Children commissioner calls for volunteer social workers

Anne Longfield has called for an army of volunteers to help support children’s social care during the coronavirus crisis.

Just as doctors and nurses who left the NHS have responded to calls to return to work to help save lives, the Children’s Commissioner for England would like to see retired social workers and a range of school, nursery and care staff who have been furloughed as a result of the crisis join forces to help keep at-risk children safe.

The call follows widespread concern that many vulnerable children who were offered places at the slimmed-down, emergency schools which remain open to the children of key workers, have not turned up since the schools’ lockdown. The IPPR think tank recently warned that urgent intervention is needed to ensure that millions of children are not unfairly disadvantaged by the measures to combat the coronavirus crisis.

While schools and local authorities are working around the clock to keep in touch with pupils and their families, Longfield warned that existing resources were overstretched and called for a national plan for workers to sign up to support children’s social care. There are an estimated one million vulnerable children in England who were at risk of becoming invisible during the crisis.

The aim is to recruit about 200 volunteers in each local authority, creating an army of 30,000 in total – all of whom will already have the necessary DBS checks, and relevant experience in the education and children’s care sector.

She said: “The system of support for the most vulnerable children has been under strain for some time. We know the numbers going into care have been going up … We know councils have been saying they need £3 billion extra just to stand still. We can’t put that all right. It is where it is. But that just means there’s additional strains on a system that will find it difficult to respond at high speed under this kind of stress. Staffing that is already stretched will be even more stretched.”