported however it was considered the front-line staff were not engaged openly or respectfully by some senior leaders</li><li>“The style, tone and timeliness of communication from the leadership team or insome instances the lack of it has created resentment confusion and anxiety.”</li></ul><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">This is not just bad management practice, it is dangerous management practice. Silencing dissent and blaming hapless individuals results in only one thing: employees who are too frightened to speak out when things go wrong. Organisations which allow those conditions to develop and persist will eventually discover, too late, that the latent conditions for disaster have been developing unreported because the people who knew – frontline staff – were assured that they would not be listened to and blamed for raising concerns.</p>Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-20394496883280683322019-12-20T17:14:00.001+00:002019-12-20T17:21:43.548+00:00West Sussex – a toxic culture?<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">It is difficult to imagine an organisation less likely to succeed in delivering good quality children’s services than that recounted in a report on West Sussex County Council. <a href="https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2019/12/17/childrens-services-trust-west-sussex-review-condemns-toxic-council-culture/">An article</a> summarising the report in</span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Community Care</i><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"> uses the word ‘toxic’ to describe the organisation’s culture.</span><br />
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<a href="https://westsussex.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s13176/Commissioners%20report.pdf">The report</a> identifies the following problems many of which it says have been modelled from the top of the organisation:</div>
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<li><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">a significant bullying problem</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">unacceptable behaviour by senior managers and politicians </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">a longstanding and casual disrespect for individuals</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">lack of organisational self-awareness </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">refusal to accept criticism or bad news </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">reluctance to raise or address problems</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">no room for respectful uncertainty or challenge</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">unnecessary layers of management </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">confused thinking</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">disagreement not tolerated</span></li>
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If you wanted to create a badly run organisation it is hard to see how you could be more certain of getting one than by doing what is recounted here. It beggars belief how a toxic organisation such as the one described could have been created and sustained in the light of all we know about how to do difficult tasks well. <o:p></o:p></div>
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After years and years of Ofsted inspections, and a litany of serious case reviews and public enquiries, how on earth can people still be so deeply ignorant of how to motivate and develop staff and managers? It is as if there are still pockets of children’s services in Britain that function like medieval fiefdoms. And despite all the fanfare of inspection and audit and scrutiny, they somehow survive, wrecking the lives of the people they employ and failing to safeguard, protect and meet the needs of the children they are designed to serve. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It makes me wonder if the whole inspection/audit panoply does any good at all. After more than ten years of Ofsted, surely toxic organisations should be a thing of the past? But inspection has not resulted in improvement across the board and pockets of awfulness seem to persist unrelentingly. We need to think again.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The report concludes:</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“What is also clearly evident from almost every discussion, is that there has been little space in the council or the service at any senior level, for respectful uncertainty, discussion, consideration or disagreement. This has been critical in the systemic failure of Children’s Services which are, by their very nature, complex, contested and uncertain. Managers talked about being unable to raise problems and that disagreement was not tolerated.” (p 33)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That of course is what concerns me most. You cannot hope to create safe, high quality services if you do not allow people to raise problems or if you do not tolerate disagreement. It is completely unsafe to try to silence those who want to report problems or issues or to dissent from current orthodoxy. A culture of denial and blame creates dangerous organisations in which leaders do not know where the edges of many perilous cliffs are located. Sooner or later it results in tragedy.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-26148233893494592542019-11-03T11:32:00.003+00:002019-11-04T09:24:54.130+00:00Understanding ‘deeper causes’<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">Kenan Malik has written a very thought provoking <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/03/from-grenfell-to-migrant-deaths-we-fail-to-see-the-deeper-causes-of-tragedy">article in today’s</a></span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/03/from-grenfell-to-migrant-deaths-we-fail-to-see-the-deeper-causes-of-tragedy"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Observer</i></a><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">. </span><br />
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Looking at two recent tragedies - the Grenfell Tower disaster and the deaths of 39 migrants trapped in a refrigerated container – he argues that there is… "<b>a deeper cultural tendency to focus on the proximate causes of social tragedies and to ignore, or downplay, more distant but often more significant issues”.</b> </div>
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In the case of Grenfell Tower this tendency, he argues, is evidenced by the way in which the inquiry has first focused on the actions (or inactions) of individual and groups of firefighters, while shelving issues relating to the building’s cladding, the deregulation of fire safety and failures of policy and ministerial oversight for the inquiry’s second stage. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In the case of the migrants’ deaths he argues that the tendency is evidenced by focus on the ‘evil’ smugglers, rather than on factors which predispose to creating a demand for smuggling people into countries like Britain. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It doesn’t take a lot of thought to see how this analysis can be extended to child protection tragedies. So often the focus is on individual workers’ failings and shortcomings, while there is frequently a tendency to ignore the <i>deeper</i> causes – factors such as pressurised working environments, excessive caseloads, lack of resources and political malaise.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Understanding the <i>deeper</i> causes of any tragedy requires an <b>open responsive safety culture </b>in which there is a willingness to go far beyond laying the blame on the usual suspects. We need to focus on uncovering and analysing information which can really help to make systems safer. And to do that we have to have an open, <b>just reporting culture </b>in which people feel free to talk about what went wrong without the fear that they will be singled out and blamed if they do.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We need to ask the question <b><i>why?</i> </b>again and again and again. <i>Why</i> did a particular worker fail to see something which with the benefit of hindsight seems obvious? <i>Why</i> was a communication ignored or misunderstood? <i>Why</i> did a particular decision seem reasonable at the time? <o:p></o:p></div>
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The answers to these ‘why’ questions are likely to be found in the design of systems, the availability of resources and the cultures of organisations – not in superficial accounts of individual failings. </div>
Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-30813949182596755252019-07-31T20:17:00.000+01:002019-07-31T20:17:10.081+01:00Compliance and Cover-up<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
It doesn’t take a lot of thought to conclude that there must have been a toxic culture of cover-up and denial in Nottinghamshire and the City of Nottingham. The Guardian quotes Professor Alexis Jay, chair of <a href="https://www.iicsa.org.uk/">The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse </a>as saying: </div>
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“For decades, children who were in the care of the Nottinghamshire councils suffered appalling sexual and physical abuse, inflicted by those who should have nurtured and protected them.<br />“Those responsible for overseeing the care of children failed to question the extent of sexual abuse or what action was being taken. Despite decades of evidence and many reviews showing what needed to change, neither of the councils learned from their mistakes, meaning that more children suffered unnecessarily.”<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></blockquote>
