Analysis of 3.6 million social work assessments to identify twelve common categories of demand present across children’s social care in England and the intervention pathways and outcomes associated with these.
In the summer of 2021, researchers from NCB, Kingston University and the University of Sheffield were commissioned by the Nuffield Foundation to:
- Identify and profile the underlying types of demand for children's social care services in England;
- Explore the intermediate outcomes of provision; and
- Explore the longitudinal outcomes of provision, differentiated by demand type and intermediate outcomes.
Having completed the research in July 2023, the team published their findings in January 2024.
Children receive social care services for many reasons, which can be categorised using data from social work assessments. Outcomes of provision vary depending on children’s characteristics, their category of need, as well as the type of service they receive. Social workers are identifying more complex types of demand. Addressing these problems will require substantial investment in preventative services as well as specialist interventions.
This research identified categories of demand based on the factors identified in social work assessments and compared the outcomes of provision for children in different categories. Quantitative analysis was carried out of anonymised national administrative data for all local authorities in England between 2014 and 2021, including 3.6 million assessments with recorded factors. These were linked to data from the national school census in order to examine children’s educational outcomes after receiving services.