Listen to thisLast week saw the publication of Alan Wood’s review of local safeguarding children boards (LSCBs), which also looked at the purpose and function of serious case reviews. I have been leading serious case reviews since 2008 and so, like many others, was intrigued to see what his conclusions would be. But while I accept the system was ripe for change, I am not sure how his recommendations will achieve what he set out to.
The Department for Education (DfE) has accepted there needs to be fundamental change and that serious case reviews, in their current form, will be scrapped. They will be replaced by local learning inquiries, which will have to be completed quickly and published, and national reviews, which will investigate the most serious and complex cases. A new panel will be responsible for commissioning and publishing these national reviews, and a What Works centre for children’s social care will analyse and disseminate learning.
Since 2013, when the statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children was revised, LSCBs have been able to use any methodology they chose to conduct serious case reviews, as long as it was consistent with the guidance. And so the system has been in a muddle. A hotch-potch of different models sprung up. At one end of the spectrum was the learning together model, from the Social Care Institute for Excellence (Scie), which the DfE piloted from 2010. At the other, some LSCBs stuck with the old style of review. And in between, we have seen a wide range of different styles, including some designed by independent lead reviewers or LCSBs.
Clarity and consistency are much needed. But it is important that as we go forward the DfE does not waste its considerable investment in the Scie model and all that learning goes out of the window. And at what cost is all this change, particularly at a time when there is no money?
It is generally accepted that serious case reviews are time consuming, costly and repetitive. The trouble is they are repetitive for a reason. Our greatest challenges in children’s services lie in our ability to work effectively with other agencies, share information effectively, keep the child at the centre of what we do and to recognise the impact of neglect. These are themes that emerge in almost every single serious case review.
So we know where our weaknesses and challenges lie, where the flaws in our systems are. But we struggle to find a way to work more effectively, particularly at a time when budgets are being slashed and many public services are on their knees. Having a new framework for reviews is not going to change that.
Both types of reviews – local and national – will have to be published. If, as the DfE says, serious case reviews are really about learning not blaming, the first thing we need is a change in ministerial response to the publication of a serious case review. At the moment, ministers can be quick to criticise social workers, in some cases even before the review has been published.
So yes, the system needs to change. But if this is to really be an improvement then we need to see drastic changes in the four elements involved: we need responsible ministers who really care and stop drastic cuts to agencies and are not as quick to apportion blame; a national panel made up of experienced professionals who understand this field; LSCBs that actually implement effective changes; and responsible reporting by journalists.
If this government genuinely wants to improve our learning from serious case reviews then it must invest in that process. Otherwise this opportunity will be yet another example of change for change’s sake.
Joanna Nicolas
2 June 2016
http://www.theguardian.com/social-care-network/2016/jun/02/serious-case-reviews-alan-wood
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First, a quiz: What’s the most common “vegetable” eaten by American toddlers?
Answer: The French fry.
The same study that unearthed that nutritional tragedy also found that on any given day, almost half of American toddlers drink soda or similar drinks, possibly putting the children on a trajectory toward obesity or diabetes. But for many kids, the problems start even earlier. In West Virginia, one study found, almost one-fifth of children are born with alcohol or drugs in their system. Many thus face an uphill struggle from the day they are born.
Bear all this in mind as Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump battle over taxes, minimum wages and whether to make tuition free at public universities. Those are legitimate debates, but the biggest obstacles and greatest inequality often have roots early in life:
If we want to get more kids in universities, we should invest in preschools. Actually, preschool may be a bit late. Brain research in the last dozen years underscores that the time of life that may shape adult outcomes the most is pregnancy through age 2 or 3.
“The road to college attainment, higher wages and social mobility in the United States starts at birth,” notes James Heckman, a Nobel-winning economist at the University of Chicago. “The greatest barrier to college education is not high tuitions or the risk of student debt; it’s in the skills children have when they first enter kindergarten.”
Heckman is not a touchy-feely bleeding heart. He’s a math wiz renowned for his work on econometrics. But he is focusing his work on early education for disadvantaged children because he sees that as perhaps the highest-return public investment in the world today. He measures the economic savings from investments in early childhood – because less money is spent later on juvenile courts, prisons, health care and welfare – and calculates that early-education programs for needy kids pay for themselves several times over.
One of the paradoxes of American politics is that this is an issue backed by overwhelming evidence, enjoying bipartisan support, yet Washington is stalled on it. Gallup finds that Americans by more than two to one favor universal pre-K, and Clinton and Sanders are both strong advocates. Trump has made approving comments as well (although online searches of both “Trump” and “preschool” mostly turn up comparisons of him to a preschooler).
To be clear, what’s needed is not just education but also help for families beginning in pregnancy, to reduce the risk that children will be born with addictions and to increase the prospect that they will be raised with lots of play and conversation. (By age 4, a child of professionals has heard 30 million more words than a child on welfare.) The best metric of child poverty may have to do not with income but with how often a child is spoken and read to.
So it’s in early childhood that the roots of inequality lie. A book from the Russell Sage Foundation, Too Many Children Left Behind, notes that 60 to 70 percent of the achievement gap between rich and poor kids is already evident by kindergarten. The book recommends investing in early childhood, for that’s when programs often have the most impact.
It is true that cognitive gains from preschool seem to fade by the third grade, but there are differences in life outcomes that persist. Many years later, these former pre-K students are less likely to be arrested, to drop out of high school, to be on welfare and to be jobless. A wave of recent research in neuroscience explains why early childhood is so critical: That’s when the brain is developing most quickly. Children growing up in poverty face high levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which changes the architecture of the brain, compromising areas like the amygdala and hippocampus.
A new collection of essays from Harvard Education Press, The Leading Edge of Early Childhood Education, says that this “toxic stress” from poverty impairs brain circuits responsible for impulse control, working memory, emotional regulation, error processing and healthy metabolic functioning. Early-childhood programs protect those young brains.
So in this presidential campaign, let’s move beyond the debates about free tuition and minimum wages to push something that might matter even more: early-childhood programs for needy kids.
“It is in the first 1,000 days of life that the stage is set for fulfilling individual potential,” writes Roger Thurow in his powerful and important new book on leveraging early childhood, The First 1,000 Days. “If we want to shape the future, to truly improve the world, we have 1,000 days to do it, mother by mother, child by child.”
America’s education wars resemble World War I, with each side entrenched and exhausted but no one making much progress. So let’s transcend the stalemate and focus on investing in America’s neediest kids. We rescued banks because they were too big to fail. Now let’s help children who are too small to fail.
Nicholas Kristof
2 June 2016
