Ofsted gets tough on early years

A tougher inspection regime for early years services is to be introduced from September under plans unveiled by Ofsted.

The children’s services watchdog has published a consultationoutlining changes it wants to make to the way that nurseries, pre-schools and childminders are inspected.

Under the plans, the existing “satisfactory” rating will be replaced with “requires improvement” and settings that achieve this grade will face more frequent inspections and have four years to become “good”.

Nurseries and pre-schools that fail to move up from “requires improvement” to “good” after two consecutive inspections are likely to be judged “inadequate”.

And inadequate-rated settings that do not improve by the time of their next inspection will face having their registration cancelled.

Ofsted’s chief inspector Michael Wilshaw said: “We must be tougher on weak settings.

“From September 2013, nurseries and pre-schools judged less than good will need to improve rapidly.

“I want the new designation of “requires improvement” to act as a catalyst to get all early years providers to “good” as soon as possible.”

He added that good and outstanding early years services will be encouraged to help those deemed less than good.

“We know that the best schools are joining forces and we anticipate that this will happen in the early years,” he said.

Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Pre-School Learning Alliance, said changing the rating description would make no difference to quality if settings lacked the support they need to improve.

“The government is soon to remove the role that local authorities play in supporting their local settings and training support for the sector has been reduced by 40 per cent in the last year,” he said.

“At the same time the government is proposing that nursery workers look after up to 50 per cent more children – a move that parents themselves overwhelmingly oppose.

“While we welcome the aspiration of high-quality childcare, without a rethink on policy and adequate funding from government, we struggle to see how a real improvement will be made.”

Ofsted’s consultation on the plans is open until 24 May.

Source: CYP Now

In March 2013, Cafcass received a total of 925 applications. This is a 3% increase on March 2012 levels and is the highest number of applications for that single month.

Key findings from 2012/13:

• Between April 2012 and March 2013, Cafcass received a total of 11,055 applications. This figure is 8% higher when compared to the 2011/12 financial year.
• The 998 applications received in February 2013 were the highest ever recorded for a single month.
• Applications received during all months in 2012/13 (apart from June 2012) this financial year have been the highest ever recorded by Cafcass for these individual months.
• The comparatively lower demand in June 2012 is believed to be due the additional Bank Holidays in that month.

School project tackles parental drug abuse

Action on Addiction and Place2Be have joined forces to offer school-based services to children and families affected by parental substance abuse.

The move will see the addiction charity training staff from Place2Be, which runs mental health services in schools, to deliver its Moving Parents and Children Together (M-PACT) programme.

Action on Addiction’s M-PACT programme has been running since 1986 and consists of an eight-week intervention where families with substance addiction problems take part in weekly group work sessions to address their behaviour.

The new schools-based version of the programme, M-PACT Plus, will be delivered in schools by Place2Be, starting with Willows Primary School in Manchester.

“This collaboration with Place2Be will allow M-PACT to reach even more of the children and families that need our help,” said Nick Barton, chief executive of Action on Addiction.

“Children of problematic substance users can receive little support despite being so at risk. Our project with Place2Be means more young people and families will get the specialist support they need.”

The work is being funded by The Royal Foundation and Comic Relief.

Source: CYPNow

Call to address sexual behaviour

The NSPCC wants action to tackle sexually harmful behaviour carried out by children and young people

Youth offending might be falling, but sexual offences by under-18s show little sign of decline.

The most recent Youth Justice Board figures show that children and young people committed 1,888 proven sexual offences in 2011/12, down 3.3 per cent on the 1,952 in 2009/10. However, this compares to a 22.2 per cent fall in the total number of crimes committed by young people in the same period.

There is a range of reasons why children and young people commit sexual offences, from a lack of boundaries growing up to being victims of sexual abuse themselves. There are also growing concerns that the ease of access to hardcore pornography online is making the situation worse.

But local services are not always geared up to spot or deal with the problem, and this gap in provision has prompted the NSPCC to call for more specialist services and training for police, social workers and teachers.

Jon Brown, head of strategy and development at the NSPCC, says awareness of sexually harmful behaviour by young people is increasing, but that more work is needed.