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<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/31/nottinghamshire-children-in-care-abused-for-decades-report" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/31/nottinghamshire-children-in-care-abused-for-decades-report</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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What takes a great deal more thinking about is how a toxic culture of cover-up and denial came about. Of course there may have been some very bad, and very incompetent, people in key positions, but that does not explain why the abuse went unaddressed for years and years, persisting for decades despite scrutiny and audit and inspection and all the other apparatus of local government.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I suspect that an important factor must have been a corporate mindset in which people knew what happened if they raised concerns or spoke out. Rather than an open reporting culture in which everybody is encouraged to speak out if they see bad or dangerous practice, or if they see wrongdoing, it seems likely that there must have been an expectation that people kept quiet and toed the line. If you had a suspicion something was not right, you didn’t talk to your boss or your colleagues about it. You buttoned your lip, convinced yourself that you must be paranoid and kept your head down.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The frightening thing is that many of us have been there. On a few occasions in my own career the thought that something might be seriously amiss with the behaviour of a colleague crossed my mind. And on each occasion I convinced myself that I was over-reacting and when I woke up the following morning I had convinced myself that my own judgement was wrong and I felt relieved that I wasn’t going to make myself hugely unpopular.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But perhaps I should have said something? Who knows? In one instance things came to light many years later and it all made sense, but at the time I would have needed someone to help me overcome my own self-doubts and what I have to confess were not unreasonable fears about what happened to whistle-blowers in the organisation I worked for. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Only a change to the culture of local authorities and other health and social care organisations will make a difference. Somehow we all have to become much more committed to openness and frankness. Those who perpetrate abuse in organisations survive and sometimes flourish because they understand how the toxic culture of cover-up and denial works. If it wasn’t there, they probably wouldn’t be there either; but if they were, they would not dare to abuse a child.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Compliance cultures – in which employees are expected to toe the corporate line – not only frustrate proper learning and corporate development. They foster exactly the kind of silence that nurtures and protects abusers and puts children at risk.<o:p></o:p></div>
Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-38901568963896085532019-07-28T11:48:00.003+01:002019-07-28T17:25:52.454+01:00Children's Minister<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
No sooner had I lamented the tardiness of the Johnson government in appointing a children’s minister than one popped up!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Mrs Kemi Badenock MP is the new Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Children and Families. You can read about her at:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemi_Badenoch" style="color: #954f72;">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemi_Badenoch</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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A cursory glance at her biography does not provide much evidence of previous involvement in children’s issues (apart from having been a school governor). In that she does not differ much from many of her predecessors.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Conservative Home website featured an interview with her in 2017, with the prominent quote: “I’m not really left-leaning on anything.. I always lean right instinctively”. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.conservativehome.com/highlights/2017/12/interview-kemi-badenoch-im-not-really-left-leaning-on-anything-i-always-lean-right-instinctively.html" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.conservativehome.com/highlights/2017/12/interview-kemi-badenoch-im-not-really-left-leaning-on-anything-i-always-lean-right-instinctively.html</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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That might give us a clue about how she will approach her new job, but, of course, we need to wait and see. <o:p></o:p></div>
Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-7918124927472285382019-07-27T18:03:00.000+01:002019-07-27T18:03:32.463+01:00What’s happened to the Children’s Minister?<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Boris Johnson’s government reshuffle resulted in the person appointed children’s minister by Theresa May, Nadhim Zahawi, being moved to a new job at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
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<a href="https://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/nursery-world/news/1168329/childrens-minister-nadhim-zahawi-moves-from-dfe" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/nursery-world/news/1168329/childrens-minister-nadhim-zahawi-moves-from-dfe</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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As yet there is no news of who will succeed him and indeed the Department for Education’s website is mysteriously uninformative about what is happening. Other ministers in the department are listed, but there is not even a ‘situation vacant’ mention of the children’s minister role. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-education" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-education</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Hopefully they haven’t forgotten about this important post altogether or, worse still, abolished it by stealth! <o:p></o:p></div>
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Sadly Theresa May reduced the importance of this post to Parliamentary Under Secretary of State level, whereas previously it had been filled by a Minister of State. Yet it is vital to have a senior figure in charge of children’s social care to co-ordinate, among other things, safeguarding and child protection services. <o:p></o:p></div>
Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-5238913486889722472019-07-17T16:49:00.000+01:002019-07-17T16:49:06.010+01:00Children’s social workers: are tea and coffee cures for sickness absence?<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">I didn’t know whether to be amused or whether to be driven to despair when I read that researchers from the</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care </i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">were planning a study into whether providing free, high-quality tea and coffee at work reduces social worker sickness absence rates.</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
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I did go to the trouble of reading <a href="https://whatworks-csc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/HHP_-Coffee-pilot-protocol.pdf">their project outline</a> and was impressed by the statistical sophistication of their randomised control trial design and by the impressive affiliations of members of the project team (Harvard Business School and UCL School of Management). <o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p> </div>
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What I wasn’t impressed by was the thinking behind this study.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My first thought was: have these people heard of Herzberg? <o:p></o:p></div>
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Every management student learns at the beginning of their introductory course in organisational behaviour about Herzberg’s <i>two factor </i>theory. In the 1950s Herzberg distinguished between what he called ‘motivators’ (achievement, recognition, growth, advancement, responsibility and the work itself) and ‘hygiene factors’ (salary, status, company policy, security, supervision and working conditions). He argued that only the motivators were sources of satisfaction at work while hygiene factors were sources of dissatisfaction. We can include tea and coffee in hygiene factors because they are a part (and only a small part) of working conditions.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The outrage of some of the tweets quoted in the <i><a href="https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2019/07/02/what-works-centre-coffee-study-social-worker-sickness-rates-controversy/">Community Care</a> </i>article on this research seems to be due to children’s social workers feeling patronised by the suggestion that all they need to work more effectively may be unlimited free hot drinks. Very rightly some say that what they want is more scope for achievement and more responsibility for their work. <o:p></o:p></div>
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One, Tracey @traceycjwright, is quoted as saying: “It's absolutely patronising. We need more staff, less paperwork and much less arse covering processes. Give us the time to build relationships and provide actual support. Maybe even throw in some positive reinforcement and appreciation in supervision.” It seems that Tracey wants more motivators, not more hygiene factors and I expect that most children’s social workers would agree with her. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Most children's social workers who burn out or go off sick with stress, chronic fatigue, anxiety or depression do not do so because of domestic arrangements in the office. They go off sick because they find their jobs overwhelming, anxiety provoking and deeply dispiriting.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My second thought on reading about this research was: do they know anything about sickness absence? <o:p></o:p></div>
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Nearly 20 years ago now, I did some research for a medium sized local authority in the south of England, which provided the full range of services including children’s services. The chief executive wanted to know about sickness absence and how to reduce it. I was able to download many years of sickness absence data from the authority’s HR IT system and analyse it. The first thing that was apparent was that sickness absence was very much higher in certain units of the council than it was in others. Employees who daily faced members of the public in what might be called ‘challenging circumstances’ were hugely more likely to sign off sick than employees who worked in offices and had little contact with the public. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The highest sickness absence rates were among emergency housing officers, parking wardens and social workers. Children’s services, in particular, had alarming rates of sickness absence compared to the finance and IT and other administrative departments of the council.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The second thing I found was that the pattern of sickness absence was characterised by what is called a <i><a href="https://betterexplained.com/articles/understanding-the-pareto-principle-the-8020-rule/">Pareto distribution</a> </i>(sometimes known as an 80:20 distribution). In fact about 80% of the sickness absence was caused by less than 20% of all employees. There was a small group of people who were chronically and seriously sick and who had to take off many days each year. In the administrative jobs (finance, IT etc.) these tended to be people who had heart attacks, diabetes or cancer. In children’s services the main causes of sickness absence were anxiety, stress and depression. <o:p></o:p></div>
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My guess is that most of the sickness absence in the children's services departments where the <i>What Works Centre’s </i>research project will take place is explained by a few people who have serious chronic conditions, some due to the stressful work they undertake. Rates of sickness absence are unlikely to vary greatly as a result of most people taking a few more or a few less ‘sickies’ and they are very unlikely to be influenced by hygiene factors such as the provision of hot drinks. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Tackling this kind of sickness absence requires not simply nudges – it requires serious thought about the design of the services and the effect of the design on the health and happiness of employees. That, in my humble opinion, is what the <i>What Works Centre </i>should be researching<i>.</i></div>
Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-65205456375390891932019-06-30T11:13:00.000+01:002019-06-30T11:14:40.369+01:00More on the privatisation of the probation service: a model of how not to ‘reform’ child protection<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
The privatisation of the probation service, <a href="http://chrismillsblog.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-probation-service-warning-to-child.html">which some policy analysts have seen as a model of how child protection services in England could be outsourced</a>, comes in for more scathing criticism, this time from an academic study. </div>
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In an article in the journal <i>Work, Employment and Society</i>, Professor Gill Kirton and Dr Cécile Guillaume conclude that the privatisation of the probation service has proved to be a disaster which has resulted in a poorer service. They found evidence of compromised professional standards and which put the public at risk, because offenders have not been properly supervised. <i>The Guardian </i>reports that the researchers found that about one third of the 1,000 probation officers they surveyed said that they had insufficient time to provide adequate supervision.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/30/chris-grayling-probation-privatisation-disaster" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/30/chris-grayling-probation-privatisation-disaster</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Ministers in the Department of Education, which is responsible for children’s social care services in England, must take notice of how private sector involvement in safety critical services can go badly wrong. They need to stop their reckless talk of outsourcing and privatisation and focus instead on ensuring that public services are safe and deliver the high quality services which vulnerable children require. <o:p></o:p></div>
Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-48785266729534717032019-06-26T21:16:00.000+01:002019-06-26T21:16:59.735+01:00Disappearing Health Visitors <div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<i>The Guardian </i>reports that Suffolk County Council is to cut 31 posts from its Health Visitor workforce of 120, being ready to make several redundancies.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/16/mothers-babies-healthcare-visits-suffolk-breastfeeding-postnatal-campbell" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/16/mothers-babies-healthcare-visits-suffolk-breastfeeding-postnatal-campbell</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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More detail on this story can be found in <i>Children and Young People Now</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.cypnow.co.uk/cyp/news/2006812/ditch-plans-to-cut-health-visitor-workforce-urges-union" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.cypnow.co.uk/cyp/news/2006812/ditch-plans-to-cut-health-visitor-workforce-urges-union</a><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="color: #0563c1; text-decoration: underline;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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It is no surprise that this move has drawn a lot of criticism, not only from trades unions but also from MPs and the Local Government Association. Frankly it is a shocking and brutally regressive step that has no possible justification other than short-sighted crude cost cutting.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The British model of health visiting is an excellent one, dating back to before the First World War. Having qualified nurses who visit young children and their families at home is an effective combination of health surveillance and health support. And it is an ideal way of picking up on concerns about potential abuse and neglect before they occur. We do not know how many tragedies health visiting averts, but we do know that it takes only one tragedy to clock up millions of pounds in coroner’s and criminal investigations, court cases, hospitalisations and imprisonments, not to mention serious case reviews and public enquiries. And all the horror and suffering of a maltreated child. </div>
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If anybody is at the front line of protecting and safeguarding very young children, then health visitors are. But our government has reneged on earlier commitments to increase the number of health visitors, which are reported to have fallen in England by nearly 25% since 2015, from 10,309 to 7852. There are now nearly as few health visitors in England as there were in 2011. </div>
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<a href="https://www.cypnow.co.uk/cyp/news/2006152/health-visitors-warn-of-child-tragedy-fears-as-caseloads-rise" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.cypnow.co.uk/cyp/news/2006152/health-visitors-warn-of-child-tragedy-fears-as-caseloads-rise</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Every time you hear a government minister carping on about commitments to child safeguarding and protection in England, you need to remember that they are presiding over reckless cuts in the number of frontline health professionals best placed to bring about early intervention. <o:p></o:p></div>
Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-12112685564483501512019-06-06T14:55:00.001+01:002019-06-06T15:00:46.344+01:00Northamptonshire!<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">The county of Northamptonshire has featured on the pages of this blog on a number of occasions. </span><br />
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<a href="http://chrismillsblog.blogspot.com/2018/11/northamptonshire-childrens-services-in.html" style="color: #954f72; text-decoration: underline;">http://chrismillsblog.blogspot.com/2018/11/northamptonshire-childrens-services-in.html</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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The council has, to put it bluntly, run out of money. In 2018 it announced that the only way to balance its books was to make drastic cuts to its services, including children’s services, to achieve a position in which only the minimum legally required services were provided. Subsequently it appears that a major reorganisation of local government in Northamptonshire is planned, with the existing council being abolished and replaced with new arrangements. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/aug/02/northamptonshire-council-plans-drastic-job-losses-and-cuts-to-all-services" style="color: #954f72; text-decoration: underline;">https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/aug/02/northamptonshire-council-plans-drastic-job-losses-and-cuts-to-all-services</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/29/tory-run-northamptonshire-county-council-bailed-out-by-government" style="color: #954f72; text-decoration: underline;">https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/29/tory-run-northamptonshire-county-council-bailed-out-by-government</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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It is against this background that two children, with whom Northamptonshire’s children’s services had contact during 2017 and 2018, died at the hands of their carers. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Yesterday, two serious case review reports were published. The first examined the circumstances of the death of Dylan Tiffin-Brown, aged 2, who died of cardiac arrest following an assault by his father in December 2017. The second looked into the death of Evelyn-Rose Muggleton, aged one year, who died in April 2018 after being battered by her mother’s partner.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.northamptonshirescb.org.uk/" style="color: #954f72; text-decoration: underline;">http://www.northamptonshirescb.org.uk/</a><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="color: #0563c1; text-decoration: underline;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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A good overview of the reports and other comments is provided in a Guardian article by Patrick Butler.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/05/killings-of-toddlers-highlight-critical-state-of-social-services" style="color: #954f72; text-decoration: underline;">https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/05/killings-of-toddlers-highlight-critical-state-of-social-services</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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The reports list similar failings in both cases: poor decision-making, poor information sharing, being too focused on the adults, not seeing things from the child’s perspective. Mostly, however, they do not try to explain <b><i>why </i></b>these failings occurred. A possible exception, however, is found in the report on Dylan Tiffin-Brown (Child Ak) although the relevant paragraph (3.20) is brief and sketchy. The paragraph lists ‘local strategic level factors’ as potentially impacting on the effectiveness of services. These are:</div>
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<li><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -18pt;">high turnover of staff</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -18pt;">large numbers of agency staff</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -18pt;">significant levels of management sick leave</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -18pt;">ineffective case management and priority monitoring systems compounding problems and resulting in a lack of accuracy in identifying high risks or the need for urgency</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -18pt;">high caseloads</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -18pt;">a focus on ‘imminent danger’</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -18pt;">lack of appropriate escalation</span> </li>
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Sadly that is it! Just a list is given with no discussion or analysis. And then the report reverts to considering what might be described as individual practice and management failings.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Interestingly, the list accords with Ofsted’s findings in Northamptonshire, which were set out in a letter to the council following a “focused visit” in October 2018. An important paragraph in this letter states:</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Against a backdrop of recent significant financial uncertainty and changes in<br />leadership at corporate and managerial levels, services considered during this visithave significantly declined in the past two years since the single inspection in 2016. This uncertainty has contributed to significant shortfalls in social work capacity across the service, resulting in unmanageable caseloads and high volumes of unallocated and unassessed work. Senior leaders are aware of these serious weaknesses and have taken remedial action to respond. However, this has not been effective or with sufficient urgency or rigour. Consequently, at the time of this focused visit there was insufficient capacity in the MASH and the first response teams to meet the needs of children and families.”</span></blockquote>
