Professor Eileen Munro was asked by education secretary Michael Gove to look at ways to improve frontline child protection and report back with final recommendations by April 2011 (Analysis, 23 January).
Professor Munro said, ‘I want to be clear from the start that there are no simple quick-fix solutions to improving the child protection system. A key question for the review is why the well-intentioned reforms of the past haven’t worked. Piecemeal changes have resulted in a system where social workers are more focused on complying with procedures. This is taking them away from spending time with children and families and limiting their ability to make informed judgements.’
A second interim report till be published in January. The review is continuing to examine evidence in the following areas:
- early intervention and prevention
- front-line practice, including the experience and views of children and young people, guidance and judgment, ICT, and family courts
- transparency and accountability, including inspection and performance management and serious case reviews.
Labour MP Graham Allen, who is leading the national independent review into how early intervention can support the most disadvantaged children, said that early intervention, as outlined in the report, would make a tremendous contribution to future of child protection.
'Early intervention gives parents and their children the social and emotional bedrock that will reduce dysfunction and underachievement. It will create a virtuous cycle of rounded, capable children who above all will go on to raise good families themselves,' he said. 'Seriously reducing the intergenerational transmission of inadequate child rearing could be early intervention’s greatest contribution.'
Mr Allen added, ‘To support parents in providing a safe and supportive environment for their children is better for the child, better for the family and better for the services that are struggling to cope with increases in concern about children who may be suffering from abuse.
'The parents of many of the children reported to children’s social services lack the skills to give the children the help that they need – by giving them these skills and supporting them in bringing up their children, we can help to reduce the demand for child protection services so that social workers can focus on those children who are at serious risk of harm.’
