Children's social services

Children's social services seek to promote the well-being of children in need and looked-after children. They work in partnership with key agencies, service users and the community, to pursue continuous improvements in quality, efficiency and cost through best value. The duties of social services are prescribed in statute.

Context

Until now, children's social services have generally been provided jointly with services for adults, via social services departments within local authorities. At any one time, up to 1.5 million people in England rely on their help, including nearly 400,000 children.

However, structural changes in response to the Children Act 2004 mean that, from April 2006, education and social care services for children will be brought together under a director of children's services in each local authority.

Adult social services will be delivered via a director for adult services, which replaces the current director of social services role.

What do they do?

Social services provide a range of care and support for children and families, including families where children are assessed as being in need (including disabled children), children who may be suffering 'significant harm', children who require looking after by the local authority (through fostering or residential care) and children who are placed for adoption.

Social workers with responsibilities for children and families may work in the following areas:

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children

The social worker has lead responsibility, on behalf of social services, for undertaking an assessment of the child's needs and the parents' capacity to respond appropriately to the child's identified needs within their wider family and environment. In the great majority of cases, children are safeguarded while remaining at home by social services working with their parents, family members and other significant adults in the child's life to make the child safe, and to promote his or her development within the family setting.

For a small minority of children, where it is agreed at a child protection conference that a child is at continuing risk of significant harm, the child's name will be placed on a child protection register. Social services are then responsible for co-ordinating an inter-agency plan to safeguard the child, which sets out and draws upon the contribution of family members, professionals and other agencies.

In a few cases, social services, in consultation with other agencies and professionals, may judge that a child's welfare cannot be adequately safeguarded if he or she remains at home. In these circumstances, they may apply to the court for a care order, which commits the child to the care of the local authority.

Where the child is thought to be in immediate danger, social services may apply to the court for an emergency protection order, which enables the child to be placed under the protection of the local authority for a maximum of eight days.

Supporting disabled children

As part of its wider role to promote the welfare of children in need, children's social services have specific duties in respect of disabled children and their families. They have to provide a range of services to families with disabled children to minimise the impact of any disabilities and enable them to live as normal a life as possible.

Typically they provide short term breaks in foster families or residential units, support services in the home and, increasingly, assistance for disabled children to participate in out of school and leisure activities in the community alongside their non-disabled peers.

Supporting looked-after children

Where the local authority looks after a child following the imposition of a care order, or accommodates a child with the agreement of their parents, it is the role of the social worker to ensure that adequate arrangements are made for the child's care and that a plan is made, in partnership with the child, their parents and other agencies, so that the child's future is secure.

Children are generally looked after in foster care. A minority will be cared for in children's homes and some by prospective adoptive parents. Irrespective of the setting in which children are accommodated, all looked after children will have a social worker and carers (e.g. foster carers, residential care staff) responsible for their day to day care, who should be involved in making plans or decisions about the young person.

What is the legal framework?

The main pieces of legislation underpinning social services for children and young people are the Children Act 1989, the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 and the Adoption and Children Act 2002.

Children Act 1989

Local authorities have specific legal duties in respect of children under the Children Act 1989 including:

• To safeguard and promote the welfare of children in their area who are in need 
• Provided that this is consistent with the child's safety and welfare, to promote the upbringing of such children by their families, by providing services appropriate to the child's needs
• To make enquiries if they have reasonable cause to suspect that a child in their area is suffering, or likely to suffer significant harm, to enable them to decide whether they should take any action to safeguard or promote the child's welfare

Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000

This places responsibilities on local authorities to provide greater support to young people living in and leaving care. These include:

• A duty to assess and meet the needs of young people aged 16 and 17 who qualify for the new arrangements
• The provision of a personal adviser and pathway plan for all young people aged 16 21, or beyond for those who qualify for the new arrangements 
• A duty to assist those leaving care, including with employment, education and training (the duty to assist with education and training and to provide a personal adviser and pathway plan continues for as long as a young person remains in an agreed programme, even beyond the age of 21)

Adoption and Children Act 2002

This act aligns adoption law with the Children Act 1989 to make the child's welfare the paramount consideration in all decisions to do with adoption. It includes:

• Provisions to encourage more people to adopt looked after children by helping to ensure that the support they need is available
• A new, clear duty on local authorities to provide an adoption support service and a new right for people affected by adoption to request and receive an assessment of their needs for adoption support services
• Provisions to enable unmarried couples to apply to adopt jointly, thereby widening the pool of potential adoptive parents 
• Stronger safeguards for adoption by improving the legal controls on intercountry adoption, arranging adoptions and advertising children for adoption 
• A new 'special guardianship' order to provide security and permanence for children who cannot return to their birth families, but for whom adoption is not the most suitable option
• A duty on local authorities to arrange advocacy services for looked after children and young people leaving care in the context of complaints