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<a href="https://files.api.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50037960" style="color: #954f72; text-decoration: underline;">https://files.api.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50037960</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Another paragraph in the Ofsted letter gives more detail of the findings:</div>
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“<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Social work caseloads in the first response teams are too high, with many social workers responsible for between 30 and 50 children. Social workers reported to inspectors that they were ‘overwhelmed’ and ‘drowning’. As a result, visits to children are not sufficient, and rushed home visits lead to superficial, weak assessments, which results in delays in providing support.”</span></blockquote>
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Clearly these are not just ‘contextual factors’, but deep seated substantial organisational problems which cannot fail to impact the quality of practice. So it is deeply surprising to find, as reported in Patrick Butler’s Guardian article, the newly appointed Director of Children’s Services in Northamptonshire responding to the publication of the two reports by saying that "financial considerations" had played <b>no </b>part in the tragedies. She is also quoted in the Daily Mail as saying that there had been a number of “disciplinary outcomes” and that people had left the authority in relation to these cases.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7108345/Scandal-hit-council-slammed-missing-catalogue-chances-save-two-children.html" style="color: #954f72; text-decoration: underline;">https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7108345/Scandal-hit-council-slammed-missing-catalogue-chances-save-two-children.html</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;">It appears that those at the top of Northamptonshire’s management pyramid are in denial about <i>why </i>these children received substandard services. In my view, the Director of Children’s Services should </span><b>not</b> have apologised for poor decision-making and poor information sharing, with the implication that practitioners and first line managers were at fault. She should have pointed to high caseloads, high turnover of staff, high use of agency workers, and to inefficient systems and working practices which result in staff burnout and high levels of sickness absence. Some acceptance that these deep seated issues - and their origins in the collapsing finances of the council - played a significant causal role in what went wrong would have been the beginning of understanding. It would have been the first step to getting things right.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Professor James Reason, a world leading expert in organisational safety tells us that there are two approaches to creating safe services: the person approach and the system approach*. He argues that the person approach, which focuses on identifying the errors of individuals and blaming them for “forgetfulness, inattention, or moral weakness” is not effective. Active failures, he says are like mosquitoes. “They can be swatted one<o:p></o:p></div>
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by one, but they still keep coming.” On the other hand the system approach “… concentrates on the conditions under which individuals work and tries to build defences to avert errors or mitigate their effects”. He concludes that the best remedies for safety failings are to create more effective defences. As he says: “… to drain the swamps in which (the mosquitoes) breed.” Those swamps are what he calls “latent conditions”; by which he means things like high caseloads, high turnover of staff, high use of agency workers, inefficient systems and working practices, staff burnout and high levels of sickness absence.<o:p></o:p></div>
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They need to read some of Reason’s articles in Northamptonshire!<o:p></o:p></div>
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*British Medical Journal 2000;320:768-770 (18 March) <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/320/7237/768" style="color: #954f72; text-decoration: underline;">https://www.bmj.com/content/320/7237/768</a></div>
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Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-22332808847474820402019-05-16T12:59:00.001+01:002019-05-16T12:59:13.427+01:00The Probation Service – a warning (to Child Protection) from recent history<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">In recent years the British government has flirted with ‘outsourcing’ or partial privatisation of child protection services. An argument along the following lines has developed. Child protection services need to improve. The private sector is better at innovating than the public sector. Involvement of private sector companies in child protection would result in beneficial change. Conclusion: we need to outsource. </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
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What is described as ‘an independent research report’ was published in December 2016 by the Department for Education (which is responsible for children’s services in England). This reviews the potential for “developing the capacity and diversity of children’s social care services in England” and has several chapters devoted to explaining and endorsing ‘outsourcing’.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/573035/LaingBuisson_report_December_2016.pdf" style="color: #954f72;">https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/573035/LaingBuisson_report_December_2016.pdf</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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The authors of this report comment:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“We were particularly attracted to the model of ‘tiered’ segmentation applied in the recent national procurement of probation services, where independent sector providers across England have won contracts to run 21 Community Rehabilitation companies to provide support services, leaving the highest level functions only for public sector in‐house supply.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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[Table 4b, page 23.] <o:p></o:p></div>
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They go on to explain how this model could be applied to children’s services.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Oh, how they must now regret those words which were a glaring hostage to fortune, for we read in today’s Guardian that the Probation Service is to be renationalised after what are described as “disastrous” reforms. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/16/part-privatisation-probation-sevices-to-be-reversed-offender-management-nationalised-chris-grayling?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/16/part-privatisation-probation-sevices-to-be-reversed-offender-management-nationalised-chris-grayling?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Dame Glenys Stacey, the chief inspector of probation, whose revelations that offenders were being ‘supervised’ by infrequent phone calls (rather than the expected regular face-to-face contacts) have hastened the re-nationalisation, is quoted by the Guardian as saying that the privatisation was “irredeemably flawed” and that she is delighted at the decision to re-nationalise the service. She is reported to have said: “Probation is a complex social service, and it has proved well-nigh impossible to reduce it to a set of contractual requirements.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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In February of this year the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee issued equally damning criticism of the Probation Service ‘reforms’. It said that unacceptable risks had been taken with taxpayers’ money and that the changes resulted in services which were fragile and underfunded and which failed to command the confidence of the courts. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/03/chris-grayling-probation-changes-took-unacceptable-risks-with-public-money" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/03/chris-grayling-probation-changes-took-unacceptable-risks-with-public-money</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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If our government was sensible (which might be a big ask) then ministers responsible for children's social care in the Department for Education would learn from the Probation Service privatisation fiasco. They would heed the warnings of wise commentators, such as <a href="https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2018/12/12/ray-jones-councils-lose-accountability-childrens-services-families-will-lose-help-need/">Professor Ray Jones</a>, who have warned that the creeping privatisation of children's services will have disastrous results. And they would think very carefully about Glenys Stacey’s insightful comment that the Probation Service is “a complex social service,” and that it has proved “impossible to reduce it to a set of contractual requirements.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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If probation services are complex, which they are, then how much more complex are child protection services? Ministers have an absolute duty to ensure that they do not recklessly upset the apple cart and spawn another disastrous reform which will put children’s lives at risk.</div>
Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-50236352964481642072019-05-01T11:32:00.000+01:002019-05-01T11:32:10.833+01:00The same old story – but it needs telling and telling again<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">The House of Commons Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee has just published a report which confirms all we know about what is happening to children’s services funding in England. Its conclusion is that they are at breaking point with an additional £3 billion required to plug the gap in funding to 2025.</span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
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The report reminds us that there has been an unremitting increase in demand for children's social services in the last ten years, with the number of children in care rising from under 60,000 in 2008 to more than 75,000 in 2018; and that during that period funding has woefully failed to keep up. </div>
