Understanding trends and use of administrative data: How should the declining number of children entering care be interpreted when considered alongside other key contextual factors, demographic trends and policy interventions e.g. child poverty rates, families experiencing or at risk of homelessness, declining birth rates, declining parity (number of births per woman), declining births to teenage mothers, increase in maternal age at first birth, roll out of FNP (family nurse partnership)?
Background
Scotland’s ambition is for children to be supported to stay within their families wherever it is safe and possible to do so. The overall number of children entering care each year in Scotland is falling, and proportionally more children who do become looked after are living with kinship carers, and fewer are remaining with their parents. These national‑level trends help to understand what is happening, but not how this is being achieved, or the impact on families. To answer that second question, we need better evidence to provide context to national statistics: on the factors that influence whether families can stay together; the support available locally; and the conditions that enable early, preventative help rather than crisis‑driven intervention. Here, prevention is understood primarily in relation to children at risk of entering care and their families, focusing on how earlier identification of unmet need, timely support, and system responses may reduce avoidable escalation to compulsory care.
Next steps
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Source
This question was published as part of the set of ARIs in this document:
Related UKRI funded projects
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Comparing health outcomes for care experienced children and children in the general population in Scotland using linked administrative data
Children who are in the care of their local authority (care experienced children, CEC) are one of the most vulnerable groups of people in the society. In 2017 approximately 15,000 children in Scotland were visited by soc...
Funded by: ESRC
Lead research organisation: University of Glasgow
Why might this be relevant?
This project directly addresses the question by examining health outcomes for care experienced children in Scotland and comparing them to the general population.
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Looked-after children in Wales: An analysis of the backgrounds of children entering public care
The doctoral research around which my fellowship is centred explored the differences between local authorities in Wales in the rates at which they place children in out of home care, referred to as being a 'looked after'...
Funded by: ESRC
Lead research organisation: CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
Why might this be relevant?
Partially relevant as it focuses on children entering care in Wales, not Scotland.
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Care pathways and outcomes: The teenage years
Across the UK, when children enter care, they live in a range of different placements, such as foster care, kinship care (with relatives or friends), adoption or with their birth parents. However, adoptive placements are...
Funded by: ESRC
Lead research organisation: University of Ulster
Why might this be relevant?
Partially relevant as it focuses on children entering care in Northern Ireland, not Scotland.