Children's social care projects receive £2m to test effectiveness

The projects are being funded by What Works for Children's Social Care (WWCSC) following the charity's first open funding call, which received more than 50 applications.

• Social care toolmaker: Michael Sanders of What Works for Children's Social Care

• Funding Focus: Support for BAME groups

Alongside funding the delivery of each of these projects, WWCSC will also fund independent evaluators, who will work with local authorities and other delivery partners over the next 18 months to assess their success and understand how they are implemented.

The successful projects include the Lighthouse Parenting Programme, which will involve Bath and North East Somerset Council and Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust working therapeutically with parents whose children are at risk of maltreatment to improve outcomes for families with children on a child protection plan or involed in pre-proceedings.

Meanwhile, community interest company Blue Cabin is being funded to expand its Creative Life Story Work to two new local authorities - Darlington and Gateshead following a successful launch in South Tyneside. The programme consists of group work sessions facilitated by artists, one-to-one direct work with social workers, and therapeutic life story work.

Funding will also be provided to the London Borough of Lewisham for its Prevent-Protect-Repair project which aims to build the skills, confidence and capacity of children’s social care teams to work with families affected by domestic abuse that are on child protection plans.

This includes raising awareness for domestic abuse, expanding training for social workers in key interventions, developing a best-practice toolkit and increasing access to specialist therapeutic support.

Michael Sanders, chief executive of What Works for Children’s Social Care, said: “I’m pleased that we’re able to announce funding for these new projects, each of which will help support families during this difficult time, while also helping us to build a larger and stronger evidence base around new and effective practice.”

Another beneficiary is Leicester-based charity The Mighty Creatives for its Creative Mentoring programme, which aims to enable personal development and maintain education engagement by providing one-to-one mentoring to children and young people in care as well as care leavers. Mentoring will take place at home, school or social care settings across eight local authority areas.

The University of Sussex will receive funding to equipping social workers and carers with kitbag - which contains prompt cards, timers, a talking stick, puppets, visualisation exercises, and calming oils - in order to promote socially and emotionally literate relationships between children, professionals and carers.

The University of Wolverhampton will be funded to provide early bespoke support to children and families with no recourse to public funds who currently do not meet the threshold for Section 17 of the Children Act.

And Wirral Council will be supported to run its We Can Talk About Domestic Abuse programme, which aims to improving understanding, communication and experience between professionals and people affected by domestic abuse, utilising subject matter experts that have lived-experience of domestic abuse and social care.