Social workers are divided on whether councils should make payments to struggling families to prevent children from going into care, a poll has found.
This follows the Association of Directors of Children’s Services’ (ADCS) president suggesting this as a potential policy for the government's forthcoming child poverty strategy.
In her speech to the annual ADCS conference, Rachael Wardell said that while it was accepted that councils fund placements for children in care, there was “no clear offer of financial support to birth families to enable children to remain in the family home”.
She also pointed to the significant costs of care placements, particularly for teenagers in residential care, as a rationale for considering paying families instead.
Split social work opinion
But a recent Community Care poll found social workers were divided on Wardell’s proposal.
Of nearly 1,900 respondents, 54% said the same money would be “better invested in preventative, relationship-based support”, while 46% backed payments to families to avoid higher care costs later.
Comments under the article also showed support for investing in practical, daily support.
Invest in social work
Ryan Webb said: “It would be better to divert such expenditure to the provision of practical intensive daily support packages, ie support staff arriving at the home early every morning to motivate and support parents (and where possible, wider family members) to ensure children are washed, breakfasted and ready for nursery/school.”
Tom J echoed this, arguing that more social workers should take on the role of a “supportive grandparent”, who offers hands-on practical encouragement and support.
“Over the years, I had numerous families where I felt if they had a supportive grandparent who could pop in every day, it would be good enough and way better than anything our care system [could] offer,” he added.
“In fact, my role as a social worker became [saying] ‘Have you bought school uniforms as [the children] start [school] next month?’ or ‘Let’s clean those bottles’ or ‘Right, we are driving to the GP surgery tomorrow as you son’s skin looks painful’ and so on.”
