The directors of children’s services have a clear statutory duty to ensure the best outcomes for children and young people. These duties are more than an administrative detail; the responsibility lives with us each and every day. Local authorities face many challenges but our most pressing issue is ensuring services continue to meet the needs of vulnerable children and families when resources are scarce, demand continues to rise and, as our own research shows, the needs of children and young people are becoming more complex and urgent.
To date, local authorities have used innovation and collaboration to make savings and target services to the areas with the most need. This can be seen in the re-design of children’s centres and in early intervention in schools. But the increasing number of children and families needing help and support has challenged even the most innovative authorities.
The financial context is tough, and with less money available such vital early help and preventative services have, unfortunately, faced the brunt of budget cuts. But experience and evidence tell us that strong early help focused on tackling the root causes of issues and not just the symptoms – at which point more intrusive and costly interventions are likely to be required – is better for children and young people, and eases the strain on statutory services. Savings can be reinvested into evidence-based early help services and the cycle can continue.
This is not easy to do however and in some councils, out of necessity, limited resources are used on high-end services – “firefighting” rather than investing in preventative services. I hope this year brings a shift in how we invest our money, with an even stronger emphasis placed on early help. This will not be an easy undertaking for some; for a while, a period of double investment will be required, in statutory child protection services and early help, but we will then begin to feel the benefits.
As our services face further demand and financial pressure, the argument that early intervention is a necessity and not a luxury has never been stronger. Without sustainable investment in early intervention services, our capacity to help families before problems escalate is eroding quickly. This is concerning and I would urge the government to recognise the crisis in children’s, as well as and adult, social care as a matter of urgency.
One of my priorities for my presidential year is changing the narrative of the care system. To typecast the care system as a bad place to end up is unfair and harmful to those children and young people already in care, the staff who work so hard to keep them safe, and the foster carers and residential workers who care for them.
The Association of Directors of Children’s Services has been amplifying the voices of children and young people who are in or have left care to produce a counter-narrative to this. The longer a child is in care the better their educational outcomes, according to research published in 2015 (pdf). This finding and the voices of young people have provided us with a strong foundation to build on. We must not lose this momentum. We owe it to children and young people in our care to be even more ambitious – for them and for what they can go on to achieve. This year, I hope we can continue to change the negative and damaging thinking some people associate with the care system.
I cannot foresee any decline in the pace of change this year, but I would like to see central and local government working together in the face of these changes to do more and better for children and young people. This is our shared purpose after all. We’ve seen the green shoots of this type of change taking place already through the Partners in Practice programme, and we welcome the government’s acknowledgement that the sector has a strong contribution to make towards this endeavour.
Dave Hill is the president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services for 2016-17, and is the executive director for people commissioning at Essex county council
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