Care planning and interventions.

Henderson, Gillian; Rogon, Paul; Kurlus, Indiya; Woods, Ruth

Abstract

This is the third in a series of reports on research on the effectiveness of Compulsory Supervision Orders where the child remains at home with their parents (home CSOs). Home CSOs are the most common type of CSO made by Children’s Hearings and accounted for 45% of all CSOs in place in 2018, which is 4,270 children and young people. Questions have been raised about the quality of planning for children and young people who are looked after at home and the delivery of interventions to support them. To help answer these questions, the documents provided to Hearings for 343 children and young people were examined to find out the extent to which there were care plans that met statutory requirements, and if services were available to deliver these plans. There were 172 young people and 171 young children research sample: Three groups of young people aged 12 or more with home CSOs (1. with offence grounds, 2. with education non-attendance grounds, 3. with grounds not related to offending or non-attendance – control group); and Two groups of young children under 3 years old (1. with home CSO; 2. with CSO away from home – control group). In addition, 14 focus groups were carried out with social workers, Children’s Reporters and Children’s Panel Members to gain their views on care planning. Findings: There are five main findings from this research: F1. Children with home CSOs were not treated differently from their peers who were accommodated in terms of provision of care plans for their Hearings. Up to a third of young children with home CSOs and those with CSOs away from home had no plans for their care provided to their Hearings. F2. The requirements of National Guidance and the Children & Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 Act were not being met for around a third of children and young people with CSOs (both at home and away from home) on the basis that there were no plans for their care presented to their Hearings. F3. The majority of Hearings made decisions on the basis of short term care plans or no plans at all for children and young people. Only a fifth of children and young people had care plans with clear timescales. There were few children and young people in this study where there were plans of over six months for their care and support. This is despite the importance that practitioners told us they place on clear plans for their decision making. F4. Corporate Parents cannot evidence that they are meeting their statutory responsibilities for looked after children and young people, as there were no plans for the longer term futures of the children and young people in this study. F5. Most children and young people with home CSOs and who had care plans, and their families, were being offered and/or provided with a range of services to meet their identified needs. However, the majority of these parents and young people did not fully engage with the services offered. Conclusion: In this part of the research we sought to find out for young people with home CSOs, young children with home CSOs, and young children looked after away from home: were the child’s needs and interventions to address them identified and were there clear timescales for delivery? In the majority of cases the child or young person’s needs and their those of their parents were identified, and supports were available. What was lacking in most cases were plans with clear timescales and that went beyond the short term. This raises questions about Hearings decision making and the extent to which Corporate Parents are meeting their statutory responsibilities to looked after children and young people.

Citation

HENDERSON, G., ROGON, P., KURLUS, I. et al. 2019. Care planning and interventions. Home compulsory supervision orders: effectiveness of decision making and outcomes, Report 3. Stirling: SCRA [online]. Available from: https://www.scra.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Report-3-Care-planning-and-interventions.pdf

• Report Type: Research Report
• Online Publication Date: Mar 31, 2019
• Publication Date: Mar 31, 2019
• Deposit Date: Mar 4, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 4, 2022
• Publisher: Scottish Children's Reporter Administration (SCRA)
• Series Title: Home compulsory supervision orders: effectiveness of decision making and outcomes
• Series Number: Report 3
• Keywords: Evidence of planning; Care plans; Family problems; Family needs; Compulsory supervision orders (CSO); Children; Scotland
• Public URL: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1602912
• Publisher URL: https://www.scra.gov.uk/resources_articles_category/research/
• Related Public URLs: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1602865; https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1602887; https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1615480; https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1615514; https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1352089