The backgrounds of children in out of home care in Wales

There has been an unprecedented increase in recent years in the numbers of applications through the law courts in England and Wales to place children in out of home care (‘looked-after’ children). This increase followed... [ view full abstract ]

There has been an unprecedented increase in recent years in the numbers of applications through the law courts in England and Wales to place children in out of home care (‘looked-after’ children). This increase followed the publication of a review in 2008 into the death of a young child, Peter Connelly, which became highly politicised. From a Welsh perspective, initial analysis of administrative data suggests that children in Wales are now on average one and a half times more likely to come into out of home care than their peers in England. Welsh local authorities also have some of the highest rates of children in out of home care of local authorities across England and Wales. Whilst having rates generally much higher than those of English local authorities there is also significant variation in rates between local authorities in Wales. Both the differences in rates of children in out of home care between England and Wales and the variation in rates between Welsh authorities clearly identify this as a policy area which requires urgent investigation in Wales.

Using a quantitative analysis of six years’ (2008 – 2014) routinely collected administrative data relating to every child (N=15,228) who has spent time in out of home care in Wales, the intention of the research is to explore these variations using both aggregate and child-level data.

The analysis of the data fits into five defined analysis strands. The following is a summary of each of the strands indicating which research questions they are intended to address

Aggregate level - Based on an analysis of publicly available administrative data what are the characteristics of the out of home care population in Wales at a local authority level?

Differences within and between local authorities over time - Based on an analysis of child-level data are there differences between Welsh local authorities in the nature of the ‘flow’ of children and young people in and out of out of home care over time?; and are there differences between authorities in the characteristics of children and young people (age profile, sex, legal status, reason for being placed in out of home care, etc.) in out of home care and do those differences explain variations in overall rates?

Social inequalities - Is there a correlation between indices of deprivation and out of home care rates at the level of small area geographies in Wales?

Re-entry to care / Cessation of care - What are the factors that predict children returning to care and/or cessation of a period in out of home care?

Child-level England / Wales comparison - How do the findings of the analysis of child-level data for Welsh authorities compare to data collected by a parallel study being undertaken in England?

The presentation will focus on early findings from two of these analysis strands, ‘differences within and between local authorities over time’ and ‘social inequalities’. Early analysis findings have included, identification of a relationship between the proportion of children of certain age groups entering out of home care within a local authority and that authority’s overall rate of children in care.