Exploring placement stability for children in out-of-home care in England: a sequence analysis of longitudinal administrative data

BackgroundLocal authorities in Scotland have a responsibility to provide support for vulnerable children and young people, known as ‘looked after children’. This support can include providing care for these children away from home, but there have been growing concerns that children with out of home placements may experience multiple placements before a stable home environment is established for them. As a result, policy changes have aimed to reduce the amount of instability which looked after children experience, but our current understanding of care placement stability in Scotland, and how this has changed over time, is limited. ObjectivesThis project aims to develop our understanding of the patterns of instability experienced by children looked after away from home by applying state sequence analysis (SSA) administrative data regarding children’s care placements from 2008 to 2017 ( 70,000 children). Data are provided by Scottish Government. Methods and FindingsSSA is a method commonly used to describe developmental processes which consist of changes between different states - in this case, types of care placement - and provides a number of tools to describe in/stability in these processes. In this paper we use SSA to analyse sequences of placements for multiple cohorts of children to give a detailed description of how placement stability for looked after children in Scotland has changed over the last decade, with results show differences in the typical placement sequence patterns for children of different ages. We and also discuss some methodological challenges which arise when implementing SSA using administrative data. ConclusionsCombining SSA and administrative data provides a useful way to describe the typical patterns of looked after care placements, and how these patterns have changed over time.

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Child Welfare Inequalities in a Time of Rising Numbers of Children Entering Out-of-Home Care

The British Journal of Social Work ◽

10.1093/bjsw/bcz154 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 50 (2) ◽

pp. 581-597 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Martin Elliott

Keyword(s):

Child Welfare ◽

Child Maltreatment ◽

Home Care ◽

Administrative Data ◽

Social Gradient ◽

Deprived Neighbourhoods ◽

Out Of Home Care ◽

Cent Increase ◽

The Relationship ◽

Over Time

Abstract The relationship between poverty and child maltreatment and by extension of being placed in out-of-home care is a well-established one. However, this study goes beyond recent UK studies on the scale of child welfare inequalities in the likelihood of being placed in out-of-home care by considering such inequalities over time. The study is an analysis of longitudinal administrative data on children ‘looked after’ with a specific focus on children entering care in the two years that followed the death of Peter Connelly in 2007, a period that saw a rapid increase in numbers of children entering care. The analysis considers these increases using a child welfare inequalities lens. There is a ‘social gradient’ present within the overall rates of children entering care, with children in the most deprived neighbourhoods almost twelve times more likely to enter care than those in the least deprived. Such inequalities are compounded further in times of rapidly increasing entries to care with children entering care being disproportionately drawn from the poorest neighbourhoods, illustrated by a 42-per cent increase in rates between the two years in the most deprived neighbourhoods whilst rates in the least deprived neighbourhoods fell or remained the same.

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Local variation in the use of out-of-home care in England: analysis of linked administrative data

International Journal for Population Data Science ◽

10.23889/ijpds.v1i1.265 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Louise McGrath-Lone ◽

Katie Harron ◽

Lorraine Dearden ◽

Bilal Nasim ◽

Ruth Gilbert

Keyword(s):

Home Care ◽

Administrative Data ◽

Social Care ◽

Local Authority ◽

Local Variation ◽

Local Authorities ◽

Cumulative Proportion ◽

Out Of Home Care ◽

Linked Administrative Data ◽

Ethnic Distribution

ABSTRACT ObjectivesIn England, approximately one in thirty children spend time in out-of-home care (OHC) by age 18.Use of OHC is known to vary across the country, which may be explained in part by ethnic group differences in the risk of being placed in OHC. This study uses linked administrative data to determine whether local variation in the cumulative proportion of children placed in OHC is explained by differences in the ethnic distribution of the local populations. Approach Administrative social care records from January 1, 1992 to December 31, 2012 for a one-third sample of children were linked to publicly-available local authority population estimates. Two artificial birth cohorts were selected for analysis; 1992-94 and 2009-11. The cumulative proportion of children who entered OHC was calculated for each of the current 150 local authorities (the local government bodies who deliver children’s social care services). Funnel plots were used to identify local authorities with higher or lower than expected rates of entry to OHC, taking into account the size of their child population and its ethnic distribution. ResultsOverall 3.3% of children in England born 1992-94 had entered OHC by age 18. Rates varied considerably by local authority from this national average, ranging from just 1.0% in Rutland to 6.9% in Manchester (both p<0.001). Local authority variation in rates of entry to OHC was also evident among the most recent birth cohort: while 0.8% of children born 2009-11 had entered OHC by age one, this figure varied from 0.2% in Rutland to 2.7% in Blackpool (p<0.05 and p<0.001 respectively). Indirect standardisation of rates for ethnicity did not appreciably change the cumulative percentage of children entering care in each local authority or the relative rankings of local authorities. Conclusion There is considerable, persistent variation between local authorities in England in the rate of entry into OHC during childhood which cannot be attributed to differences in ethnic composition. Further linkage of administrative social care data to area-level data (for example, related to social care spending or indicators of social deprivation) would be useful for understanding local variation in thresholds for placing a child in OHC.

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Exploring local variation in the use of out-of-home care in England using linked administrative data

International Journal for Population Data Science ◽

10.23889/ijpds.v1i1.273 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Louise Mc Grath-Lone ◽

Katie Harron ◽

Lorraine Dearden ◽

Bilal Nasim ◽

Ruth Gilbert

Keyword(s):

Home Care ◽

Administrative Data ◽

Social Care ◽

Local Authority ◽

Local Variation ◽

Local Authorities ◽

Cumulative Proportion ◽

Out Of Home Care ◽

Linked Administrative Data ◽

Ethnic Distribution

ABSTRACT ObjectivesIn England, approximately one in thirty children spend time in out-of-home care (OHC) by age 18.Use of OHC is known to vary across the country, which may be explained in part by ethnic group differences in the risk of being placed in OHC. This study uses linked administrative data to determine whether local variation in the cumulative proportion of children placed in OHC is explained by differences in the ethnic distribution of the local populations. Approach Administrative social care records from January 1, 1992 to December 31, 2012 for a one-third sample of children were linked to publicly-available local authority population estimates. Two artificial birth cohorts were selected for analysis; 1992-94 and 2009-11. The cumulative proportion of children who entered OHC was calculated for each of the current 150 local authorities (the local government bodies who deliver children’s social care services). Funnel plots were used to identify local authorities with higher or lower than expected rates of entry to OHC, taking into account the size of their child population and its ethnic distribution. ResultsOverall 3.3% of children in England born 1992-94 had entered OHC by age 18. Rates varied considerably by local authority from this national average, ranging from just 1.0% in Rutland to 6.9% in Manchester (both p<0.001). Local authority variation in rates of entry to OHC was also evident among the most recent birth cohort: while 0.8% of children born 2009-11 had entered OHC by age one, this figure varied from 0.2% in Rutland to 2.7% in Blackpool (p<0.05 and p<0.001 respectively). Indirect standardisation of rates for ethnicity did not appreciably change the cumulative percentage of children entering care in each local authority or the relative rankings of local authorities. Conclusion There is considerable, persistent variation between local authorities in England in the rate of entry into OHC during childhood which cannot be attributed to differences in ethnic composition. Further linkage of administrative social care data to area-level data (for example, related to social care spending or indicators of social deprivation) would be useful for understanding local variation in thresholds for placing a child in OHC.

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