The number of unborn babies referred to the Perth and Kinros s Child Protection Committee has risen by 46 per cent.
The region has also seen a further increase in the number of Child Concern Reports and the number of child protection investigations.
Perth and Kinross Council’s chief social work officer said the pandemic was to blame as she presented the Perth and Kinross Child Protection Committee’s annual Standards and Quality report to councillors last week.
The same report will be put before a meeting of the full council next Wednesday, December 15.
Chief social work officer Jacquie Pepper said: “There are new pressures and demands arising as a result of the new context presented by the pandemic and these are being monitored closely, analysed and understood.”
It is the fifth successive year child concern reports here have risen with the majority coming from Police Scotland.
And there has been a year-on-year increase over the last five years on the number of children/young people considered in an inter-agency referral discussion and in the number of child protection investigations.
Ms Pepper also reported a rise in the number of joint investigative interviews and joint paediatric forensic medical examinations.
Her report revealed the number of unborn baby referrals had risen from 92 in 2019/20 to 134 in 2020/21.
It also highlighted an 83 per cent increase in the number of unborn babies being considered at pre-birth child protection case conferences - a massive jump from 18 in 2019/20 to 33 in 2020/21. The vast majority of those raised in 2020/21 conferences - 31 out of 33 - went on to be placed on the child protection register.
Ms Pepper told the scrutiny committee that while the number of unborn baby referrals had risen “significantly over the past few years” the number of children placed on the Child Protection Register had fallen.
In 2020/21, there were 95 children/young people added to the Child Protection Register (CPR) compared to 138 in 2019/20.
Ms Pepper said this was “directly attributable to new and creative ways of working as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Virtual multi-agency meetings have resumed and schools/nurseries reopening has meant “the protective factors of universal services have contributed to decisions to remove children’s names from the CPR”.
Ms Pepper said additional funding to employ the equivalent of four full-time social workers helped mitigate the “unprecedented demands” and “frontline staff have remained alert to risks and vulnerability in pregnancy throughout the pandemic.”
She said: “The additional resource approved by council in 2019/20 - which provided the equivalent of four full-time employees (FTE) social workers for two years into Services for Children Young People and Families - has helped to mitigate the unprecedented demands experienced in the first six months of the pandemic and expanded the ability to provide intensive and flexible family support in evenings and weekends.”
The report was noted by PKC’s scrutiny committee and will go before all Perth and Kinross councillors for further examination on December 15.