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It also draws attention to high rates of staff turnover and points out that children suffer because of changes in social worker and high dependence on temporary agency staff. It concludes that the system is simply not working. <o:p></o:p></div>
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You can download a copy of the report at:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/housing-communities-and-local-government-committee/news/funding-local-childrens-authorities-report-published-17-19/" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/housing-communities-and-local-government-committee/news/funding-local-childrens-authorities-report-published-17-19/</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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or alternatively there is a good summary of it in the <i>Times Educational Supplement.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.tes.com/news/childrens-services-breaking-point-0" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.tes.com/news/childrens-services-breaking-point-0</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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I wonder what part of “There is a funding crisis in children’s services” the government doesn’t understand. For some time now, ministers have heard the same message from virtually every source, but they seem incapable of acknowledging the extent of the problem. Unless they act decisively to put matters right they will have crossed the line from incompetence to wilful neglect of children’s services and of the children they should serve.<o:p></o:p></div>
Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-8701718541216078682019-03-22T15:33:00.001+00:002019-03-23T00:01:11.911+00:00Vulnerable children deserve better - the parlous state of children’s social care in England<div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
An unequivocal report from the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons pulls no punches.</div>
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<a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-accounts-committee/news-parliament-2017/transforming-childrens-services-report-published-17-19/" style="color: #954f72; text-decoration: underline;">https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-accounts-committee/news-parliament-2017/transforming-childrens-services-report-published-17-19/</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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The Committee’s Chair sums it up, concluding that:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Government’s progress with reforming children’s services has been painfully slow and it has still not made clear what sustainable improvements it hopes to achieve. Children, many of them in desperate circumstances, deserve better.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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The report notes the following:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->The Department for Education, which is responsible for children’s services in England, does not possess a comprehensive assessment of the sustainability or resource needs of children’s social care services<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->The sector is not financially sustainable with 91% of local authorities exceeding their budgets for spending on children's services in 2017-18<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->The Department for Education cannot explain the significant variation between local authorities in the activity and cost of children’s social care and it does not have an adequate understanding of demand pressures<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->There is a lack of evidence on the effectiveness of early interventions in children’s social care<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->The Department has not set out what overall improvement it is seeking in children’s social care by 2022<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->There is little evidence of strong cross-government collaboration in improving children’s social care<o:p></o:p></div>
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Criticisms don’t come much more damning than those! The report chimes with so much of what we have been hearing from <a href="https://chrismillsblog.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-crisis-in-childrens-services-in.html">other sources</a> over the years which, sadly, our government seems only to happy to ignore. Ministers' complacency has been staggering.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Committee’s report should be a watershed. Now that MPs have joined the chorus calling for vulnerable children to receive the services they need and deserve, rather than some third rate inadequate and declining alternative, ministers must act and act decisively. It is simply not good enough trotting out the usual excuses about spending a pittance on so-called innovation and other distractions. Urgent action is required to properly fund children’s services now and in the future.</div>
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-->Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-89832601792475211872019-01-06T12:15:00.000+00:002019-01-06T12:17:54.316+00:00Some looked after teenagers face squalid accommodation<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
You don’t need to do more than read the very sobering article in the Observer today to know that local authorities in the UK are struggling to accommodate some looked-after children adequately. The article list numerous cases of authorities using very unsatisfactory Bedsits, Bed and Breakfast accommodation, caravans and even tents (!) to house teenagers.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/06/vulnerable-children-housed-unsupported-in-bedsits-and-bed-and-breakfast" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/06/vulnerable-children-housed-unsupported-in-bedsits-and-bed-and-breakfast</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Marked increases in the use of deeply unsatisfactory accommodation have occurred in the last few years.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It seems to me fairly obvious what the cause of this dire state of affairs is. Local authorities do not have adequate resources to do the job. Ever increasing numbers of children coming into care, on the one hand, and squeezed austerity budgets, on the other, mean only one thing – declining standards.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is deeply shocking that an advanced country like Britain cannot look after its most vulnerable young people satisfactorily. Politicians who preside over this debacle should be ashamed.<o:p></o:p></div>
Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-26999912753165827222018-12-30T11:34:00.000+00:002018-12-30T11:39:12.870+00:00Understanding the impact of stress on error in child protection work should be a priority<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
In a post I made at the beginning of November, I said that there is a lot of evidence that stressed employees do not deliver good products and services.</div>
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<a href="http://chrismillsblog.blogspot.com/2018/11/working-conditions.html" style="color: #954f72;">http://chrismillsblog.blogspot.com/2018/11/working-conditions.html</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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I was therefore interested to read the other day that scientists at Columbia University have recently shown that during stressful times in operating theatres, surgeons make up to 66 percent more mistakes than at other times. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span class="MsoHyperlink" style="color: #0563c1; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://datascience.columbia.edu/surgeons-under-stress-make-more-mistakes-in-operating-room" style="color: #954f72;">https://datascience.columbia.edu/surgeons-under-stress-make-more-mistakes-in-operating-room</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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I don’t expect that the methodology of the Columbia study - which involved the wearing of special clothing which monitored the electrical activity of a surgeon’s heart while operating - could be easily adapted to social workers and other child protection practitioners, working as they do in community settings. However, some research into the relationship between stress and error in child protection work would be a very good idea. And I think it should also look at the impact of both long-term and short-term stress.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Surely such a study is possible. There must be academics out there who could undertake it. And there must be sources of funding that could be found. Understanding the impact of stress on error in child protection work should be a priority.</div>
Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-33364230916402931362018-12-14T12:38:00.001+00:002018-12-14T12:38:55.279+00:00Outsourcing<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
I am very pleased to see that Professor Ray Jones is publishing a book on the outsourcing of children’s services. He is, of course, a well-known critic of the increasing involvement of private companies in the delivery of children’s social care.<o:p></o:p></div>
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According to an article in <i><a href="https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2018/12/12/ray-jones-councils-lose-accountability-childrens-services-families-will-lose-help-need/">Community Care</a></i>, Jones argument in his new book is that accountability is being lost in the burgeoning number of moves to an “alternative delivery model” in such places as Richmond-and-Kingston, Doncaster, Slough, Sandwell and Worcestershire. According to Jones, Directors of Children’s Services, in areas where outsourcing occurs, will be increasingly faced with the loss of “information and intelligence” about what is happening in those services.</div>
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He is absolutely right. And fortuitously the launch of his book coincides with news of a major public sector outsourcing fiasco in which the British Army outsourced its recruitment to a large private sector company with extremely disappointing results. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/14/495m-contract-led-to-army-recruitment-shortfalls-auditors-find">The Guardian says</a> that government officials did not understand how <i>complex </i>the project was before signing the deal.</div>
