Community Catalyst: Children at Risk of Poor Outcomes scoping review - Use of administrative data to understand children’s involvement with children’s statutory social care services
Categories: Research using linked data, Reports, ADR England, Children & young people
15 January 2025
This comprehensive scoping review, published by the ADR England Research Community Catalyst: Children at Risk of Poor Outcomes project, has been produced to inform and encourage greater use of administrative data for children’s social care research. It aims to identify strengths and gaps in the published literature to provide the research community with a clearer understanding of research priorities.
Introduction
This review has been produced to inform and encourage greater use of administrative data for children’s social care research. The review aims to map the evidence and identify clear gaps in evidence. Given this context, this scoping review provides a comprehensive summary of the published research to enable a far clearer understanding of priorities for new research. In keeping with the objectives of a scoping review, we aim for a higher level overview of current research evidence, rather than detailed quality appraisal. However, throughout the review we cite published reviews that have focused in detail on particular substantive topics, and include a more detailed appraisal of methodological limitations.
In reviewing the published quantitative literature, we have focused on children’s statutory social care services, but where there is published evidence, have also included research concerning support to families (Family Support, previously known as Early Help provided outside of children’s social care statutory services. In our final discussion, we consider the challenges inherent in fully capturing Family Support across sectors.
In considering where the current weight of evidence lies in respect of children’s social care involvement, we have differentiated between services provided to Children in Need (CIN) services provided to children subject to child protection plans (CP) and Children in Care (CLA). Although some studies do provide analyses which cut across these different forms of provision, our initial engagement with the literature, indicated that grouping the literature in this way would more clearly highlight gaps in research evidence concerning CIN and CP children.
Read other reports from this project
This summary report is a condensed version of the scoping review. It discusses the administrative datasets used by researchers to examine children who have been involved with children’s statutory social services, key and consistent findings, and the evidence gaps highlighted in the scoping review.
This research agenda lays out key recommendations and priorities based on the scoping review and stakeholder consultation. These topics are considered the most pressing areas for the research community in the field of children's social care.
