Red tape and blame culture discouraged in new statutory guidance
Children’s social care leaders in England must create cultures of “curiosity, learning and reflection” rather than blame, new statutory guidance states.
They must also “remove unnecessary bureaucracy”, ensure social workers have manageable workloads backed by regular reflective supervision and provide training opportunities.
The duties are spelled out in the Children’s Social Care National Framework produced by the Department for Education to ensure greater consistency of service delivery across the country.
The framework, which was recommended by the 2022 Independent Review of Children’s Social Care (IRCSC), outlines three “enablers” that are “foundational” to positive outcomes for children and young people:
- Multi-agency working is prioritised
- Leaders driving conditions for effective practice
- A workforce that is equipped and effective
The framework says leaders must be “visible, approachable and have the knowledge, and experience for their role”.
Individual social workers should also “demonstrate leadership” by using their knowledge and skills to improve practice cultures.
This involves sharing feedback with leaders to improve services and “amplify the voices and feedback from children, young people and families in respect of services”.
To ensure the workforce is equipped and effective, leaders must have a strategy that prioritises permanent staff, with agency workers only employed “when absolutely necessary”.
They must also create cultures that support innovation “where challenge is welcome” and workers “feel safe”.
The framework spells out four key outcomes for children and young people:
- Stay with their families and get the help they need
- Be supported in family networks
- Be safe in and outside their homes
- Be in stable loving, homes in care and as care leavers
Ensuring children are safe requires leaders to “support critical challenge within their own organisation” and encourage “openness, respect and humility”, states the framework.
It adds: “Leaders do not blame their workforce when there are serious incidents and focus instead on identifying and sharing learning and adapting systems and practice to improve responses to abuse, neglect and exploitation.”
The second outcome – supporting children in family networks – is being backed by the launch of a £20 million kinship care strategy.
It includes trialling providing kinship carers with an allowance equal to that currently received by foster carers at eight local authorities.
The framework calls for all local authorities to have a local kinship care policy overseen by a named responsible manager.
Charity Kinship, which has long highlighted the financial hardship faced by unpaid kinship carers, welcomed the reforms. Chief executive Lucy Peake said: “This is testament to all the kinship carers who have demonstrated, for decades, the value of raising children within their family network.”