Stories
Children’s mental health care
The Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition has found that mental health support services for children and young people are not able to keep up with demand. In our media response, we stressed that mental health needs to be at the heart of a holistic approach to overall health and wellbeing, which must be linked to a child-led education recovery plan.
Resources to support children and young people in a mental health crisis
The bitesize Crisis Tools learning resources has been launched with Healthy Teen Minds. The resource will help address the urgent need for individuals working in a range of settings to have the awareness and confidence to support young people in a mental health crisis
Youth Services Census
The National Youth Association (NYA) has published an interim report following the call for information for the Youth Sector Census. The report highlights that there is twice as much provision in the most affluent areas compared to the most deprived. The census will re-open if you were unable to input data about your local authority delivered youth work services previously.
NYA report on designated safeguarding leads in the youth sector
Keeping Young People in Sight: Designated Safeguarding Leads in the Youth Sector, the latest report from the NYA, specifically looks at the widening role of Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs) and additional infrastructure support that is needed to ensure DSLs can safeguard effectively.
ADCS and LGA joint new youth justice policy position paper
The Association of Directors of Childrens Services and LGA, along with the Association of Youth Offending Team Managers yesterday published a joint policy position paper on youth justice. The paper calls for a move towards a more localised, responsive and child-centred system in the future and highlights the need to build on the good work of councils in preventing children from coming into the justice system.
EIF report on impacts of COVID-19 on children's physical development in the early years
The Early Intervention Foundation (EIF) has published a report reviewing existing research on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s physical development in the early years (age 0–5). As UK research in this area is relatively scarce, many of the findings are taken from studies in other countries. Overall, the evidence has shown that the physical development of children is likely to have been negatively impacted by the pandemic.
Early Years funding announcements
Following on from the spending Review, the Department for Education has shared further information such as on the Recovery Package. If you wish to feedback on the recovery package for early years please get in touch with flora.wilkie@local.gov.uk
Early education entitlements
Minister for Children and Families, Will Quince, confirmed the uplift to the hourly funding rates for the free early education entitlements in 2022-23 for each local authority, as announced in the Autumn Budget and Spending Review. We are pleased that the Government has listened to our urgent calls for investment in the early years and the need to provide more comprehensive support for new parents. We would encourage the Government to keep the cost of delivering the early entitlements under review to ensure providers are able to deliver the high-quality places that children and parents need.
Consultation on advice note – responding to civil claims of non-recent CSA
As part of its inquiry into accountability and reparations for victims and survivors, the Independent Inquiry into CSA (IICSA) has recommended that the LGA develops a code of practice for councils responding specifically to civil claims of non-recent CSA in institutional settings. Following consultation with councils and partners, a draft code has now been published for comment, with many thanks to those that shared their experiences and learning. We welcome comments on some key questions outlined in the consultation from councils, their partners, voluntary and community sector organisations and from victims and survivors themselves to ensure that this code is as helpful as possible for both councils and their communities and is in the full spirit of the IICSA recommendation.
The consultation will remain open until Friday 14 January 2022 and we are incredibly grateful for any responses to inform the next iteration. Whilst the note will be advisory and will remain subject to review, we do hope councils may find it useful in shaping responses locally. We also will be working with the IICSA to share their overall findings with councils when they report later in the year.
Mapping national employment and skills provision
We have recently produced a new online resource which provides councils with information of national employment and skills provision that is available in their area. The resource includes an interactive roadmap and aims to help councils understand the spatial footprints that shape local provision and how this is changing. It also looks to support local and national government to collaborate more to shape provision and maximise opportunities that arise.
Independent Review of Children’s Social Care
The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care has issued a “call for ideas” to improve the children’s social care system. These ideas can be large, covering system reform, or specific to a very small part of the system, and should identify what would change as a result of the idea, who would be affected and any challenges or risks associated with the idea. The submission form will close at 5pm on 15 December 2021. The review has also published a new report, “Paying the Price: The Social and financial costs of children’s social care”.
Centre of Expertise on CSA
Research shows that the majority of children and young people who experience CSA will not tell anyone at the time of their abuse, and if they do, they are much more likely to tell friends or family than someone in a professional role. The CSA Centre’s new Signs and Indicators Template helps professionals address this, gathering the wider signs and indicators of CSA to build a picture of their concerns. This explanatory video discusses the ways in which the template can support your teams.
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