Non-social work staff lack confidence in assessing and managing risk in relation to children in need, according to an evaluation of government social care reforms that involve increasing their statutory case-holding responsibilities.
Social workers were also apprehensive about alternatively qualified practitioners, such as family support staff, holding cases under section 17 of the Children Act 1989 because it was a greater level of responsibility than they were used to, found the report detailing early findings from the 'families first for children pathfinder'.
The news follows significant criticism of this aspect of the reforms - which are now being rolled out across England - including from child protection expert Eileen Munro and a group of social workers who have written for Community Care anonymously.
However, practitioners from the 10 pathfinder areas were largely positive about the potential of the reforms to reduce caseloads, improve job satisfaction and enable children to stay safely with their families where there were concerns.
Participants also were generally supportive of the introduction of a specialist social worker role to lead on child protection cases, with the Department for Education (DfE) commissioned report saying that it "was widely seen as adding consistency and expertise" to safeguarding processes.
About the families first for children pathfinder
The families first for children pathfinder was set up in 2023 by the previous government to test four aspects of its planned reforms to children's social care:
- Creating multidisciplinary family help services, bringing together targeted early help and child in need provision, to provide families with multiple and/or complex needs with earlier, less stigmatising support in order to enable children to stay safely with them where possible. Key to the model is families having consistency of practitioner across different tiers of intervention, with each allocated a family help lead practitioner to carry out direct work and build a "team around the family" to draw in other agencies.
- Setting up multi-agency child protection teams, including health and police representation and lead child protection practitioners, who should be expert social workers, to strengthen the response to safeguarding concerns.
- Making greater use of family networks in decision making about children, and providing them with practical and financial support to prevent children having to go into care.
- Strengthening multi-agency safeguarding arrangements, including by increasing the role of education services.
Three councils - Dorset, Lincolnshire and Wolverhampton - started testing the approach from December 2023, with a second wave (Lewisham, Wirral, Warwickshire, Luton, Redbridge, Walsall and Warrington) joining the pathfinder from July 2024.
The DfE's requirements for the two waves were somewhat different, with further changes made to the Families First Partnership (FFP) programme, which is now being rolled out across England.
However, the fundamentals of the changes are broadly the same.
What the evaluation involved
This evaluation, by research body Verian and charity the National Children's Bureau, assessed how the pathfinder was being implemented, in order to identify barriers, facilitators, and unintended consequences. A further study, on the pathfinder's impact on children, families and the workforce, is due to take place next year.
The current evaluation covered six of the 10 pathfinder councils, involving interviews and/or focus groups with leaders, frontline staff and a small number of families, and surveys of 650 staff.
The research team found that there was "strong buy-in to the aims and ambitions" of the pathfinder - chiefly, supporting children to stay safely with their families and thrive - with leaders saying that it aligned with their existing priorities for children's social care.
What worked well
Enablers to effective delivery identified in the report included support from senior leadership and proactive and early communication with frontline teams about the changes taking place, which was seen as key in motivating staff.
Participants also highlighted the value of IT systems, forms and tools that enabled multi-agency working and, where it was implemented, co-location of both family help and child protection teams.
They also reported that, where good inter-agency relationships existed, these supported effective delivery of the pathfinder.
Lack of resources a key challenge
Conversely, a lack of resources, across councils and partner agencies, was a key barrier to implementation, with practitioners already managing heavy workloads, reported participants.
The warned that transforming systems alongside delivering current services was challenging and raised the risk of things getting missed. Such a significant change programme required time to get right, said participants, however they warned that they had "limited time" to set up new services and approaches and deliver on them.
Other challenges included the complexity of rolling out the pathfinder across health and education, due to their multiple service settings, difficulties recruiting certain specialist roles and the police having other priorities besides the reforms.
Mixed views and approaches on family help lead practitioner role
One of the aims of the pathfinder was to test having non-social workers or staff not employed by the local authority take on the role of family help lead practitioner (FHLP), so long as they had the skills, knowledge, competence, and capacity to work effectively with the child and their family".
The research team found that areas took different approaches to the FHLP role. In one wave 1 area, they were referred to as "early help consultants", with the role primarily taken on by health and education staff, while in one wave 2 area, FHLPs did not hold cases and instead acted as a link to external agencies, such as housing, mental health and substance misuse.
There were also mixed views among staff about the role's impact, with 47% of survey respondents saying it had "enabled a combined team approach in ensuring the most appropriate professional was allocated to a family", with 37% unsure on this point.
Controversy over use of alternatively qualified case-holders
In the development of the reforms, and since their rollout this year, there have been significant concerns about alternatively qualified staff holding child in need cases, including from the British Association of Social Workers (BASW), Ofsted and, recently, Professor Eileen Munro.
In an interview with Community Care, Munro questioned how equipped these practitioners would be to identify changes in families’ situations that signalled increased risks to children.
In a subsequent article, a group of social workers and managers from a high-performing local authority warned that having non-social work staff hold statutory cases "undermined principles of safe practice and accountability".
These concerns were reflected in the evaluation report.
Non-social work staff 'lack confidence in managing risk'
Of social workers surveyed in February 2025, 89% reported having a good understanding of assessing and managing risk in child in need cases, compared with 57% and 38% of alternatively qualified staff, in wave 1 and wave 2 areas, respectively.
Also, the qualitative research revealed that social workers were apprehensive about alternatively qualified staff holding child in need cases because this was a greater level of responsibility than they were used to.
The February 2025 survey also revealed that 37% of all staff agreed that support for alternatively qualified practitioners in FHLP roles was effective, but 20% disagreed and a further 45% were unsure.
One respect in which wave 1 and 2 authorities differed was in relation to child protection cases. In the former, cases were held by the lead child protection practitioner (LCPP), who would co-work them with the families' FHLP; however, in the latter, the FHLP remained as case-holder, with the LCPP taking statutory child protection decisions, with input from the wider multi-agency child protection team.
Joint working between family help and child protection practitioners
Participants saw co-working between the FHLPs and LCPPs as valuable to both supporting families and aiding practitioners' professional development, however, the research found this could be improved.
Only 37% of FHLPs who responded to the survey agreed that support from LCPPs had increased their confidence in supporting families with escalating needs, with 24% disagreeing and 39% unsure.
Nevertheless, stakeholders interviewed for the research were largely positive about the LCPP role, seeing it as adding consistency and expertise to child protection processes.
Concerns over independence of child protection conference role
One of the other concerns raised by Munro about the Families First Partnership (FFP) programme is the stipulation that LCPPs take on the role of child protection conference chair.
The DfE's view is that this is consistent with the stipulation in Working Together to Safeguard Children that the chair is independent of the operational or line management responsibilities of the case, because the FHLP, not the LCPP, will be case-holding.
However, in her critique, Munro described the changes as “taking out the independent child protection conference chair”, stressing the role was created because research had shown there was a "better chance of getting close to the truth" when the chair was not involved in the case.
The pathfinder authorities were not required to have LCPPs chair conferences. Wave 1 councils were asked to "explore the most suitable role for LCPPs in child protection conferences, including whether they act as chair", while wave 2 authorities had to source chairs from within the relevant multi-agency child protection team, without this necessarily being the LCPP.
As a result, the issue of LCPPs chairing conferences was not covered in the evaluation report.
