Factors affecting the social gradient in children’s social care

Abstract

The social gradient in children’s social care refers to the relationship between socio-economic status and the likelihood of a child welfare intervention. This article reports on a quantitative study of national administrative data, aiming to identify social gradients across all local authorities in England and to examine the factors affecting their relative strength. An anonymised extract of case-level information on all school-aged children involved with statutory social care services in 2018–2019 was combined with income deprivation data for 32,837 small neighbourhoods. Poisson regression models were used to calculate how much intervention rates could be expected to rise for each 10 percent increase in neighbourhood deprivation. This produced a single number indicator of the social gradient that could be compared for different groups of children. The strongest social gradients were found for younger children, White children, children assessed with neglect and children on protection plans under the category of neglect. For children receiving statutory services the social gradient increased at every threshold of intervention. Findings suggest the shift from prevention to intervention in children’s social care is exacerbating inequalities and encouraging a disproportionate focus on poorer families. Implications are discussed for reforming child welfare services in the context of widening social inequalities.

Area‐deprivation, social care spending and the rates of children in care proceedings in local authorities in England

“…Research on children in care in the UK on a voluntary and compulsory basis by Bywaters and colleagues (Bywaters et al, 2016(Bywaters et al, , 2018Webb, Bywaters, Elliott, & Scourfield, 2020;, used aggregate data on looked after children (CLA)and confirmed associations between area deprivation and higher rates of children in care. Goldacre and Hood (2022) found higher rates of children in care from deprived households in affluent rural areas, which is supported by earlier work .…”

Social determinants of health during and after coronavirus: a qualitative study

“…The second theme was social integration which was a consolidation of four different organizers (level 2) as displayed in Table 4 . Experts ( 1 , 9 , and 11 ) said “the acceptance of the social norms, avoiding of breaking the law, and committed to obey the rules are effective in social health; social health is necessary for the health of the members of the society”. Experts 3 to 7 expressed: “family making is the cause of social health”.…”

“…Therefore, professionals should particularly consider the differences in social and economic factors and their impact on individuals’ health in emergency health conditions [ 10 ]; so that the disadvantaged population does not endure a heavier burden of health emergency as for example pandemics. It should be noted that people from low socioeconomic backgrounds experience worse health conditions and shorter lifespans than those counterparts from higher socioeconomic backgrounds [ 11 ].…”

Why are there higher rates of children looked after in Wales?

“…However, at an area level, there is increasing evidence that both deprivation and within-area inequality are associated with child welfare interventions. Some of these studies are based on England only (Bennett et al , 2020; Goldacre and Hood, 2022; Webb et al , 2020), but Webb et al (2021) also included Wales and found no significant difference between the countries.…”