Calls for ‘urgent reform’ of services to protect young children and babies
Fiona Simpson
Tuesday, March 23, 2021
The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for “urgent reform” of child protection and early help services for young children and babies, researchers have said.
Latest government data reveals that incidents involving the death or serious harm of children under five where abuse or neglect is known or suspected increased by 27 per cent in April to September 2020 compared with the same period in 2019.
Such incidents increased by 31 per cent for children under one (a total of 102 children) and 50 per cent for children aged one to five (a total of 48 children), the data shows.
Citing the figures, the Nuffield Foundation’s Protecting young children at risk of abuse and neglect review states that “the pandemic has disrupted the usual pathways for referring children to services, meaning children at risk of abuse and neglect may be being missed. “These issues appear to be even more acute for infants and for babies born in the pandemic, with many children’s centres closing and health and GP check-ups coming via video link or telephone.”
Research carried out by the Nuffield Foundation finds that in some areas of England up to 50 per cent of health visitors were redeployed during the first 2020 lockdown, with just one in 10 parents of children under two seeing a health visitor face-to-face.
“It is estimated that there are over half a million children under five (17 per cent) living in a household with domestic abuse, parental mental health problems or parental substance misuse,” it states, adding that in 2019, 46 per cent of children who died or were seriously harmed were not known to children’s social services.
The report further warns that the effect of the pandemic on England’s youngest children has been exacerbated by years of cuts to local authority services despite an “increasing proportion of young children having been subject to child welfare interventions over the last 10-15 years”.
The proportion of babies under one subject to care proceedings in England increased from 51 to 81 per 10,000 children between 2008 and 2016, the review states.
For babies under one week old, the rate more than doubled from 15 to 35 per 10,000 children, it adds.
However, spending on preventative services to support struggling families in England has fallen from £3.8bn in 2010 to £2.1bn in 2018, the Nuffield Foundation states.
It adds that children living in the poorest neighbourhoods are at least 10 times more likely to be in care than children in the richest neighbourhoods.
“This relationship is stronger for pre-school children,” the report states.
It also raises concerns over inequalities between ethnic groups in the proportions of children being looked after in England, however, researchers say: “Little attention has been paid to these inequalities by policy makers and there is a lack of evidence to sufficiently understand and explain them.”
Carey Oppenheim, co-author of the review and early childhood lead at the Nuffield Foundation said: “Over time, we have seen a shift away from provision of early support to help families who are struggling, towards later interventions that are more likely to separate families and which are more expensive to provide. Alongside this, there are young children at risk of abuse and neglect who need help and are not receiving it because they are not known to services. These concerns have been pulled into sharper focus by the pandemic, and its economic consequences are likely to mean more pressure on council budgets and services at exactly the point families need them most.
“At the same time, we cannot solve all the problems faced by young children through children’s social care services – social work and family justice are only one part of the solution. Poverty remains a significant risk factor for children and alleviating the financial pressure on families would make a difference in enabling young children to thrive, as would a more holistic and collaborative approach across public services and agencies.”
