NEWS - New report on The Impact of Covid-19 on Children’s Care Journeys in Scotland: An Analysis of the Administrative Data on 'Looked After' Children

Introduction 

In 2016 the Scottish Government commissioned the Independent Care Review to investigate how Scotland could do more to ensure the best start in life for children and young people that are looked after. The key output of this review in 2020 was The Promise – an ambitious plan seeking to change the way in which young people feel and experience care. The ambition was clear – all of Scotland’s children, including those with experience of care, must grow up ‘loved, safe, and respected so that we can realise our full potential.’ 

Sadly, within a few weeks of The Promise being published, the WHO declared a global pandemic and the UK went into ‘lockdown’, causing an enormous disruption to the children’s social care sector. In this report titled 'The Impact of Covid-19 on Children’s Care Journeys in Scotland: An Analysis of the Administrative Data on Looked After Children', researchers from ADR Scotland explore the impact of the pandemic on children’s interactions with the care system in Scotland. 

The research was conducted using the Scottish Government’s Longitudinal Looked After Children Dataset, which is described in detail in the accompanying Data Explained. This document has been created as a resource for existing and future users of this dataset, and it is hoped that it will be useful in supporting individuals to understand and utilise the data. 

Discussion

Throughout the report, the co-authors determine: 

• How did the pandemic affect the rates of children entering care? Was this effect the same regardless of gender, ethnicity, or other characteristics? Did the effect vary across different regions? Were children and young people entering care into different types of placements, or under different legal reasons?
• Did the pandemic affect the rate at which young people were leaving care? Did this vary across different regions? Did the destinations of young people leaving care change?
• What impact did the pandemic have on the stability of children and young people’s care placements? Were children moving more or less frequently? Was the stability of certain types of placement impacted more strongly than others?

This report provides insights into the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the processes surrounding Looked After Children in Scotland.

The key findings of this research are as follows:

Conclusion

This research provides detailed insights into the disruptions experienced within children’s social care throughout the initial 16 months of the Covid-19 pandemic, specifically in terms of entries to and exits from care, and the stability of children’s placements. It was found that the impact was substantial - with large reductions seen in the number of children and young people both entering and leaving care at this time, alongside a decrease in movement for children who remained in care. It is hoped that these insights will prove useful as Scotland seeks to recover from the pandemic and work towards fulfilling the ambitions of The Promise.  

The report also highlights that, as this research was carried out on data available to July 2021, there would be great benefit in further analysis and research being conducted when more recent data becomes available.    

You can download the full report here, as well as the Data Explained.