VITAL early intervention work in Dumfries and Galloway is giving hundreds of kids a better chance in life – and saving authorities nearly £17m per year.
The number of vulnerable families and children being supported across the region has more than doubled over the past seven months, according to a new council report.
Last summer, around 129 families and 226 children were receiving emotional and practical support from the council’s family support service.
However, this has now jumped to 271 families and 420 children, which will help prevent the majority of those youngsters entering the statutory social work system.
A council spokesman said this week: “The increases are due to need for the service, and more referrals coming into the service.
“As of June 2022, there were a larger number of cases that required a greater input by more staff from across the service.
“Following the work with these cases, the service is now in a position where it can carry out more early intervention work. This has contributed to the numbers as reported.”
The ‘cost avoidance’ value of preventing kids entering the statutory social work system is £40,000 per year per child – which equates to £16.8m being saved annually by the authorities at the current high level of support being provided.
Stephen Morgan, social work’s senior manager for children and families, highlighted these figures in a new report which references research by commissioned by the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care.
He stated: “The family support service currently support 271 families, with 420 children. None of these are currently in the statutory social work system, so this equates to cost avoidance of up to £16.8m per annum.
“It should be noted that the issues and needs identified for these children indicates that almost all would enter the care system at some time in their lives if they do not receive effective early intervention.
“It should be noted that not all will be diverted from the system.
“Over the past 12 months our approach to relationship and strength-based approaches to child and family intervention, of which family support is a critical element, has seen a reduction in children on the child protection register from 41 to 27 and a reduction of children on compulsory supervision reduce from 315 to 302.”
The family support team was set up in November 2020, with two senior social workers and 13 support staff working closely with families. Their vital work helping vulnerable children and families during the pandemic was hailed as “absolutely phenomenal”.
The team deals primarily with early intervention cases for children who are facing problems at home such as neglect, poverty, physical abuse, sexual abuse, drug/alcohol misuse, or poor parenting capacity.
The council agreed in July last year to invest £535,000 per annum over three years to fund the family support work.
The family support team follow government’s national guidance for positive change, however extra focus is placed on keeping families together and children safe.
