The new interim director of children’s services at Sefton Council said it was “not getting in there early enough” to stem a huge rise in children going into care.
The remarks came amid a discussion about the borough’s troubled children’s services and steps being taken to improve outcomes for youngsters in Sefton.
At a meeting of Sefton Council’s audit and governance committee, held at Bootle Town Hall on March 15, Dr Rhistardt Hare, who has been temporarily promoted to head up the council’s children’s services after the “shock” departure of former head Martin Birch earlier this month, said there were currently 622 children under the care of Sefton Council.
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Cllr Steve McGinnity said that 10 years ago there were around 200 children in care, and added that the decreased budget and increased demand was creating a “massive challenge” for local authorities.
Dr Hare said the increased financial pressures alongside the rise in demand had impacted on the council’s ability to find appropriate placements for children – a situation exacerbated by similar problems in other local authorities who were also placing children in Sefton due to placement shortages elsewhere.
Assistant director Laura Knights said there was a “market failure” across both adult and children social care.
She said: “More children are coming into care not just within Sefton but across the country as well” leading to an “ever increasing demand on provision”.
Ms Knights added: “Some homes are of poor poor quality and result in poor outcomes for children and young people and does result in some people being placed outside of Sefton.”
She said this impacted on rising costs for external provision and an increased risk of children being placed in “unregulated homes” that are not registered or inspected.
Ms Knight said that as well as trying to recruit more social workers to meet with the increase in referrals, the council was also looking at options to open more homes in the borough.
She said that as well as looking to work with external providers to create new services and expand others, the council was working alongside Leeds Council to find ways to reduce the need for placements by earlier intervention.
Dr Hare said the development of a social work academy in the borough to help train newly qualified social workers was a “unique approach” which was bringing dozens more social workers into the council and attracting interest from other boroughs elsewhere in the country.
He said that the council was also in the process of recruiting staff from South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia with interviews currently underway. Dr Hare said that process was so far “extremely successful” with a number of “high quality, passionate and intelligent” social workers already recruited, adding that the council hopes to exceed its initial expectations of recruiting 20 new staff members.
Other measures included plans to streamline the recruitment process to interview first and sort out the paperwork later as well as offering enhanced “golden handshakes” to social workers who stay on at the council.
He said the council is also realigning early help services which had not been under the children’s services department and reviewing its safeguarding partnership as part of its improvement strategy.
Dr Hare said the situation in Sefton had been exacerbated by a lack of early intervention, meaning children who might otherwise have been kept at home have ended up in the care system.
He said that in cases where children were at risk of child exploitation, Sefton Council, like others across the country, were tending to take children into care to get them away from the risk often in expensive out of borough placements.
Speaking about the council’s new approach, Dr Hare said: “It’s looking at the reasons why children come into care, we’re not getting in there early enough with families.
“When you look at the case history and experiences in formative years, most would have experienced domestic violence in the home.
“Intervention has stopped the domestic violence but not dealt with the trauma and attachment breakdowns. Little Johnny got older, acts out and comes into care as perceived as being beyond parental control.
“So it’s not just to stop the violence but work with the attachment and trauma and hope it addresses the need by working with the family much longer than normal. They hypothesis is that later on they then won’t enter the care system.”
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