Manchester Evening News reports on how the pandemic affected Oldham Council’s Children Services and their observation of concerning issues.
Gerard Jones, the executive director of children’s services informed the readers of the increasing volume of children to be put on protection plans. Even though the ‘looked after’ (children being taken into care) numbers did not increase, child sexual exploitation and more ‘prevent’ type of referrals are noticed to have risen as a result of confinement during lockdowns. Jones also explained the serious consequences of closed schools: children miss out on their studies and they are deprived of a safe environment.
Jones also provided an insight as to how social work was managed throughout the pandemic: they started working remotely first but then decided to form bubbles as they thought it was necessary to discuss certain issues in person. At present, the council is working on improving the children services department, as their evaluation was downgraded in 2015 by Ofsted. Last October, Ofsted performed a reassessment of the council’s children’s services department and found that department kept the vulnerable children safe during the crucial times of Covid-19.
Reassessment highlighted the following areas for development regarding social work practice: ‘partner attendance at key decision-making meetings, recording of rationale for next steps in strategy meetings and quality of oversight and challenge from child protection chairs, including when children step down from child protection plans.’
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