Children's Social Care Innovation Programme
Fitzsimmons & McCraken 2020

This report provides an overview of key findings from evaluations of the Department for Education’s Children’s Social Care Innovation Programme as well as drawing in some overall conclusions and suggestions recommendations for children’s services based on the body of evidence as a whole.

Estimating Children’s Services spending on vulnerable children
The Children’s Commissioner Office 2019

This report provides new estimates of how much is spent on children in specific categories of need and vulnerability across a sample of local authority children’s services departments.The Children’s Commissioner’s Office visited over a dozen LAs between November 2018 and February 2019 to gather evidence from Directors of Children’s Services, elected council members, heads of finance and programme managers on local pressures on children’s services budgets, specifically budgets for high needs and early intervention. The Children’s Commissioner Office then worked closely with nine local authorities to develop a methodology to allocate financial data and produce a set of estimates.The work does not provide a nationally representative picture of demand and spend intended to benefit children in England. The aim was to get a better understanding of the current cost pressures facing councils and then work with local authority children’s services to co-create a common framework and methodology for mapping the level of support and spend on children and to work with a small sample of LAs to use this framework to obtain comparable data.In the absence of a full national dataset on where money goes this study provides an important contribution to the debate on the efficiency, effectiveness and fairness of current funding.

Improving the way family support services work for minority ethnic families
Waddell, S., Sorgenfrei, M., Freeman, G., Gordon, M., Steele, M., & Wilson, H. 2022

This report explores the experiences of minority ethnic families in accessing and receiving family support, to better understand the challenges and opportunities in how family support services work for minority ethnic families and young people.

Mapping the evidence about what works to safely reduce the entry of children and young people into statutory care: A systematic scoping review protocol
Brand, S. L., Morgan, F., Stabler, L., Weightman, A. L., Willis, S., Searchfield, L., ... & Evans, R. E. 2019

Introduction:The increasing number of children and young people entering statutory care in the UK is a significant social, health and educational priority. Development of effective approaches to safely reduce this number remains a complex but critical issue. Despite a proliferation in interventions, evidence summaries are limited. The present protocol outlines a scoping review of research evidence to identify what works in safely reducing the number of children and young people (aged ≤18 years) entering statutory social care. The mapping of evidence gaps, clusters and uncertainties will inform the research programme of the newly funded Department for Education’s What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care. Methods and analysis The review uses Arksey and O’Malley’s scoping review methodology. Electronic database and website searches will identify studies targeting reduction of care entry, reduction of care re-entry and increase in post-care reunification. Supplementary searching techniques will include international expert consultation. Abstracts and full-text studies will be independently screened by two reviewers. Ten percent of data abstraction will be independently conducted by two reviewers, with the remainder being extracted and then verified by a second reviewer. Descriptive numerical summaries and a thematic qualitative synthesis will be generated. Evidence will be synthesised according to primary outcome, intervention point (mapped across socio ecological domains) and the realist EMMIE categorisation of evidence type (Effectiveness; Mechanisms of change; Moderators; Implementation; Economic evaluation). Ethics and dissemination Outputs will be a conceptual evidence map, a descriptive table quantitatively summarising evidence and a qualitative narrative summary. Results will be disseminated through a peer- reviewed publication, conference presentations, the What Works Centre website, and knowledge translation events with policy-makers and practitioners. Findings will inform the primary research programme of the What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care and the subsequent suite

Mapping the evidence about what works to safely reduce the number of children and young people in statutory care: a systematic scoping review
Brand, S., Morgan, F., Stabler, L., Weightman, A. L., Willis, S., Searchfield, L., ... & Evans, R 2018

The increasing number of children and young people entering statutory care in the UK is a significant social, health and educational priority. Development of effective approaches to safely reduce this number remains a complex but critical issue. Despite an increase in interventions, evidence summaries are limited. This study is a scoping review; using systematic searching methods to map published evidence in the area of what works in safely reducing the number of children and young people, under the age of 18 years, entering statutory social care. Including exploring the clusters and gaps of research evidence in this area.

Promoting the retention,mental health and wellbeing of child and family social workers: a systematic review of workforce interventions
Turley, R., Roberts, S., Foster, C., Willis, S., Morgan, H., Warner, N., ... & Nurmatov, U. 2020

Mental health, wellbeing and retention are pressing concerns within children’s social care. This systematic review aims to summarise existing evidence on workforce interventions to improve mental health, wellbeing or retention of child and family social workers. Findings suggest a number of potentially promising interventions, particularly organisational level interventions. However, there is very little high quality or consistent evidence available, and more research is needed.

What works to improve the lives of England's most vulnerable children's: a review of interventions for a local family help offer
Asmusen, K., Waddell, S., Molloy, D., & Moore, I. 2022

This report identifies over 50 interventions and activities with evidence of improving child and family outcomes within five categories of vulnerability: problematic child behaviour, family conflict, parental mental health, domestic abuse and parental substance misuse.