What are the characteristics of the specialist care workforce (e.g. social workers, children's homes, and early help providers)? What are the barriers to specialist staff recruitment and retention, and how can we overcome these?

Background

A sizeable minority of children and young people in England face a significant range of vulnerabilities and disadvantages. These include those already known to children’s social care, children in need, those eligible for free school meals (FSM) because of low family income, those with SEND, in particular those who have an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans and those who attend Alternative Provision. Given the human, economic and social cost of poor performance in this area, we are seeking evidence on the best ways to improve outcomes for these children and young people, before issues become acute and require more significant intervention

Next steps

If you would like to discuss previous, ongoing or potential research into any of the areas in this document, please contact research.engagement@education.gov.uk.

Source

This question was published as part of the set of ARIs in this document:

Df E Areas of Research Interest 2024

Related UKRI funded projects

  • 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?

    The project focuses on the characteristics of children in care and social work practices in Wales, providing relevant insights.

  • Rapid Job Creation for Social Care

    **Public description** OUTT is a new app for candidates and employers to provide a fast solution to the UK social care staffing crisis. The Covid-19 pandemic has placed an increase demand on social care staffing, which...

    Funded by: Innovate UK

    Lead research organisation: OUTT LIMITED

    Why might this be relevant?

    While the project addresses rapid job creation in social care, it does not specifically focus on specialist care workforce characteristics or barriers to recruitment and retention.

  • National Care Force

    The social care sector has been especially hard-hit by the recent Covid-19 pandemic with around 250k staff currently sick or self-isolating; meanwhile the users of these services still need to receive the care and dignit...

    Funded by: Innovate UK

    Lead research organisation: NATIONAL CARE FORCE LTD

    Why might this be relevant?

    The project addresses the staffing crisis in social care and the use of volunteers, which partially relates to the question on barriers to specialist staff recruitment and retention.

  • ADR England Community Catalyst: Children at risk of poor outcomes

    National and local organisations produce a wealth of valuable data, which can be used to understand how we can reduce the number of children at risk of poor social, health and educational outcomes. However, at present, t...

    Funded by: ESRC

    Lead research organisation: Swansea University

  • Accelerated Social Care Training Platform

    Social Care workers in care homes and home care visitors are facing an unprecedented challenge to continuously learn emerging practices to protect both themselves, their family and their _cared for_ lives, during the Cov...

    Funded by: Innovate UK

    Lead research organisation: OSLR LTD

  • Development of a research-ready dataset linking data on children and young people in London held by Local Authorities and healthcare providers

    Background There are serious challenges facing social care, education and health services for children and young people in England. Beyond high profile cases of avoidable child deaths, the social costs of poor outcomes ...

    Funded by: ESRC

    Lead research organisation: Imperial College London

  • 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

  • University of Central Lancashire And NHS Blackburn with Darwen Teaching Care Trust Plus

    To develop a mechanism to improve efficiency, effectiveness and co-ordination of service users' and carers' contribution and involvement in future health and social care service developments....

    Funded by: Innovate UK

    Lead research organisation: UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL LANCASHIRE

  • Evidence Request Bank development

    This one-year feasibility study will explore and establish an Evidence Request Bank to produce and share appraised summaries of evidence for the voluntary and public sectors, in direct response to their practice needs. T...

    Funded by: ESRC

    Lead research organisation: University of Edinburgh

  • Organisations, staff support and the dynamics and quality of social work practice: A qualitative longitudinal study of child protection work

    The frequent disclosures that abused children who were known by professionals to be at serious risk have died and young people have experienced protracted sexual exploitation despite the involvement of social workers and...

    Funded by: ESRC

    Lead research organisation: University of Birmingham

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