Parents’ mental health now most common factor in children’s social care need
Parents’ mental health now most common factor in children’s social care need
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Parents’ poor mental health has become the most common factor in children’s social care assessments in England, according to a report which saw it cited more often than domestic abuse for the first time. Leaders of council children’s services highlighted the trend in a long-running tracker of safeguarding pressures, which also reported on the effects of overcrowded and unaffordable housing and a lasting impact of the pandemic which has left families less resilient.
The Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) said three-quarters of councils that responded to its regular survey reported an increase in safeguarding demand over a two-year period due to children’s mental health. It added that poor parental mental health had, for the first time in the nearly two decades since its tracking reports began in 2007, overtaken domestic abuse as the most common factor in children’s social care assessments.
Of more than 120 local authority responses, parental mental health was the most frequently reported assessment factor in children’s social care, rising by 10% since the previous reporting period in 2022. The ADCS report, published on Wednesday, noted impacts of delayed access to assessment or treatment plans for children as well as parents and carers for things like alcohol and substance misuse and mental health.
