06/01/2025: ‘How parent advocacy can rebalance the power dynamics of the children’s social care system’
A parent-led network argues that peer to peer advocates can help ensure families’ voices are heard during the child protection process and overcome misunderstandings between parents and professionals.
17/12/2024: Plan to register children not in school takes shape
A register to identify children who are not in school in England will be part of a bill introduced to Parliament on Tuesday.
16/12/2024: ‘Families first for children’ model to be rolled out to all councils, says chief social worker
Approach involving family help and specialist child protection teams that is currently being tested in 10 areas to be extended across England, says Isabelle Trowler
13/12/2024: Practitioners struggling to respond to extrafamilial harm to children, finds analysis of serious cases
Staff not picking up on early signs of risk, such as missing episodes, while there is little evidence that interventions are keeping children safe, says national safeguarding panel, in annual report.
11/12/2024: How working parents can get 15 and 30 hours free childcare
Working parents of children from nine months old can now access 15 hours a week of free childcare.
09/12/2024: Two-thirds of England’s poorest families miss out on childcare, report finds
IPPR and Save the Children call for measures including new not-for-profit nursery trusts and increased funding for deprived areas
06/12/2024: High number of pupils regularly missing school
Almost a quarter of children in Bristol are persistently absent from school, according to Ofsted.
05/12/2024: Ofsted ‘alarmed’ by absences and ‘flexi-schooling’
The “alarming” level of children missing school has become a “stubborn and damaging issue”, according to the chief inspector of Ofsted, England’s schools regulator.
05/12/2024: Disadvantaged children hardest hit by education and social care challenges, warns Ofsted
The most vulnerable and disadvantaged children are those worst affected by recruitment and demand pressures across children’s social care and education, Ofsted is warning.
04/12/2024: Parent mental health service is ‘like a lifeline’
Two mothers who have been helped by a “pioneering” adult mental health service have said it helped them keep their families together.