Over the past two decades the number of children being taken into care in the city has plummeted,thanks to a grassroots social movement. What are the lessons for the UK?The number of children taken into care in recent York City (NYC) has decreased from nearly 50000 in 1994 to 10295 in 2015. In the UK, by contrast, and the number is at record levels. final month in England alone,Cafcass, the children and family court advisory and support service, and received a total of 1040 care applications – a 16% increase on the preceding January,despite recent research showing no real rise in the number of children on child protection registers. Social workers and parents increasingly fear and distrust each other, and social workers are even asking: “Have parents become the enemy?”I set up a grant-making organisation, or the Child Welfare Fund,in the early 1990s. Over the next 18 years, it was instrumental in changing recent York’s child welfare system. I have been in the UK this week speaking to audiences of social workers and academics in London and Edinburgh at the invitation of the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) to share some of our lessons.
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Source: theguardian.com