Surge in child referrals for islands’ social service staff

They have a paradise image of being uniquely serene and a world away from the kind of modern troubles which blight the mainland.

Yet, the latest figures from the Isles of Scilly have revealed that social workers there have had their busiest year ever.

In the ten months since last April, the department of the Council of the Isles of Scilly which deals with children’s social care has received an unprecedented 29 new referrals at “child in need” or “child protection” levels of intervention.

By the middle of last month, social workers were dealing with an unheard-of workload of 45 cases, of which 19 related to disability needs issues and 14 concerning family support.

Jane Stewart, children’s social care manager, said her team needed to “unpick the reasons” for the increase.

The department was unable to provide last year’s figures at the time the Western Morning News went to press. However Ms Stewart said the current case load may be down to factors as varied as the recession or more confidence in the system prompting an increased willingness to report issues.

“It has been our busiest year at children’s social care,” she said.

“I think that this is mostly because both the community and practitioners are more aware of our service now.

“We have built up the level of trust in the community and our provision is beginning to get more embedded, especially in terms of disabilities and additional needs work.

“There may be other factors, such as the recession which have had an impact too, as was discussed in [the Children and Young People] committee, but we need to unpick the reasons ourselves more to gain a deeper understanding of the possible reasons why.”

In Devon, which has a population of more than 1.1 million, the children’s social care referrals to the county council numbered 6,897 in 2010/2011, a decrease from the previous year’s figure of 7,557 but an increase from the two years prior.

Meanwhile in Cornwall, which has a population of 535,000, there were 2,678 referrals from April to December 2011.

The Scillies, an archipelago with five inhabited islands 28 miles off the coast of West Cornwall, has long enjoyed the nickname “the fortunate isles”. Residents are proud of the relatively crime-free nature of their community, although the police station fielded its 100th crime report in November 2011 – the highest number in four years.

Ms Stewart said that after initial reports to her department, social workers often found they could work with a family to provide the support they needed to “get back on track”.

“As Ofsted has also remarked on this in a positive light, our focus is very much on prevention, therefore we do a lot of work to support families to avoid them getting to crisis point.”