Ofsted warning underlines the pressures facing vulnerable children and families right now 

Ofsted’s chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, told the NCAS conference last week that the number of babies in England that have suffered serious injury through abuse or neglect during the Covid pandemic is up by a fifth on the same period last year. That was followed this week by further reports on the harmful effects of the pandemic period on children. 

The news is the latest in a string of warnings about the negative impacts of Covid on families. The Ofsted warnings ought to serve as yet another wake-up call for us all to be aware of the wider challenges facing families, which can be all too easily overlooked, especially as we all keep our distance.   

The issue of neglect is symptomatic of wider problems facing families currently. Families are staying in close proximity, sometimes in very cramped housing, and are under increased financial strain and uncertainty. That will have led to many more children being witnesses to parental conflict on a scale right from low level sniping or arguments that are left unresolved, right through to domestic abuse. We know parental conflict of all types can be damaging to children, with long-term consequences for their personal development and wellbeing.  

These issues which will very likely have been missed due to a lack of face-to-face contact with the services best placed to help, could take years to fully show up. What’s clear is that the challenges of supporting children and families are far from over, even if children are back at school during this lockdown. The subtler signs of abuse, neglect or domestic violence, for example, are simply much harder to spot without home visits or other face-to-face contact. It’ll take time for the full picture of the damage done by the lockdowns to become fully apparent.  

Things are likely to get worse before they get better. Christmas will be another major pinch point for families already living in cramped and overcrowded conditions, and battling against many challenges, which very likely aren’t going away any time soon. In Northern Ireland alone, there were 116 calls to police relating to domestic abuse on Christmas Day in 2018, showing just what a pressured time of year, the festive period can be.  

Digital poverty amplifies these issues by cutting off some of the most vulnerable to the new digital and virtual support that local authorities and others are offering. This is a worrying issue and one we’ve heard about directly from those working with children in these challenging times. Even for those with devices and data or Wi-Fi to get online and engage, there’s a bigger, unresolved question of whether digital interventions work as well as face-to-face interventions. All in all, we’re at risk of leaving the most vulnerable behind.  

'Meaningful investment'

To avoid services being crushed by a wave of demand for support once this second lockdown lifts, we need to make sure services are fully funded more than just at the bare minimum. This help will be critical because vulnerable families, or families facing difficulties, have missed crucial support at key points.

The delay to receiving proper interventions is very likely to have knock-on consequences down the line, which is why we think the impact of this will last for a long time. The costs will be both social and economic. When it comes to the latter, our report, The cost of late intervention: EIF analysis 2016, calculated late intervention cost public services £17bn. Of which £633m accrued to education. The former has massive downsides for people’s life chances.  

The early help system for children and families is critical for ensuring children get the help they need at the right time. We need meaningful investment in children’s services, including universal services provided through public health teams, as well as early help and targeted services. Local authorities must be financially supported to develop and reshape their local early help offer, so that they are providing effective support able to meet different levels of child and family need, ranging from early support through to intensive longer-term support for families with more complex problems. 

The warnings from Amanda Spielman, serve as a stark reminder of the tensions that families are facing right now in this country. We must ensure that there is significant increased support for vulnerable children and families, so that this generation of children don’t have to live with the knock-on effects of Covid-19 for the rest of their lives.