How do differing rates and modes of child welfare service interventions impact upon educational and criminal justice outcomes of vulnerable children?

儿童福利服务机构(CWS)的干预旨在通过改善家庭功能或因为儿童被照顾而减少遭受虐待、创伤或其他不利经历的风险。尽管儿童福利会的参与具有积极的意图，但研究表明，在照顾系统内，儿童的出勤率和教育成就差距随着社会关怀干预水平的提高而扩大(Berbridge等人，2020；Jay&McGrath-Lone，2019；教育部，2020)。此外，那些有照看经历的儿童接受正式青少年司法处置的可能性是普通人群同龄人的三到五倍(贝特曼，2021年)，而英格兰和威尔士约有一半被拘留的儿童曾在童年的某个时候接受过照管(监狱改革信托基金，2016)。尽管有如此有力的证据表明，负面后果中存在严重的不相称现象，但迄今为止，人们对参与儿童福利制度和未来负面后果之间的复杂因果关系的理解有限。获得DFE和MoJ的相关数据提供了一个新的机会来解决这一知识差距，并在此过程中形成政策和实践改革，以改善对我们一些最脆弱的儿童和年轻人的支持。这项拟议的研究将利用这一新的关联数据集，首次检查CWS干预措施的不同应用如何影响教育脱节和刑事司法参与。通过利用先进的统计技术，将考虑到社区、学校、家庭和个人层面已知的影响负面结果风险和保护的因素的累积影响，以及不同年龄和发展阶段不同干预模式的具体影响，从而考虑数据的复杂性。这将包括考虑教育和刑事司法系统内的干预和支助如何对护理经验和随后的负面结果产生影响。它将扩展儿童福利不平等项目的方法和途径，以考虑在社会剥夺或不平等程度较高的地方当局更多地使用儿童福利服务干预措施的影响(CWIP；ByWaters等人，2020年)。研究问题将包括：1)在控制其他多系统风险和保护因素的情况下，儿童时期的CWS干预对儿童的教育参与和获得以及后来对CJS的参与提供了什么风险或保护效果？2)儿童福利机构的干预对儿童的教育获得和参与以及对CJS的参与的结果在地方当局是否公平？3)首次确定儿童或家庭的福利需求的年龄，以及随后的社会福利干预的持续时间和程度对CJS的教育获得和参与以及对CJS的参与有什么影响？以及能够在学术期刊上发表的书面研究结果报告，调查结果将通过创新的数据可视化和针对政策和实践社区的专业制作的宣传视频来分享。这些活动将设法宣传以这种方式分析数据的价值，以及研究的主要结论。与一系列非学术利益攸关方建立良好的关系，包括英国社会工作者协会、实践研究和南约克郡教学伙伴关系(由七个地方当局合作)，将确保立即影响关于儿童和家庭社会工作未来的现有政策和实践辩论，包括支持弱势青年的有效性，社会工作、教育和刑事司法之间协作战略的必要性，以及使用数据为地方当局的战略和委托提供信息

Intervention by child welfare services (CWS) aims to reduce exposure to maltreatment, trauma, or other adverse experiences, either through improvements in family functioning or because the child is placed in care. Notwithstanding the positive intent of CWS involvement, research suggests that there is an attendance and attainment gap in education for children within the care system which widens with the level of social care intervention (Berridge et al., 2020; Jay & McGrath-Lone, 2019; Department for Education, 2020). Furthermore, those with care experiences are 'between three and five times as likely as their peers in the general population to be made subject to a formal youth justice disposal' (Bateman, 2021), while approximately half of the children in custody in England and Wales have been in care at some point in their childhood (Prison Reform Trust, 2016).Despite such strong evidence of severe disproportionality in negative outcomes, to date there is limited understanding of the complex causal relationships between engagement with child welfare systems and future negative outcomes. Access to linked DfE and MoJ data provides a novel opportunity to address this gap in knowledge, and in doing so shape policy and practice reform to improve support to some of our most vulnerable children and young people. This proposed research will utilise this novel linked data set to examine, for the first time, how differential application of CWS interventions impacts upon educational disengagement and criminal justice involvement. By utilising advanced statistical techniques, the complexity of the data will be considerd by taking account of the cumulative impact of community, school, family and individual level factors known to influence risk and protection for negative outcomes, and the specific impact of differing modes of CWS interventions, at different ages and stages of development. This will include consideration to how interventions and supports within the education and criminal justice systems may impact on care experiences and subsequent negative outcomes. It will extend the methods and approaches of the Child Welfare Inequalities Project to consider the impact of the heightened use of CWS interventions in local authorities with high social deprivation or inequality (CWIP; Bywaters et al., 2020). Research questions will include:1) What risk or protective effect does a CWS intervention during childhood offer for education engagement and attainment, and later engagement with CJS, when other multisystemic risk and protective factors are controlled for? 2) Are the outcomes for child educational attainment and engagement, and engagement with CJS following intervention from child welfare services equitable across local authorities? 3) What is the effect of age of first identification of welfare needs of a child or family, and the duration and degree of subsequent social welfare intervention, on education attainment and engagement, and engagement with CJS?As well as enabling written reports of findings published in academic journals, findings will be shared through innovative data visualisation and a professionally produced promotional video, targeted at policy and practice communities. These activities will seek to communicate the value of analysing data in this way, as well as the key findings of the study. Well established relationships with a range of non-academic stakeholders, including the British Association of Social Workers, Research in Practice, and the South Yorkshire Teaching Partnership (a collaboration of seven local authorities), will ensure immediate impact upon existing policy and practice debates regarding the future of children and families social work, including the effectiveness of support to vulnerable young people, the need for collaborative strategies between social work, education and criminal justice, and the use of data to inform local authority strategy and commissioning