Register of children in care?

[postmanpatscat]

Does anyone know if there is such a thing? There was one called ContactPoint but it was scrapped in 2010. I am wondering if it is possible for a social worker in a local authority, which is NOT the one caring for the child, to access a register of children in care in any other local authority.

[NanaNina]

There is a National Adoption Register of children awaiting adoption and obviously every LA keeps a record of the children they are "Looking After" (same thing as being in care) I don't quite understand your post - sounds a bit convoluted - do you want to explain a bit more....

[OneOfOurLilkasIsMissing]

Is there a national register containing the details of every child in care? No, I don't believe so, so no, a social worker in one authority can't get a list of children in care in another authority. If they want to know about children in care in another local authority, they'll have to contact that other LA and ask

[scarlet5tyger]

I can't think why such a register would be needed - as posted above, why wouldn't the SW just contact the LA directly?

If one did exist I can see it being wide open to abuse - our medical records being sold to insurance companies is bad enough! Imagine what the government could get for selling vulnerable children's details.

[floatyjosmum]

A social worker wouldn't know the details of the children in care in their own la unless there was a need for their job but would probably know roughly how many there is.
Most computer systems will say whether a child is lac when you bring that particular child up but that would mean looking children up which is a big no no for sw unless they need to!
If a la places a child in another area they have to notify that la that a lac child is there but would only give name, dob and placement address.

[NanaNina]

When I retired from LA children's services in 2004 the "business model" had been in place for sometime and it certainly wasn't the reason I went into social work. It became absolutely essential that every area in the county had a database of children being LA - divided into age ranges, genders etc. However for many years there was a countywide "Children who Wait" list, for (as its name suggests - children awaiting adoption or permanent foster care) and the whole family placement teams became centralised because the senior managers thought that all the areas were "guarding their own territories" when it came to looking for vacancies for children needing to come into the system. There was some truth in this I have to say, and to counteract this, every team had to state each week if/how many vacancies they have - age range, genders etc . and this "management information" had to be sent to all senior managers ever Monday.

I was a team manager for the past 15 years of my career and the number of meetings that I sat in, when no one would know that the agenda was anything to do with children. We could have been canning baked beans!! There was an obsession with counting everything - children/ages/genders/fostercarers/adoptors/kinshipcarers etc etc. There was a great emphasis on "performance indicators" and all sorts of "management speak" stuff that I have long forgotten!

We had to submit reports every week of how many children were in placement (dates the placement started) ages/genders of the children, any children that were in IFA placements (and these children had to be brought back to "in-house" carers as soon as a vacancy occurred) and a how many children were the subject of care proceedings and how many were on a "voluntary" basis and if the latter the expected date they could return home. The list was endless and that was all 10 years ago and I know from colleagues that around 70% of social work time is spent in front of a computer, inputting and box ticking and god knows what else.

Sorry I'm on a rant so I'd better sign off!