Child Welfare Outcomes
2 total works
Costs and Consequences of Placing Children in Care
by Jean Soper, Harriet Ward, Lisa Holmes, and Richard Olsen
It costs more to place a child in the care of a local authority than it does to send a child to a top boarding school, and there are substantial variations in costs both between and within authorities.
This book gets to the bottom of the costs of care and provides an insight into how these variations in cost relate to differences in children's needs, and most importantly, whether higher costs reflect better services and better outcomes for children.
Costs and Consequences for Children Placed Away from Home draws from new original research, and considers the implications for best practice and future policy. It also features information about a newly pioneered resource: a fully workable decision analysis model designed for use in local authorities which uses historical data for each child to calculate the probable cost consequences of difference placement choices.
This book sheds light on how to calculate the financial and social costs of care, and will be invaluable to both social work managers and policy makers working in children's services.
Understanding Costs and Outcomes in Child Welfare Services
by Lisa Holmes and Samantha McDermid
Today's child welfare services operate under a limited supply of resources which are being stretched by economic cuts and an increasing number of referrals to children's social care. This book provides a comprehensive costing approach which examines how finite resources can be most effectively used to provide support to the most vulnerable children and their families.
Drawing upon the latest research and data, it outlines a methodology which has been applied to a range of child welfare services. The methodology breaks services down into component parts, creating a 'unit cost' for each type of case and task. This 'bottom-up' approach ensures that costing is consistent and allows for variations specific to each type of case and welfare organisation. By looking explicitly at the links between needs, costs and outcomes, this book gives social care commissioners and managers an indication of the most effective and efficient way to allocate and channel resources. As well as offering these implications for practice, this book will offer policymakers evidence of the effectiveness of early intervention and preventative measures.
In providing a detailed assessment of children's needs, costs and outcomes across the full range of child welfare services and cases, this book will be of essential use to both social care professionals at the commissioning level and policymakers who wish to improve the effectiveness of child welfare services.