Ofsted recently undertook a study of ten local authorities and 123 cases of children involved with social services in a survey commissioned by Chief Inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw. Overall the assessments showed that vulnerable children in England could be at risk due to delays in social workers\u2019 assessments of the care they need. The study found that assessments in 25% of cases were not \u2018timely enough\u2019. <\/p>\n
Ofsted have reported that accurate assessments are crucial to ensuring children get the help that they need and ensure that \u2018decisive, effective action\u2019 is taken to protect children. One theme of the report was that the views of the children and their families were rarely considered. Despite the facts improvements had been made since previous investigations including the fact that parents, particularly men, said that social workers were spending more time listening to them than before and other positive findings, the report still found that delays in assessments still leave children at risk. <\/p>\n
The Ofsted report found that the process was too slow in a quarter of cases and too often social workers were not sharing routinely shared written assessments with families and social workers did not always update assessments to reflect changing circumstances. The report also found that in 21% of cases support plans did not clearly show what help children and their families would receive. In eight local authorities the report found there were significant delays in accessing Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. <\/p>\n
Sir Michael Wilshaw has commented that the improvement in the assessments is encouraging however he notes \u2018there is still more to do before we can be assured that all children and families are receiving the high standards of care required\u2019. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ofsted recently undertook a study of ten local authorities and 123 cases of children involved with social services in a survey commissioned by Chief Inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw. Overall the assessments showed that vulnerable children in England could be at risk due to delays in social workers\u2019 assessments of the care they need. The study… Read More »Vulnerable children at risk as study shows 25% of social workers\u2019 assessments are \u2018not timely enough\u2019<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,55,10,175],"tags":[27,179,35,34,169,9,19],"class_list":["post-350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-child-benefits","category-child-law","category-family-law","category-lund-bennett","tag-child-benefit-changes","tag-child-benefits","tag-child-maintenance","tag-child-support","tag-family-law","tag-lund-bennett","tag-lund-bennett-law"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t