Barnardo’s report drop in referrals to support services

The biggest ever survey of frontline workers at Barnardo’s revealed that 45 per cent of practitioners said requests for support from their service had dropped since the UK went into lockdown in March.

A further eight per cent of respondents said a child or young person they had been working with had been turned away from services they are entitled to.

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The biggest concern reported by Barnardo’s staff who took part in the survey was that children and young people are not being physically seen by professionals. Increased mental health and wellbeing issues was the next biggest concern, followed by increased risk of domestic abuse.

Barnardo’s is calling on professionals working with vulnerable children to refer them for services using the charity’s See, Hear, Respond programme which is funded by the Department for Education.

The programme sees Barnardo’s lead a coalition of local and national charities to offer both face-to-face and remote support for young people across a range of issues including mental health problems, child sexual exploitation, child criminal exploitation and domestic abuse.

Support is targeted at children who are “falling through the cracks” including those who are not eligible for local authority support.

The results of the survey come as children’s commissioner for England Anne Longfield warns in her latest report that tens of thousands of teenagers are at risk of “falling off the radar” of schools and local authority children’s services.

Longfield warns that 120,000 children were at risk of missing out on vital support, going missing from care and dropping out of education before lockdown.

The pandemic “puts even more children at risk”, she said.

Javed Khan, chief executive at Barnardo’s, said: “We need both professionals - and anyone in contact with vulnerable children - to be our eyes and ears and refer children in need of help. 

“Children have too often been unseen and unheard during this crisis and they risk becoming the forgotten victims. This initiative is a vital lifeline for the hundreds of thousands of children and young people as we navigate the pandemic and its aftermath, helping to improve their long-term outcomes so they can have successful futures.”