Strategy for Delivering Widespread Reforms to Children’s Social Care – Stable Homes Built on Love

Date: Tuesday, 28th Feb 2023 | Category: General

This week the Government published its strategy for delivering widespread reforms to children’s social care: Stable Homes, Built on Love.

The Government’s new strategy to reform children’s social care responds to three independent reviews published last year: the Panel’s national review into the murders of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson (Child Protection in England), the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care 2022, and the Competition and Markets Authority’s Children’s Social Care Market Study 2022. The strategy sets out proposals for action across six pillars:

• Pillar 1: Family Help provides the right support at the right time so that families stay together
• Pillar 2: A decisive multi-agency child protection system
• Pillar 3: Unlocking the potential of family networks
• Pillar 4: Putting love, relationships and a stable home at the heart of being a child in care
• Pillar 5: A valued, supported and highly-skilled social worker for every child who needs one
• Pillar 6: A system that continuously learns and improves, and makes better use of evidence and data

The strategy emphasises the need for a whole system approach to reforming children’s social care, requiring input from health, police, schools, family courts, youth justice, business and civil society alongside central government, local authorities and the workforce. All safeguarding partners and partner agencies involved in supporting and protecting children will want to familiarise themselves with the proposed strategy and give feedback through the consultation process about its ambitions and proposed actions to achieve whole system reform that will benefit children and families.

Consultation on the strategy closes on 11 May 2023.