Children's services are urgently looking to technology to tackle emerging issues, from sharing safeguarding intelligence across geographical and agency boundaries to making better use of dwindling resources.
The challenge for systems providers and councils is to look to technology to both drive change and innovation in tackling children's services struggles and to support and enhance existing ways of working.
Development of systems that support the work of children's services has largely evolved organically, around meeting the needs of individual councils. Much of this work has focused on improving the sharing of information between organisations working with children and families, and the quality and analysis of the data collected.
Increasingly advanced algorithms are being used to crunch large volumes of data to predict children most at risk of poor outcomes, and inform practitioners and commissioners on what interventions are most effective. This offers huge potential for developing more preventative practice, but has prompted ethical concerns about the amount of information public agencies are collecting on children and families and the security of this.
CYP Now's special report on technology in children's services assesses recent research on how technology is changing the way professionals work, identifies the key policies shaping national and local initiatives, and highlights four examples of innovative practice.
Technology in Children's Services: Policy context
Research evidence:
Facts with feelings - social workers' experiences of sharing information across team and agency borders to safeguard children
Using Facebook as a tool for informal peer support: a case example
Sharing personal information in the child protection context: Impediments in the Australian legal framework
Social Media and E-professionalism in Child Welfare: Policy and Practice
Practice examples:
Connecting Care
Early Help Profiling System
eCDOP
Electronic child record, Essex
