Social workers could more than double the time they spend with children and families through more efficient case management systems and fewer meetings.
That was the conclusion from a report last week from county council leaders setting out a “blueprint” designed to keep more children with their families through relationship and strengths-based practice.
Practitioners’ studies typically spent just under 20% of their time working directly with children and families, found the paper by the County Councils Network (CCN), Association of County Chief Executives (ACCE) and consultancy Newton.
Half of social worker time spent on admin
By contrast, they spent half of their time on case recording, administration or other IT tasks, and significant time in meetings.Researchers based their estimates on more than 100 social workers logging their time over the course of a week, and through shadowing some practitioners to observe how they split their time.
The report said practitioners’ time with children and families could rise to 45% on average if councils invested in digital systems that supported more efficient case recording, limited internal meetings and expanded the use of remote meetings developed through the Covid-19 pandemic.
The call came as a British Association of Social Workers report released in the same week found that the demands of administrative tasks was the biggest challenge practitioners reported facing in their roles.
Projected care population ‘could be cut by a third’
The CCN, ACCE and Newton report projected that the number of children in care in England could rise from 80,850 to between 86,000 and 95,000 by the end of 2025, adding up to £2.1bn to costs. This meant “the status quo was not an option”, it saidHowever, the report estimated that reforms could save 95% of the cost and cut by a third the projected number of children looked after by 2025 to between 64,000 and 77,000.
Based on case reviews with practitioners, the report estimated that 39% of children currently looked after could have avoided coming into care had the system worked differently and there was more support in place for families on the verge of crisis.
It recommended that councils spend £205m a year on ‘edge of care’ services to support those young people either at risk of coming into care or who could return to their families where it was safe to do so.
This would involve practitioners having the time to build and maintain strong and trusting relationships with families, working effectively with adults’ specialists and other agencies in a whole-family way and building on families’ strengths to overcome challenges.