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If recruiting soldiers is a very complicated business, how much more complex is protecting children from abuse and neglect? And how much more complicated will the outsourcing contracts have to be in order to ensure that the outsourcers deliver what is promised? If the Army can get outsourcing a relatively straightforward service so badly wrong, how much more likely is it that local authorities will get the outsourcing of a very complex professional service (like child protection) wrong? I suggest it is very likely.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Interestingly the business literature on outsourcing does not provide much support for the kind of outsourcing deals which the government is trying to foist on children’s services in England. In a seminal work on offshoring and outsourcing, Oshri, Kotlarsky, and Willcocks* argue that activities which constitute the basis or core of an organisation’s operation (which they call ‘order winners’) should <i>always</i>be kept in house. On the other hand ‘necessary evils’ such as administration, payroll or facilities management are usually good candidates for outsourcing. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The government, in contrast, propounds policies for child protection outsourcing which involve core activities being transferred lock, stock and barrel to outsourcers. And the government provides no account of why outsourcers would be any better at delivering these core activities than local authorities. The reality is that local authorities are being pressurised into adopting strategies for which there is no evidence and no clear business rationale. That does not seem sensible to me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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If the government were proposing outsourcing only back-office services, I would have some sympathy. As it is I have to agree with Ray Jones – we should be “scared” about what is happening. Even if ministers do not listen to social work academics like Jones, or to business academics or other experts, one would hope that they would at least be chastened by what is happening to government outsourcing deals in defence and other spheres and heed the warnings. But I don't expect they will.<o:p></o:p></div>
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*Ilan Oshri, Julia Kotlarsky, Professor Leslie P. Willcocks <u>The Handbook of Global Outsourcing and Offshoring </u>Palgrave Macmillan, 2011 <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hYQzxD9MSR0C&dq=order+winners,+necessary+evils&source=gbs_navlinks_s" style="color: #954f72;">https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hYQzxD9MSR0C&dq=order+winners,+necessary+evils&source=gbs_navlinks_s</a><o:p></o:p></div>
Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-4258220399207407642018-12-04T12:54:00.001+00:002018-12-04T12:54:39.478+00:00Health Visitors are essential for effective child protection<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<o:p> </o:p><a href="https://www.careappointments.co.uk/care-news/england/item/45696-over-stretched-health-visitors-fear-possible-tragedies-involving-children">An article in </a><i><a href="https://www.careappointments.co.uk/care-news/england/item/45696-over-stretched-health-visitors-fear-possible-tragedies-involving-children">Care Appointments</a> </i>reports on a poll of 1,200 Health Visitors in England which reveals an over-stretched service and concerns that tragedies could occur because vulnerable children may not be identified until it is too late.</div>
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It was found that less qualified, non-registered practitioners were being used in some areas to conduct child health and development checks, so that Health Visitors could concentrate on working with children already identified as vulnerable. Another undesirable practice of providing early contacts over the phone had also arisen. Forty-three percent of the respondents to the survey reported being so stretched that they feared a tragedy could occur. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The survey puts into dramatic focus the effects of the continuing cuts to public health budgets in England, resulting in the loss of about 25% of the health visiting workforce during the past three years, with another round of cuts due in 2019/20. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Health visiting, which is conducted by qualified nurses and midwives who have also gained an additional health visiting qualification, has a long and distinguished tradition in Britain, dating back to the late nineteenth century. Child health and development checks, carried out by Health Visitors, play a vital role in child safeguarding and protection, often providing the kind of early warning which otherwise would not be available. Not infrequently the Health Visitor is the only professional in regular contact with families with small children.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Not funding health visiting properly is a false economy. It is self-evident that early intervention, before serious neglect or abuse occurs, is preferable to late intervention. And the more we understand about the impact of early abuse and neglect on a child’s subsequent development, the more we understand that not providing effective health support and advice services to young families - and health monitoring of children during the early years - is as foolish as it is penny-pinching. <o:p></o:p></div>
Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-23225812029075426122018-11-13T18:06:00.000+00:002018-11-13T18:06:24.239+00:00Northamptonshire Children’s Services – in deep trouble<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">The BBC reports that the inspectorate, Ofsted, has condemned Northamptonshire’s children’s services as a "potential risk" and describes children’s social workers at the effectively bankrupt council as "overwhelmed" and "drowning". Services are said to have "significantly declined" since 2016.</span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
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<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-46194890" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-46194890</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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You don’t need to be a genius to know why services in Northamptonshire are in deep trouble. The council has run out of cash and is seeking ways of further reducing spending on services which have already been cut to the bone. Nobody can provide good services to looked after children or conduct thorough enquiries into child protection concerns if there aren’t the resources to do the job. </div>
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The BBC article mentions social work caseloads of between 30 and 50 children per social worker. If that is correct, it is far too high. Ten to fifteen cases is more the mark.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ofsted inspectors must know that resources are the problem. Councillors and senior managers in Northamptonshire must know that too. Government ministers must know that – surely they must know that!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Carrying on trying to provide adequate services with inadequate budgets will result in only one thing: children unnecessarily put at risk or deprived of adequate care. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Central government now needs to stump up the cash to provide proper children’s services in Northamptonshire, pending whatever reorganisation of the council eventually emerges. Wait-and-see is not an option. Vulnerable children and young people in Northamptonshire need action now.</div>
Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-91938913973350096772018-11-08T16:39:00.000+00:002018-11-08T16:56:11.567+00:00The Crisis in Children’s Services in England <div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
Hard on the heels of <a href="http://chrismillsblog.blogspot.com/2018/11/working-conditions.html">recent discussions concerning the working conditions of children’s social workers in Britain</a>, comes more confirmation of the dire state of children’s services in the age of austerity.</div>
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The Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) has released its <a href="http://adcs.org.uk/assets/documentation/ADCS_SAFEGUARDING_PRESSURES_PHASE_6_FINAL.pdf">sixth annual report of Safeguarding Pressures research </a>covering the financial year 2017/18. It concludes (page 119) that over the ten year period covered by the six phases of the research, there were:</div>
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<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">More initial contacts with children and families - <b>up by 78%</b> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">More referrals - <b>up by 22%</b></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">More Section 47 enquiries (investigations into concerns of significant harm to children) - <b>up by an eye-watering 159%</b></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">More children being made the subjects of child protection plans - <b>up by 87%</b></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">More children who are looked after by the local authority - <b>up by 24%</b> </span></li>
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The report notes that “These increases are higher than the growth in child population alone could account for and increases in 2017/18 have been greater than the previous year.” (page 119)</div>
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Commenting on the funding position the report notes:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Local authorities have protected and invested in children’s services despite devastating cuts to their budgets using reserves or diverting funds from other services, yet we hear that worse impacts may yet be to come. This situation is simply not tenable with many respondents and other sources stating that services can no longer be protected going forward. The tipping point has been reached.” (page 120)</div>
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As part of its coverage of these findings on 6<sup>th</sup>November 2018, the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000113f">BBC Radio 4’s PM programme</a> had interviews with <a href="http://www.lse.ac.uk/">LSE</a> professors Eileen Munro and Martin Knapp. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Munro said that children’s services have had 'gigantic' funding cuts, and have more to come, and face rising caseloads. She went on to say that that in order to do good work social workers have to be able to spend time with families and they need to have time to think about what they do. That was not possible if they were overworked and under-funded.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Knapp said that there was strong research evidence that early intervention services (which have been hit hardest by spending cuts) result in considerable economic payoffs, which in the long run reduce the costs of late intervention, such as taking a child into care. However, he saw no signs that the government was willing to accept this argument and that cuts to preventative services were seen by ministers as being an easy option. The BBC interviewer, Evan Davis, summarising Knapp’s comments, described what was happening as “bonkers budgeting”. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Interestingly no government minister was available to appear on the show.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The ADCS and people like Professors Munro and Knapp are not hysterics. They are not serial purveyors of doom or professional shroud waivers. What they say is based on hard facts and sensible analysis. And what they are saying is that there is now a crisis in children’s services. Government cannot just go on and on cutting and cutting resources while demand for services increases unremittingly. The ‘tipping point’ (to use the phrase used in the ADCS report) has been reached.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But there is no evidence that government is taking this seriously. Ministers seem to be carrying on with business as usual while the pressure cooker that is children’s services in England reaches the point of explosion. Rather than uttering platitudes and pretending that there is no crisis, ministers need to act decisively and quickly to prevent disaster.</div>
Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-82271386631499639962018-11-05T16:11:00.001+00:002018-11-05T16:14:32.418+00:00Working Conditions<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">There is a lot of evidence that stressed employees do not deliver good products and services. A recent article in the Guardian makes the point that British people work longer hours than many of their counterparts in Europe and that they are less productive, as a result. It is reported that now some British companies are reducing the working week to four days in an attempt to improve the health and happiness of employees and to increase efficiency and productivity.</span><br />
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<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/nov/05/firms-switched-four-day-week-increase-efficiency-health-happiness?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/nov/05/firms-switched-four-day-week-increase-efficiency-health-happiness?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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That news coincides with the publication of the latest <i>UK Social Workers Working Conditions Report </i>prepared by researchers at Bath Spa University and funded by the British Association of Social Workers and the Social Workers Union. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Being an update on a similar publication in 2017, this report makes for even grimmer reading. It was found that social workers, including children’s social workers, experienced working conditions contributing to stress and ill-health that are worse than nearly all other UK employees in both public and private sectors, . Social workers work an average of eleven hours per week in excess of their contracted hours and sixty percent were found to be considering leaving their current jobs (compared to 52% in 2017). Nearly 40% of respondents were looking to leave the profession entirely. The main factors contributing to stress were found to be high case and administrative loads and lack of resources. Over 40% of social workers had been exposed to aggressive or physically abusive behaviours at least once a month from service users.</div>
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There is nothing new in any of this research. It just confirms a well-established and deteriorating situation. For many years children’s social workers in Britain have not been well treated well and in recent years they have had to endure hotdesking, poor office accommodation and sub-standard IT support. <o:p></o:p></div>
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None of that bodes well for the quality of services. Overworked and over stressed people cannot provide top quality services. It is just not possible to respond to the complex human needs of a family under stress or a distressed maltreated child if you yourself are over-stretched and over-stressed.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Good child protection practice requires social workers who can work sensitively and reflectively to bring about the best possible outcomes for the children they serve. They will not be able to do that if their employers continue to subject them to poor working conditions.<o:p></o:p></div>
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If private companies believe that they can get more from their employees by treating them well - and introducing a four day week - then maybe the public sector should consider doing that for their employees too. If child protection social workers can be given less stressful working conditions - and more time and space to reflect on what is happening to a child or a family - then most likely the right decisions would be made more often. Getting things right in the first place - working more productively - means less rework and less waste of scarce resources. So paradoxically less work can actually equal greater output. </div>
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Local authority employers need to wake up. The current climate of stress and overwork and fear results in worse and less efficient services. Urgent change is required.</div>
Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-91037803350045956042018-10-23T12:00:00.000+01:002018-10-23T12:02:01.067+01:00Health Visitors<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">A report by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner into vulnerable babies in England has recently been published. </span><br />
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It pulls together some recent statistics in a helpful way but concludes that much of the data is missing and that only best estimates can be given of the numbers of babies living in high-risk households. The report notes that “.. very little data is collected or collated about vulnerable babies, and that the data which does exist is often reported for children in age brackets (0-4) and not broken down for babies under a year old.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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That having been said the report produces an estimate of around 15,800 babies in England under one year of age considered by local authorities to be vulnerable or highly vulnerable and still living at home on 31 March 2017. The report also estimates that there are around 100,000 young children aged 0-5 living in high risk households who are not recognised as ‘children in need’ including 14,000 babies under the age of 1. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The report urges the government to address urgently the under resourcing of local authority children’s services departments. It notes that Health Visitors may be the only professionals to see a baby regularly in the vulnerable early months. It recommends increasing the number of mandatory health visitor visits for families where known risk factors are present, improved referral pathways from health visitors to health children’s social care services. It suggests that there needs to be “close monitoring of the adequacy of provision of health visitors now that funding for them has transferred to local authorities”.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The report is very right to recognise the importance of Health Visitors. But it is far from clear that the government does! In fact it appears that the government is presiding over swingeing cuts in services. A report by the Royal College of Nursing has found that the health visiting workforce fell from 10,309 to 8,275 between October 2015 and January 2018 and there are concerns that the future arrangements for local authority funding will see an accelerated decline in spending. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.nursinginpractice.com/article/rcn-congress-votes-lobby-dhsc-reverse-public-health-nurse-cuts" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.nursinginpractice.com/article/rcn-congress-votes-lobby-dhsc-reverse-public-health-nurse-cuts</a> <o:p></o:p></div>
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Research suggests that Health Visitors, who were once considered essential members of every primary health care team, have now become detached and their falling numbers mean that in many areas there is only patchy contact between them and other health professionals.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://bjgp.org/content/67/656/102" style="color: #954f72;">https://bjgp.org/content/67/656/102</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Anybody who is serious about <i>early intervention </i>has to accept that high quality and well-resourced child health monitoring services have to be provided, especially during the first year of life and extending throughout the pre-school period. <o:p></o:p></div>
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A government that allows such services to wither on the vine is neglecting its responsibilities to very young children, which is a disgrace.</div>
Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-38177015253514408692018-10-23T08:55:00.000+01:002018-10-23T08:55:40.635+01:00Breaking Point<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">“There is compelling evidence that the services and support that children and young people rely on are at breaking point.” </span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">So say the heads of 120 voluntary and statutory organisations providing children’s health, education and social care services in <a href="https://www.ncb.org.uk/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/Policy_docs/Reports/Letter%20to%20PM%20and%20Chancellor%20FINAL3.pdf">a joint open letter</a> to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
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Anna Feuchtwang, Chair of End Child Poverty and Chief Executive of the National Children’s Bureau, who is one of the signatories, is quoted in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/23/childrens-services-at-breaking-point-experts-say?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other">the Guardian</a> as saying that services once taken for granted, such as family support, children’s centres and respite care for families with disabled children, have become “the privilege of the few” and that essential lifelines have been “cut to the bone”. </div>
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It is hard to argue with such a wide range of informed and expert opinion. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor need to take this letter very seriously. Children’s services are at breaking point. If they are allowed to collapse, the consequences for many children and young people will be dire. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Any politicians who allow that to happen will not be easily forgiven. </div>
