Disabled children and young people: Thematic review 2023-24

Published: 02 May 2023

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On this page you will find information about our national report Disabled children and young people’s experiences of social work services: a thematic review.

Formats

  • Braille is available on request

If you require any other formats please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Review

Our aim in carrying out this review was to learn and understand more about disabled children and young people’s views and experiences of the support they received from social work services. We focused on social work’s contribution to getting it right for every disabled child and considered how well disabled children’s rights were being respected and upheld.

This report presents the key messages of our review of how well social work services contribute to ensuring disabled children have their rights respected and receive early care and support. It includes reflections and actions for social work services and Scottish Government to consider in order to improve outcomes for disabled children and young people.

Key messages

Our review found that:

  1. Respectful relationships were key to building a culture of listening to and respecting children and young people’s views. This ensured they were engaged in decisions about their care and support.
  2. Too many disabled children and young people’s views, feelings and wishes were not being heard.
  3. When children and young people received the right support at the right time from social work services, this helped them to grow and develop
  4. Increasing complexity of need and high demand for services was outweighing the availability of supports.
  5. Children and young people were not always provided with meaningful choices about the support they received.
  6. Parents and carers routinely provide a significant level of care and support. Their wellbeing must be promoted and protected.
  7. The quality of social work assessments, plans and reviews were variable and were not always properly addressing all the child or young person’s needs.
  8. The experience of transitioning into life as a young adult continues to be characterised by unpredictability and uncertainty for too many disabled young people.
  9. Compassionate and dedicated social work staff were helping to improve the lives of children and young people. High workloads and recruitment and retention of staff significantly challenged staff teams.
  10.   The social work role was not always easily understood by families and/or other professionals.
  11.   Reliable data and a shared definition of disability are not available to inform future planning or to support the setting budgets.

Actions required

The responsibility for improvement sits with us all. The actions noted below will require a shared approach across Scottish Government, local authorities, national and local organisations and public bodies, including the Care inspectorate.

The actions required:

  1. The views of disabled children and their families must be considered as part of service mapping, understanding unmet need and service planning.
  2. A robust approach to gathering and analysing data on disabled children and young people must be implemented, both in social work services and wider. This must be used effectively to inform service planning and improvement.
  3. We must take action in response to the views of disabled children and their families to ensure gaps in service provision are addressed.
  4. The role of social work services in providing care and support to disabled children must be clearly defined and understood across agencies. Clear and accessible information should be available and communicated to children and their families. This should include eligibility criteria.
  5. Opportunities for effective early intervention should be strengthened.
  6. Opportunities for play and friendships, along with other areas that are important to children, should be maximised. This will need a collective and holistic response.
  7. Adequate resourcing must be made available to enable services to develop and improve.

You can read the full report here.

Downloads: 7662

Notification on controlled drugs

Published: 09 December 2021

Notification on controlled drugs

Providers should notify the Care Inspectorate to any adverse events and concerns involving schedule 2, 3, 4, and 5 controlled drugs used in care settings, when they occur, and while the service user is receiving care in the care service.

Please note, it is a legal requirement for care services to notify the Care Inspectorate of the matters listed in this document. Where the requirement is limited to a specific type of care service, this is detailed in the guidance.

Care services and local authorities must use our eForms system to make these notifications.

Downloads: 7539

Secure care pathway review 2022-23

Published: 26 August 2022

Our approach

We carried out a secure care pathway review between July 2022 and July 2023 to consider the impact of the Secure Care Pathway and Standards that were published in October 2020.  The review focused on young people up to the age of 18 who have been placed – or are at risk of being placed – by Scottish local authorities, in secure care accommodation.

The review centred on listening to and understanding the experiences of 30 young people across Scotland before, during and after experiencing secure care accommodation.   During the review period we tracked the journeys of these young people and this helped us to consider impact and outcomes over time.  The annual inspections of registered secure care providers continue to be carried out.  We worked jointly with the inspectors of these services to inform the review, particularly in relation to the ‘during’ stage of young people’s journeys through secure care.

Our review is now complete and you can read the report here.

More information

Information about the secure care pathway and standards can be found here.

Downloads: 7484

Deaths of Looked After Children

Published: 09 December 2021

Deaths of Looked After Children

Local authorities are required to submit written notification within 24 hours of any death of a looked after child to the Care Inspectorate.  

Please complete attached form – DLC1

Please note this is separate from the duty of a registered care service to notify us of the death of a service user. These are submitted separately via the registered services eForms

More information about notification and reporting arrangements can be found here.

Please submit all relevant forms/reports through secure email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

The main contact for this work is: 

Karen McCormack, Strategic Inspector 

Mobile: 07833 057105 

Downloads: 6770

Digital performance data

Published: 30 October 2020

Cost per transaction

 

 

User satisfaction

 

 

Completion rate

 

 

Digital take-up

 

 

Downloads: 6672

Changes to notifications of deaths of looked after children and deaths of young people in continuing care or receiving aftercare provision

Published: 09 December 2021

Changes to notifications of deaths of looked after children and deaths of young people in continuing care or receiving aftercare provision

New arrangements for reviewing and learning from the deaths of children and young people came into force on 1 October 2021.   

The establishment of the National hub for reviewing and learning from the deaths of children and young people and recently published national guidance for child protection committees undertaking learning reviews will require changes to the ways in which local authorities review the deaths of looked after children and young people experiencing care.  

More information about these changes can be found here.

Downloads: 6567

Our quality assurance role

Published: 15 April 2022

Our quality assurance role

The strategic inspection team supports learning and improvement in social work services and partnerships by providing an additional level of scrutiny to reviews which they carry out. The review processes which we quality assure are:

You can find more information in the links below:

 

 

Downloads: 6235

Deaths of young people receiving aftercare provision

Published: 09 December 2021

Deaths of young people receiving aftercare provision

Local authorities are required to submit written notification to the Care Inspectorate of any death of a young person in receipt of aftercare provision as soon as is reasonably practicable.

Please complete attached form - DAC1

Please note this is separate from the duty of a registered care service to notify us of the death of a service user. These are submitted separately via the registered services eforms.

More information about notification and reporting arrangements can be found here.

Please submit all relevant forms/reports through secure email to 
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

The main contact for this work is: 

Karen McCormack, Strategic Inspector

Mobile: 07833 057105

Downloads: 6144

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