Schools social work projects extended
By Gemma Raw
The Department for Education (DfE) has committed £4.79 million in additional funding to extend trials of the Social Workers in Schools (SWIS) and Designated Safeguarding Lead Supervision (DSLS) projects into the 2022-23 academic year.
The SWIS project is intended to improve social care and academic outcomes for children through more effective inter-agency co-operation between those working in social care jobs and those working in schools.
The DSLS programme provides Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs) in schools with regular access to a social worker to discuss any relevant issues or get advice on matters relating to child safety. The aim is to reduce pressure on DSLs, while improving their knowledge of children's social care processes and issues.
42 local authorities have participated in the trials of the two projects, which began in 2020 and have been delivered by What Works for Children's Social Care (WWCSC). In total, 146 social workers have been placed in schools, with each participating local authority also having a team manager for the project.
Encouraging results
Feedback has been overwhelmingly good, with reports of more rapid referrals and assessments and effective support for school staff in managing the safeguarding risks, as well as positive impacts on attendance, attainment, behaviour and exclusions. A full evaluation of the projects is being led by WWCSC's research partner CASCADE and results are due to be published in January 2023.
"The Social Workers in Schools scale up is proving to be a fascinating innovation to be involved in," said David Westlake, Senior Research Fellow at CASCADE. "The decision to extend it means our study – the SWIS Trial – will now include data across two full academic years. This will help to ensure we learn as much as we can about how the intervention works and the impact it is having for children and families across many areas of England."
Why have the projects been extended?
The additional funding will continue to deliver the SWIS and DSLS interventions through the 22-23 academic year, with the following four key aims:
maintain and build the first-hand experience and expertise of SWIS and DSLS social workers,
continue to develop and share lessons through a community of practice,
continue delivery of effective support to pupils and schools where the interventions have already been implemented,
continue to gather data on outcomes.
Jermaine Ravalier, Director of Programmes for WWCSC, has summed up the benefits of continuing with the project trials: "The funding extension for both SWIS and DSLS not only enables social workers to stay in their assigned schools longer and continue their work with children and young people, but will also enable us to gather more data and deepen our research, which in turn will provide richer evidence to evaluate and hopefully identify key outcomes to assist in supporting children, young people and their families."
