Two new pilot ‘What Works for Children’s Social Care‘ projects have released their interim reports.
The first project has placed social workers in schools in three local authorities in England and is showing early signs of improving inter-agency working and building more collaborative relationships with children, young people and families. Social workers have been embedded in schools in Lambeth, Stockport and Southampton and the interim reports, which explore the progress of the pilot in its first phase, have recently been published.
The second project has focused on devolving budgets to social workers to allow them to find creative solutions to family problems. This has been broadly viewed as popular by practitioners, despite some initial issues. Social workers in Darlington, Hillingdon and Wigan reported that the devolved budgets have allowed them to help families in ways that would otherwise not have been possible, and helped them engage families and build stronger relationships.
The Centre plans to publish the final reports for all project strands in March 2020.
Read more on the interim results from Devolved Budgets pilots.
Read more on the interim results from social workers in schools pilots