Daily roundup 15 November: Early help cuts, What Works, and terror offence

Demand for crisis support for children is rising sharply as councils slash preventative services under the pressure of £2.4bn of central government funding cuts, a new report has warned. The Turning the Tide report from The Children's Society, Action for Children and the National Children's Bureau, found that spending on early help services that are designed to spot signs of neglect and abuse early has fallen by 40 per cent between 2010/11 and 2015/16, while crisis support has risen by seven per cent to £6.1bn.


Cardiff University has been named as the research partner for a new What Works Centre for Children's Social Care. The Department for Education said that, working closely with social innovation charity Nesta, which was awarded the contract to deliver the What Works Centre last month, researchers at Cardiff will aim to develop a strong evidence base around effective interventions and practice systems.


A 14-year-old girl has been arrested on suspicion of a terror offence. The BBC reports that the teenager was held at an address in south London on suspicion of assisting a person to carry out an act of terrorism. Scotland Yard said she had been detained under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act by the Met Police's counter-terrorism command.


Staff at the National College for Teaching and Leadership and the Department for Education will combine into one team to help better align efforts to attract the best and brightest into the profession, and support teachers through their career. The Department for Education, which will take on teacher recruitment functions, said the move will mean even closer co-ordination between the work already under way to improve schools and strengthen the profession, and the delivery of support to teachers in classrooms.


The mother of a teenage girl who took her own life after absconding from residential care said she was "furious" at the lack of mental health support for her daughter. The BBC reports that Libbi Toledo had severe mental health issues as well as autism and ADHD. The 17-year-old's body was found in a scrapyard in Kirkcaldy, 10 days after she was reported missing. Her mother Judi said the way her daughter was "let down by the system is absolutely disgusting".