Community welcomes new vision document for children’s social care system

Community has welcomed the Department for Education’s landmark new vision statement for the future of the children’s social care system. The government have described the new publication – ‘Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive’ as a step towards a children’s social care system that delivers the best start in life for the children who most need it.

Helen Osgood, Community’s National Officer for Education and Early Years, said:

“We welcome this new vision statement and the government’s wider legislative agenda for a decade of reform in children’s social care.

“We look forward to working with our partners in the Department for Education to ensure that this vision comes to a fruition, and that we have a social care system which will work for all the children that our members support in the education and early years sectors, including children in care, care leavers, and kinship carers.”

Martin Hodge, Community’s Head of Education Policy, said:

“This is great news for our early years educators and for schools as it means that parents and families will be in partnership with the education system right from the word go. It will mean that parents can meet with other parents, children can play together, problems can be identified earlier and support given in a timelier manner which will help schools further down the line.

“But it also helps those in the care system and care leavers.  This will provide support for educational achievement and also to help them lead happy lives by bringing together different agencies to work together for the good of the child.

“As with any announcement of this nature, there will need to be robust workforce development plan in place – and this will have to be backed up with the necessary funding to make it happen – but this is exactly the sort of reset we were hoping a Labour government would bring.”

You can read the new publication in full here.