Source: CYPNow

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Working Together to Safeguard Children: key revisions explained

The old adage that size does not matter is clearly not a mantra at the Department for Education.

Last month’s publication of the revised Working Together to Safeguard Children guidance marks the completion of almost two years’ graft by civil servants to slim down the previous 600-page incarnation of the document.

But given that the underlying legal framework for safeguarding remains unchanged, what does the new, streamlined 97-page version change?

Much of the content was previewed in the draft document put out for consultation in June last year, but a number of key changes have been made to the final version, which comes into force on 15 April.

The three draft guidance documents consulted on have been merged into one. It contains new accountability measures for local safeguarding children boards (LSCBs), changes to the way serious case reviews can be carried out and a shake-up of assessment timescales. In addition, specific responsibilities for individual organisations are clarified – with a total of 16 agencies referred to.

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Government misses child trafficking deadline

The government has come under fire for failing to meet a deadline to provide guardians for children who have been trafficked into the UK.

The children’s charity Ecpat UK said an EU directive from 2011, due to be implemented by 6 April, should also have resulted in the creation of an anti-trafficking commissioner, and action to prevent prosecutions of trafficked children who have been forced into crime.

Bharti Patel, chief executive of Ecpat, said the government’s current approach to trafficked children is “not up to scratch”.

”The government states that it has a series of ‘equivalent mechanisms’ that bring it into compliance with the EU directive,” she said.

“Quite simply, these are not up to scratch. As long as the government continues to shy away from fully committing itself to the directive’s measures, our ability to effectively combat human trafficking and protect its victims will be seriously undermined.

“We urge the government to wholeheartedly commit to the introduction of these measures as part of our shared mission to effectively tackle a crime that is tantamount to modern-day slavery.”

Last month, the Children’s Society called on the government to take urgent action to protect child victims of trafficking after a reportestimated there were almost 400 cases of children in modern-day slavery in the UK in 2012.

The study by the Centre for Social Justice found children had been subjected to forced labour, sexual exploitation, domestic servitude and forced criminality.

A Home Office spokesman said: “Human trafficking is abhorrent and we are committed to combating this crime in all its forms.

“That is why we opted into the EU directive in July 2011 and why we have taken additional steps to fully comply with the directive and strengthen our approach.

“From later this year the National Crime Agency will build on existing work to combat trafficking by using its enhanced crime fighting and intelligence capabilities to target criminal gangs.”

Source: CYPNoq

Online adoption gateway opens

The government today launched an online portal that will act as a national “gateway” for prospective adopters.

The First4Adoption website brings together information about the adoption process in a single place.

The Department for Education hopes the site will help England’s estimated four million potential adopters understand the adoption process.

Children’s minister Edward Timpson said the site would also dispel myths that put off prospective adopters and complement the existing adoption information line 0300 222 0022.

“Every child deserves a loving home, but too many children are waiting too long,” he said.

“I want no prospective parent to be in any doubt that the government, and the whole system, are on their side.

“For too long families have been deterred by baffling, over wieldy and unduly slow processes, or by myths around the types of families sought.”

To coincide with the launch of First4Adoption, the DfE publishedresearch showing that up to four million people in England are “fairly likely”, “very likely” or “certain to” consider adopting in the future.

First4Adoption is being run by the children’s charity Coram, Adoption UK and the Coram Children’s Legal Centre.

Shuna Kennedy, director of the British Association for Adoption & Fostering, welcomed the launch of the site.

“With such a desperate need for more adopters, First4Adoption can only be considered a very positive initiative,” she said.

“To have a resource where those thinking about adoption can quickly and easily get professional help and information about the adoption process, and where and how to apply, will surely encourage more people to take that very important first step towards giving a child or children a safe, permanent and loving home through adoption.”

But the children’s charity Barnardo’s warned that First4Adoption’s goal of recruiting more adopters would be undermined by other government reforms of the adoption system.

“It is bewildering to see the government working hard to improve the adoption system while putting contradictory plans into place,” said Janet Grauberg, director of strategy at the children’s charity.

“The government’s own evidence highlights the urgent need to simplify the adoption process, yet it is proposing to introduce a new level of complexity into proceedings.

“First4Adoption aims to eliminate barriers that have put off potential parents for too long, but the government threats to stop councils from recruiting adopters will do quite the opposite.”

