Home again: reunification practice in England

Understanding reunification practice in the children’s social care system in England

Publication date January 2024

Reunification is the most common way for children in England to leave care.¹ However, the number of children who later return to care suggests that local authorities in England are facing challenges in delivering effective reunification practice.

We commissioned this research alongside Action for Children to help us understand:

what guides reunification practice
how decisions are made before and after reunification
what support for reunification looks like
how reunification practice is monitored and improved.

Our research team conducted an England-wide online survey of local authorities, with 75 responses. Alongside this, researchers conducted in-depth interviews with senior staff from six local authorities to discuss their approach to reunification practice.

The report identifies a number of key findings to inform future research and policy development. It also makes recommendations to raise the profile of this policy area and to support local authorities to develop their reunification practice approaches.

The NSPCC has also commissioned a further costing analysis research report completed by Professor Lisa Homes.

Authors: Jessica Ford and Eavan McKay

Home again: reunification practice in England
Download the report (PDF)

Key findings

There is a lack of focus on improving reunification practice

Of the 75 local authorities who responded to our survey over half (56%) don’t have a reunification policy or strategy while only 19% have a standalone reunification team to coordinate reunifications.

Local authorities are not providing enough support either before or after reunification

Most local authorities surveyed said they were not providing enough support either before reunification (78%) or after reunification (63%) and would like to offer more.

Funding was the number one barrier to families getting support with reunification

Of those that said they wanted to provide more support before reunification, funding constraints were identified as a barrier by 69%. While 79% of respondents identified this as a barrier to providing support after reunification.

Key recommendations

Our report makes the following recommendations to the Government, local authorities and the research community.

Develop national guidance on reunification

National guidance on reunification is needed to sit alongside other related guidance, including Working together to safeguard children.

This should include recommendations for evidence-based approaches to assessment, planning, support and monitoring of reunification.

Invest in reunification practice evaluations

The effectiveness of existing approaches and interventions in England needs to be urgently evaluated.

Share learning from existing research

An evidence summary should be shared with local authorities, highlighting learnings across key aspects of reunification practice.

Citation

Please cite as: Ford, J. and McKay, E. (2023) Home again: understanding reunification practice in the children’s social care system in England. London: NSPCC.

Supporting children and families returning home from care: counting the costs

Publication date July 2024

Further costing analysis research commissioned by the NSPCC and completed by Professor Lisa Holmes showed that the Government currently spends over £300m each year on children going back into care when a return home fails. In contrast, the estimated cost of providing support and services to meet the needs of all children and families returning home from care to reduce the chance of breakdown would be £67m – indicating huge potential cost savings for Government.

It is estimated that it currently costs £105,804 on average for each child who returns to care, compared to an average of just £7,857 to provide support to a family when the child returns home.

These support costs range from around:

£15,757 for a family with high needs for a two-year period
£1,644 to support a family with a low level of need for six months.

Supporting children and families returning home from care: counting the costs
Download the report (PDF)

Citation

Please cite as: Holmes, L. (2024) Supporting children and families returning home from care: counting the costs. Sussex: University of Sussex.

Related resources

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Reunification: an evidence-informed framework for return home practice

A tool to support social worker's professional judgment about if and how a child should return home.

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Returning children home from care

Lessons from a sample of case reviews published between 2016 and 2023, which have highlighted lessons for returning children home from care.

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Implementation evaluation of the Reunification Practice Framework

What we learned from supporting local authorities to use an evidence-based resource for assessing whether or not to return a child or young person home from care.