Social work news

• Guidance: Children in need census 2024 to 2025: specification

  20-10-2023 16:59 via gov.uk
  
  Specification and validation rules for local authorities and software suppliers preparing for the 2024 to 2025 children in need census.
  
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• Pay freeze for social workers and other care staff in Northern Ireland ‘unsustainable and unfair’

  20-10-2023 16:40
  
  An effective pay freeze for social workers and other health and social care staff in Northern Ireland is “unsustainable and unfair”, sector leaders have warned.
  Health and social care (HSC) trust chief executives made the claim in a letter to Northern Ireland secretary Chris Heaton-Harris urging him to intervene to give trust staff a pay rise.
  The Northern Ireland Office has responded to say that it has no authority to negotiate pay in the region and this was a matter for its Departm
  
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• Open consultation: Creu cenhedlaeth ddi-fwg a mynd i’r afael â fepio ymhlith pobl ifanc

  20-10-2023 15:30 via gov.uk
  
  Ymgynghoriad ar y camau y mae Llywodraeth y DU a'r gweinyddiaethau datganoledig yn bwriadu eu cymryd i fynd i'r afael â smygu a fepio ymhlith pobl ifanc.
  
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• How strengths-based family therapy is preventing children going into care

  20-10-2023 15:08
  
  The main objective of children’s services in Norfolk County Council is to keep families together and have fewer children going into care.
  One of the services Norfolk’s social workers can rely upon to help them achieve this is Stronger Families.
  When families are at risk of having children taking into care, Stronger Families offers those who may benefit a clinical service, based on systemic intervention, called Functional Family Therapy Child Welfare (FFT-CW).
  Stronger Families is a p
  
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• Podcast: working with parents – breaking down barriers to engagement

  20-10-2023 14:50
  
  This episode was recorded at a session, at Community Care Live 2023, run by Wiltshire Council, in front of a live audience. It features practitioners and the care-experienced young people and fathers whom they support and work with.
  Wiltshire Council started two projects, Dads Matter Too and Born Into Care, which are run by two of the speakers on the podcast, Helen Tubb and Ceri Evans. Along with them is participation manager Joe Sutton, who runs the Youth Voice team.
  The practitioners explain h
  
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• Fund return to social work scheme and boost admin support to tackle vacancies, LGA urges government

  20-10-2023 14:33
  
  The government should find £500,000 to help 200 former practitioners return to social work in its forthcoming autumn statement, the Local Government Association (LGA) has said.
  The proposals was one of three put forward by the LGA to “rapidly increase the children’s social worker workforce and retain those currently in post” in the context of vacancy rates that reached a record high of 20% last September.
  It also urged ministers to boost administrative support, train
  
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• Press release: New measures to protect children’s learning from strike action

  20-10-2023 11:56 via gov.uk
  
  Minimum servicelLevels to protect children and young people’s education are set to be introduced in schools and colleges, the Government has announced.
  
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• Social care inequalities deepening due to cost of living crisis and squeezed council budgets, says CQC

  20-10-2023 10:50
  
  Inequalities in access to adult social care are deepening due to the cost of living crisis, staff shortages and squeezed council budgets.
  That was the message today from the Care Quality Commission in its annual State of health care and adult social care report.
  The regulator said council funding for care was not keeping up with need, with requests for care per 100,000 population up 4.9% from 2017-18 to 2021-22, while the numbers receiving care as a result fell by 2.2%.
  It found that a quarter o
  
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• Transparency data: Voluntary scheme aggregate net sales and payment information: August 2023

  20-10-2023 10:30 via gov.uk
  
  Information on how the 2019 voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing and access is controlling spend on branded medicines in the NHS.
  
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• More English councils face bankruptcy, leaders warn, as deficits reach £4bn

  20-10-2023 01:01
  
  Budgets ‘under pressure like never before’ due to inflation and rising demand for social care, with deep cuts to services likelyMany more councils in England are at risk of bankruptcy, town hall leaders have warned, as unprecedented financial pressures force local authorities to prepare drastic cuts to services to cope with a collective £4bn deficit.The bleak message, set out in a letter to the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, said council budgets were “under pressure like never
  
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