Parents’ poor mental health has become the most common factor in children’s social care assessments in England, according to a report which saw it cited more often than domestic abuse for the first time.
Leaders of council children’s services highlighted the trend in a long-running tracker of safeguarding pressures, which also reported on the effects of overcrowded and unaffordable housing and a lasting impact of the pandemic which has left families less resilient.
The Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) said three-quarters of councils that responded to its regular survey reported an increase in safeguarding demand over a two-year period due to children’s mental health.
It added that poor parental mental health had, for the first time in the nearly two decades since its tracking reports began in 2007, overtaken domestic abuse as the most common factor in children’s social care assessments.
Of more than 120 local authority responses, parental mental health was the most frequently reported assessment factor in children’s social care, rising by 10% since the previous reporting period in 2022.
The ADCS report, published on Wednesday, noted impacts of delayed access to assessment or treatment plans for children as well as parents and carers for things like alcohol and substance misuse and mental health.
The organisation said the coronavirus pandemic’s ongoing impact on children and young people has been “significantly underestimated” and will “endure for many years” unless there is more attention and investment.
The ADCS, the membership organisation for leaders in children’s services departments in local authorities in England, said families have become less resilient and have “more entrenched and overlapping needs”.
A lack of access to good quality housing, record numbers in temporary accommodation and the overall unaffordability of housing is “contributing to family distress and breakdown against the backdrop of a cost-of-living crisis”, the report said.
Children’s services reported that they are “routinely” having to supplement rents “to sustain families and keep them together”, which they said is “unsustainable”.
The association blamed a “stripping back” of public services for poor outcomes for children and urged the Government to take “bolder, swifter action to truly improve children’s life chances now and in the future”.
The organisation’s latest report used data from 124 local authorities, survey returns from 86 local authorities and interviews with 34 senior leaders of children’s services.
It found that instances of initial contact about safeguarding concerns raised with councils by the public or organisations such as the police topped three million in England in the year to March 2024.
This was a rise of 8% on the year to March 2022 – the previous period in which such data was tracked by the ADCS.
Early help assessments rose by 8% while referrals to children’s services increased by 1% but were up by a fifth since 2007/08.
There were around 83,625 children in care at the end of March last year, according to the data, up 2% on the previous period and by more than a quarter (28%) since they first recorded data in 2007/08.
Andy Smith, ADCS president, said: “It is encouraging to see that the Government has reaffirmed its commitment to keeping children safe and helping families to thrive and backed this up with new investment, however, evidence presented here shows the stark impact of poverty, the housing crisis and failing health services on children’s lives and on their childhoods is undeniable.
“It is clear that the Government needs to take bolder, swifter action to truly improve children’s life chances now and in the future.”
Children’s safeguarding in England hit the headlines at the end of last year with the case of 10-year-old Sara Sharif, who was murdered by her father and stepmother in August 2023.
Concerns had been raised about Sara’s care within a week of her birth in 2013, and her local council had repeatedly raised “significant concerns” she was likely to suffer physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her parents.
An independently led safeguarding review – known as a Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review (LCSPR) – of all professionals who had contact with Sara’s family is under way.
Such reviews are aimed at identifying lessons from cases and while no timeframe has been given, reports are usually expected to be published within six months.
A Government spokesperson said: “This Government will do whatever it takes to keep children safe, and we are already taking swift action to reform children’s social care through our landmark Children Wellbeing and Schools Bill.
“This report highlights that this cannot be done in a silo which is why we are taking further action across government through our Plan for Change to ensure children in our country have the best life chances, including by delivering an ambitious strategy to increase household income, bring down essential costs, and tackle the challenges felt by those living in poverty.
“On top of this, we will recruit 8,500 additional mental health workers across child and adult services and we are tackling the housing crisis, delivering the biggest boost in social and affordable housing in a generation.”