She added: “To increase numbers of adoptive parents, all recruitment streams must be kept open and recent reforms allowed time to take effect.”

The DfE also released its latest set of adoption maps today. They show how many children are up for adoption and the supply of adopters in each English local authority area.

The maps are based on local authority figures and do not include data from voluntary adoption agencies.

Source: CYPNow

DfE axes Children’s Improvement Board funding

The government is to stop funding the Children’s Improvement Board just two years after it was set up, it has been announced.

The body, which is responsible for helping councils improve their children’s services and implementing government policies, received £10.5m from the Department for Education (DfE) in 2011/12 and £8m in 2012/13.

But the board has now been told that it will not be funded in the current financial year.

A DfE spokesman said it was always intended that support for the board would be “time-limited” and that, in the longer term, “sector-led improvement should mean ‘sector-funded’”.

The board’s director, Colin Hilton, warned that the move risks jeopardising work to improve local authority performance on adoption, sexual exploitation and learning from child abuse cases.

“We knew this funding was always going to be time-limited, but this announcement comes as a complete shock when we are already a week into the new financial year,” he said.

“It leaves no time for contingency planning and puts at risk the good work carried out by the Children’s Improvement Board in supporting councils to improve their children’s services.

“Since the ministerial announcement of our continued funding last autumn, we have worked with the DfE and agreed on plans for improving performance on adoption, tackling child sexual exploitation and learning lessons from serious case reviews. This decision will now throw this important work into doubt.

“We know Whitehall intervention is not the answer to protecting vulnerable children and a sector-led approach is the best way forward.

“However, such work needs to be adequately resourced and it is untenable to throw the full weight of this on councils, which are already contending with government cuts to their budgets by a third.”

Established in 2011, the board is a partnership between the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS), the Local Government Association and the council chief executives’ group SOLACE.

Andrew Webb, president of the ADCS, said local authorities are working hard to improve the services they provide and there has been improvement since the board was introduced.

“The strengths of peer-to-peer support and challenge are well recognised as a way of driving sustainable improvement and have proven not only to deliver results, but also to be cost-effective,” he said.

“In a time of diminishing budgets and rising expectations of what children’s services can and should deliver, the Children’s Improvement Board was a vital way of driving improvement.

“The decision to abolish it is out of step with the progress being made by the sector with its help.”

A DfE spokesman said: “It is the responsibility of local government, working with delivery partners, to lead its own performance improvement and take individual and collective responsibility for achieving better outcomes for children.

“At a national level, the department will continue to work to drive improvement across children’s services; freeing up local authorities from unnecessary bureaucracy, improving the quality of the workforce and taking focused action in areas where performance across the country is not strong enough.

“Our work on adoption, on early years and on implementing the Munro Review of Child Protection are just some areas where we have made significant progress this year.”

Source: CYPNow

Care applications reach new record high

The number of care applications has risen by eight per cent in the past year, according to latest statistics from Cafcass.

Figures for the 12 months between April 2012 and March 2013 show the organisation received a total of 11,055 applications – the highest recorded in a single year. The figure for 2011/12 was 10,244.

In February 2013 alone, there were 998 applications – the highest on record for a single month.

Despite increases in care application demand, the length of care cases has dropped, from 54 weeks in 2011/12 to 45 weeks in the third quarter of 2012/13.

Anthony Douglas, chief executive of Cafcass, said the organisation is working hard with courts, local authority services and agencies to reduce unnecessary delays for children and young people going through care proceedings.

“While pressure continues to come from the increase in application numbers, we know that these applications are being brought in a more timely and better prepared way than was the case in 2008, when we first witnessed a large increase following the Baby Peter case in Haringey,” he said.

“Work will continue over the coming year, both at national and local levels, to ensure we are working together to provide the best service possible to the children we support.”

Cafcass is also continuing to experience high levels of private law cases. In March, a total of 4,001 new applications were passed to the organisation, a one per cent increase on March 2012.

The organisation has said the increase appears to be linked to changes regarding legal aid, which came into effect on 1 April. Most parents will no longer be eligible for legal aid in disputes about children following separation or divorce

Source: CYP Now