Studying the outcomes of different types of demand for children’s social care

This project will be studying the outcomes of different types of demand for children’s social care.

The research team will build upon existing research led by Professor Rick Hood and Professor Paul Bywaters, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, which examined inequality in the delivery of children’s social care (CSC) in England. This research showed that social and economic inequalities are reflected in service provision, including child protection interventions and children in care. However, more research is needed to connect inequalities in provision with drivers of demand and the outcomes of providing a service, especially with the increase in child welfare inequality occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Supported by the Department for Education and Ofsted, the project will be investigating patterns of outcomes of services for different types of demand and how different child characteristics and local authority contexts affect those outcomes. This investigation will rely on a variety of datasets and methods of statistical analysis and modelling, including latent class analysis, multilevel regression analysis, cross-tabulation analysis and survival analysis.

This project team will be undertaking this analysis with three research objectives in mind:

1. Identifying and profiling the underlying types of demand for CSC services.
2. Exploring the intermediate outcomes of service provision by looking at the consequences of case closure or accommodation in care.
3. Exploring the longitudinal outcomes of service provision by looking at education attainment at Key Stages 2 and 4.

Working towards these research objectives will provide insight, for the first time, into the relationship between child characteristics, needs, CSC intervention and outcomes. It will also contribute to our understanding of the pandemic’s impact on inequality. Crucially, it will allow for the suggestion of new policies and practices to reduce inequalities.

The project team will be releasing freely available reports, academic papers and policy briefings to disseminate their findings as widely as possible. The team will also engage in webinars and conference presentations. The team are looking to inform practitioners, policy makers, academics, charities and organisations representing potential and actual service users on current gaps in the CSC system and priority areas for multi-agency support and prevention.