Demand for children’s services is rising relentlessly and the increased pressure on local authorities’ resources means it is vital to bring in new thinking and skills to improve outcomes for vulnerable children and young people. Trying to do more of the same with less will never bring about the the types of changes needed to improve outcomes.
I trained as a social worker and probation officer because I wanted to change things, to make life better for those I worked with, but today I worry that social work has become too bureaucratic, remote and transactional. Assessments are made, paperwork is filed and boxes are ticked – but are we doing the things that matter?
Social work should be more relational, and that means building trusting relationships that can challenge people and guide them through their difficulties. It also needs to be more preventive: with limited resource and capacity, social care services are focused on immediate risks and acute needs, with little left to invest in those who don’t quite meet the thresholds for engagement.
All the evidence tells us that, if possible, we need to deflect children and families from “acute” interventions. Catch22 is pioneering a different approach. We are working with children on the cusp of the system, aiming to prevent escalating needs, risks and costs. This work is pushing the boundaries about how such statutory interventions are delivered.
With a solid track record and longstanding relationship with Cheshire East council, in addition to funding from the Department for Education’s innovation fund, Catch22 is piloting Project Crewe – a whole-family approach designed in partnership with the council to improve outcomes for children in need across the area covered by the local authority. We work with children referred to us by the council, and with their families, to co-design tailored, intensive support programmes that serve to strengthen the family as a whole.
Project Crewe introduces an innovative staffing and delivery model that combines the expertise of the social work profession with the experience and flexibility of other frontline staff.
New children-in-need teams are split into pods managed by social work consultants, but with non-social work qualified family practitioners and volunteers matched with children and families. The consultants “hold” the case, but the day-to-day work is undertaken by the rest of the team.
The model is designed ultimately to free up social workers to manage their high-risk caseloads. It focuses new and different resources on lower-risk children in need who have not been receiving the help and support to prevent their potential escalation into the child protection system. We also add value by utilising the skills of volunteers as family role models.
We believe that our new approach will not only enable us to deliver statutory services at a lower basic operating cost, but reduce escalations to child protection status – where the cost in interventions increases significantly – and will reduce repeat referrals to children-in-need teams and beyond. Worryingly, in some areas of the country as many as 36% of children assessed as being in need are re-referred within 12 months.
While we remain confident that our pilot programme will make an impact on the children and families it supports, there is a much bigger task ahead of us in convincing decision-makers and policymakers alike that it is not about doing more with less, but that there must be the freedom for providers to do things differently.
Our approach is effecting a relatively modest change, but if we can prove its success, it will inevitably contribute to the wider debate about who does what and whether the statutory framework actually prevents more effective use of resources.
Chris Wright is chief executive of Catch22.
