Schools play a key part in keeping children safe, and tend to be a source of many referrals to Children's Social Care. In this evaluation three pilot projects which embedded social workers in schools were considered. The idea was to improve the way schools and social workers work together and how children, families, schools and the social care system can benefit from it. The pilots were based in Lambeth, Southampton and Stockport and offer insight about how to implement such an intervention. Mainstream schools and specialist schools for children with additional needs were also involved.
In the evaluation focused on the feasibility, challenges and opportunities and the actual practice of the interventions. Moreover, the chances of making a difference in connection with child protection and care outcomes were also explored.
Method
Qualitative and quantitative data were also used to create a detailed picture of the intervention. Analyzes were also carried out with the administrative data from schools and range of semi-structured interviews, practice observations of activity logs that social workers kept while they worked.
Some of the key findings:
- Pilots were successful in embedding social workers within schools and their base was also moved.
- The pilots were broadly successfully rated by professionals across education and CSC children, families and other professionals.
- There is evidence also for the positive impact on reducing some of the social care outcome indicators.
Implications
- Interventions were evaluated promising and further efforts will be made to refine them to encourage more consistent integration of social workers into schools.
- What Works for Children’s Social Care is requesting applications from local authorities to be part of the Social Workers in Schools (SWIS) Scale-up.
- Social Workers in Schools (SWIS) programs aims to reduce referral rates to children's social care (CSC) by embedding social workers in secondary schools.
- Department from Education is going to fund this scale-up to work with up to 160 schools from September 2020 and lasts through the school academic year.