March 6, 2019

New and Innovative Children’s services in UCR 2018

by Amanda Burns

For over 25 years, researchers at the PSSRU  have been providing good quality unit cost information to policy-makers, providers and researchers through our annual volumes of the Unit Costs of Health & Social Care. The volumes span a range of health and social care services with cost information sourced from routinely collected information as well as research.

We have always included a chapter identifying the costs of services provided specifically for children and young people. Our range of children’s social care services includes

• Care homes for children
• Foster care
• Various components of adoption support
• Decision-making panels and
• Short breaks.

In the most recent volume, we include information from the evaluations linked to the Children’s Social Care Innovations programme. This programme was funded by the Department for Education to “develop, test and share effective ways of supporting children” (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/childrens-social-care-innovation-programme).

We provide summary cost information from six evaluations on p70-71 of the Unit Costs of Health and Social Care 2018. More detail on the researchers’ methods and data sources can be found in each report by accessing the links.
The chapter on Children’s Services also includes unit costs for a number of health care services drawn from NHS Digital’s Reference Costs (e.g. school-based health services, child and adolescent mental health services), palliative care at home, parent training programmes, and counselling.  You can access a collection of previously published short articles on children’s services through our Articles’ Database,

We are delighted to work with the Department of Education in providing the costs of children’s services and are hoping to reproduce more information from the Innovation evaluations in subsequent volumes.

We are always on the lookout for other sources of costs to include in our Children’s Services chapter – and keen to expand our contacts in children’s social care research. If you have carried out any research in this area please get in touch with Amanda Burns (a.l.burns@kent.ac.uk). We have a few printed copies of our 2018 volume remaining and would be happy to send you one.

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[1] McCracken, K., Priest, S., FitzSimons, A., Bracewell, K., Torchia, K. & Parry, W. with Stanley, N. (2017) Evaluation of Pause, Department for Education, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-care-pause-programme.

[2] Lushey, C., Hyde-Dryden, G., Holmes, L. & Blackmore, J. (2017) Evaluation of the No Wrong Door Innovation Programme, Research Report, Department for Education, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/no-wrong-door-innovation-programme-evaluation.

[3] Boxford, S., Harvey, J., Irani, M. & Spencer, H. (2017) Evaluation of the Belhaven Service, Department for Education, http://innovationcsc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/1.2.67-Priory_Belhaven_IP_evaluation_report_July_17.pdf.

[4] 1 McDermid, S., Baker, C. & Lawson, D. with Holmes, L. (2016) The evaluation of the Mockingbird Family Model, Department for Education, http://innovationcsc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/1.2.73-DFE-RR528- Mockingbird_family_model_evaluation.pdf.

[5] Burch, K., Green, C., Merrell, S., Taylor, V. & Wise, S. (2017) Social Care innovations in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, Evaluation Report, Department for Education, http://innovationcsc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/1.2.49- Hampshire_and_IOW_Evaluation_Report_March_2017.pdf.

[6] Day, L., Scott,L. & Smith, K. (2017) Evaluation of the Sefton Community Adolescent Service (CAS), Department for Education. http://innovationcsc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/1.2.68- Evaluation_of_the_Sefton_Community_Adolescent_Service-1.pdf.