Mapping the evidence about what works to safely reduce the entry of children and young people into statutory care: a systematic scoping review protocol

Abstract

IntroductionThe increasing number of children and young people entering statutory care in the UK is a significant social, health and educational priority. Development of effective approaches to safely reduce this number remains a complex but critical issue. Despite a proliferation in interventions, evidence summaries are limited. The present protocol outlines a scoping review of research evidence to identify what works in safely reducing the number of children and young people (aged ≤18 years) entering statutory social care. The mapping of evidence gaps, clusters and uncertainties will inform the research programme of the newly funded Department for Education’s What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care.Methods and analysisThe review uses Arksey and O’Malley’s scoping review methodology. Electronic database and website searches will identify studies targeting reduction of care entry, reduction of care re-entry and increase in post-care reunification. Supplementary searching techniques will include international expert consultation. Abstracts and full-text studies will be independently screened by two reviewers. Ten per cent of data abstraction will be independently conducted by two reviewers, with the remainder being extracted and then verified by a second reviewer. Descriptive numerical summaries and a thematic qualitative synthesis will be generated. Evidence will be synthesised according to primary outcome, intervention point (mapped across socioecological domains) and the realist EMMIE categorisation of evidence type (Effectiveness; Mechanisms of change; Moderators; Implementation; Economic evaluation).Ethics and disseminationOutputs will be a conceptual evidence map, a descriptive table quantitatively summarising evidence and a qualitative narrative summary. Results will be disseminated through a peer-reviewed publication, conference presentations, the What Works Centre website, and knowledge translation events with policy-makers and practitioners. Findings will inform the primary research programme of the What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care and the subsequent suite of systematic reviews to be conducted by the Centre in this substantive area.

The Views of Local Authorities in England on How to Prevent Children Being in Care

“…a report by the Chief Social Worker (Trowler, 2018) and What Works for Children's Social Care prioritising this theme in its set up phase (e.g. Brand et al, 2019). The apparent recency of approaches may also reflect staff turnover and lack of organisational memory.…”

A scoping review of system-level mechanisms to prevent children being in out-of-home care

“…Protocol components have been cross referenced with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic review and Meta-Analysis Protocols checklist to ensure completeness (Moher et al, 2015). Further details on the method are published in the protocol, particularly in relation to the context of the study and research question identification (Brand et al, 2019).…”

“…Full eligibility criteria were published prior to the review (Brand et al, 2019). The eligibility criteria were developed in accordance with the Population, Intervention, Comparator, and Outcome (PICO) framework (Moher et al, 2015).…”

“…The review was supported by funding from the Department for Education, England, UK (grant number 41070002828; 16.10.2017). The funders had no role in the conduct of the review other than proof-reading the full report (Brand et al, 2019). The authors have no competing interests to declare.…”

“…This article also presents an innovative way of conducting a scoping review, highlighting different types of evidence rather than just effectiveness data. This article is an overview of the data, and more detailed work explores the methodology (Brand et al, 2019), and further synthesis of some of the findings (Stabler et al, 2019).…”