Costs And Outcomes In Children S Social Care

This text presents the findings of a set of original research studies and reports on the way that care services for children are delivered, the cost of providing services and the extent to which they improve outcomes for children. It also looks at services provided by the statutory, and examines how resources are distributed.

Today's child welfare services operate under a limited supply of resources. This book explains how finite resources can be used most effectively, providing social work managers and policymakers with a comprehensive costing model to assess the links between needs, costs and outcomes across the full range of child welfare services.

Social Care Management, Strategy and Business Planning is a comprehensive guide to strategic social care management, covering all the knowledge and skills that managers in the 21st century must have, and showing how to make theory a practical reality. The book aims to make business planning a more accessible and user-friendly process, offering practical advice on how to tackle the everyday tasks which good social care management should involve. Topics covered include strategic planning, business development, commissioning and contracting, project management, decision-making, risk, and evaluation techniques. The book also acknowledges the challenges of working collaboratively within a complex legislative and policy framework and juggling different aspects of the management tasks whilst retaining professional identities and ethics. Also included are practical examples and lively tips and comments from practising managers on their experiences in different areas of business planning. This book will be essential reading for anyone involved in managing or leading practice either in the front line or at a more strategic level. It will be useful to post-qualifying social work students and is particularly valuable to anyone following a management training programme.

This practical handbook on how to evaluate outcomes in people-orientated projects will support decision making and lead to achieving goals.

The need for evidence-based decisions that take account of botheffectiveness and economics is greater now than ever. Using casestudies and illustrative examples throughout the authors describehow the activities and outputs of evidence synthesis, systematicreview, economic analysis and decision-making interact within andacross different spheres of health and social policy and practice. Expanding on the first edition the book now covers approaches toevidence synthesis that combine economics and systematic reviewmethods in the applied fields of social welfare, education andcriminal justice, as well as health care. Written by economists andhealth services researchers closely involved in developingevidence-based policy and practice it showcases currentstate-of-the-art methodology and will be an invaluable read for allpolicy-makers and practitioners using evidence to inform decisions,analysts conducting research to support decisions and studentsdiscovering the need for evidence-based decisions to incorporateeconomic perspectives and evidence.

The quality of the assessment of children in need has a significant impact on outcomes for the children concerned. Good assessment contributes to better outcomes, but poor assessment can have tragic consequences. Understanding what makes a good assessment is vital. This book brings together findings from 10 years of UK research that shed light on different aspects of child and family assessment, and examines the evidence for what works in promoting the best outcomes for children. It covers thresholds for assessment and intervention, what information should be collected in assessments, and assessments in different contexts. It also examines key aspects of practice and the factors that can help or hinder good quality assessment. These areas include analysis, critical thinking and reflection; engaging with children and families; and inter-professional working. Structural, procedural and organisational factors are also considered. In summarising the research, this important book provides key messages on the links between assessment and outcomes for children, and offers implications for policy and practice. It will be essential reading for social work practitioners, academics, students and researchers, and all those in the child protection field.

The strengths and abilities children develop from infancy through adolescence are crucial for their physical, emotional, and cognitive growth, which in turn help them to achieve success in school and to become responsible, economically self-sufficient, and healthy adults. Capable, responsible, and healthy adults are clearly the foundation of a well-functioning and prosperous society, yet America's future is not as secure as it could be because millions of American children live in families with incomes below the poverty line. A wealth of evidence suggests that a lack of adequate economic resources for families with children compromises these children's ability to grow and achieve adult success, hurting them and the broader society. A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty reviews the research on linkages between child poverty and child well-being, and analyzes the poverty-reducing effects of major assistance programs directed at children and families. This report also provides policy and program recommendations for reducing the number of children living in poverty in the United States by half within 10 years.

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.