Social workers in schools: a feasibility study of three local authorities

Westlake, David ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7507-3413, Melendez-Torrez, G. J., Corliss, Cindy ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0990-8798, El-Banna, Asmaa, Thompson, Sarah, Meindl, Melissa ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1231-0175, Talwar, Ria, Folkes, Louise, Schoenwald, Eva, Addis, Samia and Cook, Laura 2024. Social workers in schools: a feasibility study of three local authorities. Journal of Social Work 10.1177/14680173241258927

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Abstract

Children are protected from harm through the collective efforts of many individuals and organisations (MacAlister, 2022). As the agency with lead responsibility for safeguarding in the UK, children’s social care (CSC) depends on schools, the police, health professionals, family members and others to report their concerns and collaborate with them. This makes it important to understand how such collaboration happens and to explore how links in this network might be improved. In this paper we focus on the interface between CSC and schools, and report the findings of three pilot evaluations that took place in different English local authorities. The aim of the pilots was to embed social workers within schools, to work more closely with school staff to address safeguarding concerns, and to do statutory child protection work. As we discuss below, although ‘school social work’ is common elsewhere, school social workers in other countries are not typically tasked with a comparable level of safeguarding work, and social workers who undertake such work in the UK are not typically embedded within schools. We evaluated each pilot with a focus on four areas: (1) the feasibility of delivering the intervention, (2) whether it showed promise after it has been running for around 10 months, (3) any indicative evidence of its impact on rates and levels of CSC intervention, and (4) the costs of set up and delivery. Why schools? Schools play an important role in supporting and keeping children safe, and school age children typically spend a large proportion of their time under the supervision of people who work in schools. Teachers and other school staff regularly deal with safeguarding issues and schools are usually among the major sources of referrals to CSC, contributing the second highest proportion making the second highest proportion of all referrals each year between 2020 and 2022, behind the police (Department for Education 2022). That being so, the potential for improved ways of working has been highlighted historically (Morse 2019), and there is statutory guidance that encourages better interagency working (HM Government 2018). But the heterogeneity of schools and the complex interface between them and social care underlines the need to find solutions that work locally. Reflecting this picture, the recent Care Review in England recommended that schools become statutory safeguarding partners and corporate parents, to “more accurately reflect the role that schools…play in the lives of children in care and those with a care experience” (MacAlister, 2022, p. 148).

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education) Children’s Social Care Research and Development Centre (CASCADE)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
ISSN:	1468-0173
Funders:	What Works for Children’s Social Care
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	2 May 2024
Date of Acceptance:	20 December 2023
Last Modified:	26 Jul 2024 09:05
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/168651

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