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Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-66953690437098579812018-09-17T11:18:00.000+01:002018-09-17T11:18:43.533+01:00Predicting Child Maltreatment – it just ain’t that simple<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">It is interesting to read in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/sep/16/councils-use-377000-peoples-data-in-efforts-to-predict-child-abuse?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other">the Guardian</a> that some English local authorities are working to develop a predictive model for their children’s services teams. The plan seems to be to apply algorithms to big data sets in order to predict which children and families are at risk. The Guardian article notes that these initiatives may be a response to financial pressures on local councils as a result of austerity policies. Presumably the thought is that services could be targeted more accurately.</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">But predictive analytics are not as straightforward as they might seem. Any attempt to predict which groups might be at risk of disease or injury or other unwanted outcomes will involve making both correct and incorrect predictions about individuals. In addition to forecasting</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">true positives </i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">and</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">true negatives, </i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">systems will also forecast</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">false positives </i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">and</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">false negatives</i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">. The trick, of course, is to devise ways of reducing the numbers of false positives and false negatives, but even fairly accurate predictors can generate quite a lot. And that raises important practical and ethical questions about how to treat ‘at risk’ groups where a sizeable proportion of members are not actually at risk. If we could be sure of predicting all and only those children who would be abused or neglected, then we could justify strong intrusive interventions to stop maltreatment occurring, but we cannot justify doing that to families who have just been caught up because a predictive system is not very accurate.</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
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Studies of risk prediction models for child maltreatment indicate that some can be effective in identifying at risk groups, but some predictive models have been found to be much more accurate than others (<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2895316/">Begle et al 2010</a>). A recent meta-analysis (<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28945998">van der Put et al 2017</a>) concludes that twenty seven different risk assessment instruments have been found to have “a moderate predictive accuracy”. Analysis also revealed that the instruments were better at predicting the onset of maltreatment than its recurrence. </div>
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A New Zealand study (<a href="https://www.msd.govt.nz/documents/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/research/vulnerable-children/auckland-university-can-administrative-data-be-used-to-identify-children-at-risk-of-adverse-outcome.pdf">Vaithianathan et al, 2012)</a> found that the use of a predictive algorithm (PRM) applied to children under age of two had fair-to-good, strength in predicting maltreatment by age five, which compared with the predictive strength of mammograms (screening) for detecting breast cancer in the general population. But the authors note that were PRM used to identify families requiring preventive treatment, <b>twenty-seven </b>families would need to take up a the programme in order to avoid <b>one </b>child experiencing maltreatment. They conclude that a full ethical evaluation of the model would be necessary before implementation. They also believe that there is a need for extreme caution before implementing mandatory policies for high risk families and that it is preferable if scores are used to engage high risk families in voluntary rather than mandatory services.</div>
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Similar points are made by <a href="https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/893821">Dr Art Caplan</a>, head of the Division of Medical Ethics at the NYU School of Medicine. In addition he stresses that unless there is an effective program to help parents learn how not to be abusive, then simply forecasting the likelihood of maltreatment will bring “stigma and penalty” to the children and families involved without bringing help. He argues that it does no good to have knowledge of a bad outcome unless something effective can be done to prevent it. </div>
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I am not completely against developing predictive instruments, but I am completely against developing them behind closed doors and without the proper analytical and ethical scrutiny that is required to justify their use. No predictive model should be used without a public audit of its accuracy. And no predictive model should be used behind closed doors without being subject to the oversight of an ethical committee. </div>
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Local authorities and their private sector contractors should not be allowed to spend large sums of public money on systems of this type without being prepared to demonstrate publicly that they do more good than harm. </div>
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Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-49491008207333744712018-08-27T11:06:00.000+01:002018-08-30T02:32:12.285+01:00More fiddling while Rome burns<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">They say that the Roman emperor Nero played his fiddle while the city burned. The phrase ‘fiddling while Rome burns’ means doing something ineffectual at a time of great crisis. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">S</span><span style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;">omebody certainly seems to have been playing a fiddle while the cash-strapped </span><span style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;">Northamptonshire County Council has been edging closer to </span><span style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;">collapse. </span><br />
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<a href="https://www.cypnow.co.uk/cyp/news/2005680/troubled-council-puts-plans-to-outsource-childrens-services-on-hold">An article in <i>Children and Young People Now</i></a> details a sorry story of messing about with plans to establish a limited company, to be called <i>Children's First Northamptonshire</i>, to deliver children’s services. This idea has now been scrapped because of uncertainty about the future arrangements for local government in Northamptonshire with the possibility of two new unitary authorities being created. How much time and effort and <i>money </i>has been frittered away, I wonder, in planning for this outsourcing only for it all to be put on hold.</div>
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Not that putting outsourcing on hold is altogether a bad idea. I have a lot of sympathy with the <a href="http://www.unisonnorthants.org.uk/">Unison</a> Northamptonshire branch secretary, Penny Smith, who is quoted by <i>Children and Young People Now </i>as saying that outsourcing is unpopular with staff and that adding yet another layer of responsibility is not good for the children who are receiving services.</div>
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Messing about with structures and flirting with outsourcings and privatisations can squander time and money to no good end. And it focuses attention in the wrong place. Good high quality services don’t miraculously come about because governance arrangements are altered to reflect the ideologies of leaders. They come about because careful detailed attention is given to understanding the causes of poor quality and service failures and empowering staff at all levels to make the necessary improvements. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Big plans often end in tears. On the other hand, frequent small changes, based on the knowledge and experience of frontline workers, can cumulate quickly to improve continuously the quality of services. Let’s hope that what happens next in Northamptonshire is based on a sensible improvement strategy; not an ideological pipe dream. </div>
Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427485046920074125.post-53812517889556250552018-08-26T19:13:00.000+01:002018-08-26T19:16:46.072+01:00Act in haste ….<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">“Act in haste, repent at leisure” – so says the old proverb. But acting in haste appears to be what failing local authority children’s services in England are being required to do by the inspectorate, Ofsted, and by central government, in the shape of the Department for Education, which is responsible for child protection policy.</span><br />
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An article in <i><a href="https://www.cypnow.co.uk/cyp/news/2005662/ofsted-to-require-struggling-councils-produce-urgent-action-plans">Children and Young People Now</a> </i>reports that Ofsted is to require failing councils to produce a draft improvement plan within 20 days, as opposed to the existing arrangement of 70 days.</div>
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To some that may sound like good news, because prompt action sounds business-like. But to my mind it is likely to encourage a rush to judgement and even more top-down imposition of so-called ‘improvements’. </div>
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When things go wrong in an organisation, and the quality of its services declines, the first thing to do is to put in hand activities which will establish what has gone wrong and why. That’s what I call ‘analysis’ – understanding the extent and causes of poor quality. Now whatever else it is, <i>analysis </i>is not easy. It requires reflection and self-criticism and insight. It requires data collection and probing and evaluation. It requires thought – lots of it. And it requires <i>time</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Shooting from the hip happens when management reacts to a situation too rapidly: quick, we need to act, do something. Nearly always shooting from the hip leads to more problems than it solves. There is one thing worse than not tackling a problem; it is tackling the <i>wrong </i>problem. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Twenty days is a very short period of time – less than three weeks. I would guess that rapidly composed improvement plans will be disproportionately influenced by senior managers, because there will not be time to include people across the organisation in a rush to get the plan agreed. That means that it is likely that the people who know most about the extent and causes of poor quality – those who work at the front line of service provision – will not be involved. And when senior managers begin to implement <i>their </i>plan it is more likely than not that it will not be received with enthusiasm by practitioners. It is likely to appear to them as being off-target and unrealistic. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The key to better children’s services is not flash-in-the-pan rapid reaction. It is systematic, careful and insightful analysis. Somehow I don’t think that Ofsted and the Government have learnt that yet.</div>
Chris Mills ...http://www.blogger.com/profile/05811412806645539128noreply@blogger.com