CYP Now's top 10 stories of 2016
Adam Offord
Monday, December 19, 2016
With the UK voting to leave the European Union, a new Prime Minister and government installed, policy u-turns, and an influx of children and families from war-torn Syria, 2016 has been a turbulent year. Here is a run-down of the most-read stories published on the CYP Now website over the past 12 months.
1. Health visiting review: ministers to consider axing family health checks
The government commissions Public Health England to carry out a review into the future of health visitor family checks beyond 2017.
2. Labour launches review of SEN provision
The Labour Party launches a review of special education needs provision after claiming that too many children are not getting the support they require.
3. Childcare to be available from 6am
Department for Education consultation documents reveal that the government intends to change the availability of free childcare entitlement to between 6am and 8pm when it extends free childcare to 30 hours each week.
4. 4Children to close due to ‘funding pressures'
National charity 4Children announces that it is to close due to "funding pressures", with a vast majority of its existing work being transferred to Action for Children.
5. Life chances strategy shelved after Brexit vote
CYP Now learns that the government has shelved the life chances strategy in the wake of the result of the EU referendum and the prospect of a new Prime Minister.
6. Serious case reviews to be scrapped
The government backs recommendations published in a review into local safeguarding children boards and plans to replace the current system of serious case reviews and miscellaneous local reviews with "a system of national and local reviews".
7. Children's centres consultation delayed
It emerges that a consultation on the future of children's centres has been delayed.
8. Children's centres consultation to launch in summer
Government education minister Lord Nash reveals that a consultation on the future of children's centres will be launched in summer 2016 and linked to the development of the life chances strategy.
9. Abused children ‘re-traumatised' by support services
A study by mental health charity YoungMinds claims that schools, social workers, police and NHS staff are inadvertently "re-traumatising" vulnerable children because of basic misunderstandings about their behaviour.
10. Ofsted awards first ‘outstanding' ratings for children's services
Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster become the first two local authorities to be awarded "outstanding" judgments under Ofsted's controversial inspection framework for children's services.
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