This is the latest updated volume in a well-established series bringing together information from a variety of sources to estimate national unit costs for a wide range of health and social care services. This report consists of tables for more than 130 types of service which, as well as providing the most detailed and comprehensive information possible, also quotes sources and assumptions so users can adapt the information for their own purposes. This year we have included a guest editorial on ‘Big Data’: increasing productivity while reducing costs in health and social care and three short articles on The cost of integrated care; Shared lives – improving understanding of the costs of family-based support and the costs of providing a group intervention to people with dementia and their family carers:SHIELD: RYCT & CSP intervention costs (Remembering Yesterday Caring Today and Carer Support Programme). There are also several new schema providing the costs of: advocacy for people with learning disabilities; a hospice rapid response service; the early years classroom management programme; residential parenting assessments; independent review officers; time banks; dentists and care home costs for people with dementia. The 2014 edition is also available in full, free of charge, at the PSSRU website www.pssru.ac.uk/unit-costs/2014/ as an Acrobat file.

Unit Costs of Health and Social Care 2014

This is the twelfth volume of a series designed to improve unit cost estimates over time, drawing on material as it becomes available, including ongoing and specially commissioned research. It brings together information from a variety of sources to estimate national unit costs for a wide range of health and social care services.

The costs reported always reflect, to a greater or lesser degree, work in progress, as the intention is to refine and improve estimates wherever possible, drawing on a wide variety of sources. The report consists of sets of ‘schemata’ or tables, which as well as providing the most detailed and comprehensive information possible, also quote sources and assumptions so users can adapt the information for their own purposes. Also included are: an editorial discussing current and new developments; brief articles providing background to user services, descriptions of cost methodology or use of cost estimates; price indices; a reference list of key studies; a glossary; and indexes.

New in this edition: This volume includes a considerable expansion of information about the costs of child social care services, based largely on the results of a series of studies commissioned under the Department of Health's Costs and Effectiveness of Services for Children in Need research initiative. Also included is information on the cost-effectiveness of screening and referral to an alcohol health worker in alcohol-misusing patients attending an NHS accident and emergency department. Information about the costs of a nurse practitioner in primary care is also included for the first time.

There are five brief articles: description of the methodology used and resulting unit costs of the adoption process and of supporting families; a brief article identifying the processes involved and the costs to social services of carrying out core assessments for children and their families; a description of the processes undertaken by social services and the factors associated with the variation in costs of child care; description of the evaluation of the costs and outcomes of Home-Start — a well-established national and international organisation offering support to families with young children experiencing difficulties; and information about a detailed study of family interventions and the costs of services used by families requiring support.

/pdf/unit-costs-of-health-and-social-care-2004-4g2t0zmosb.pdf

Unit Costs of Health and Social Care 2004

In the process of elucidating Spencer’s First Principles and the cosmic theory of evolution, it has proved helpful already to touch on his treatment of social life in that general context. It is essential now, however, to address the theory as manifested in respect of ‘psychical’ and ‘social’ evolution, themselves intimately linked in his discussions.

Mind and Society

Unit Costs of Health and Social Care 2018

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(08)61707-9.pdf

Recognising and responding to child maltreatment

Empirical child welfare research in England takes insufficient account of wider social theory. Intellectual, professional and political reasons for this are discussed. The implications are considered in relation to one important social problem: the low educational achievement of children looked after by local authorities (‘in care’). It is concluded that the absence of a broader sociological perspective has led to insufficient and simplistic explanations from researchers and policy-makers of low achievement among looked-after pupils. It is unwise to rely on official statistics on educational outcome indicators for looked-after pupils. Previous conceptualization of poor educational performance has been inadequate, and we should refer to low achievement, not ‘underachievement’. The socio-economic risk factors that are linked with family breakdown and admission to care also predict low educational achievement, such as social class and poverty. Social mobility and transition to adulthood are increasingly problematic in England, making it difficult for care leavers to improve their social position. Parental maltreatment is strongly linked with educational failure. Other countries may do no better than England does. Thus, it is by no means obvious that the care system necessarily jeopardizes looked-after children’s education.

Theory and explanation in child welfare: education and looked-after children

/pdf/partner-exploitation-and-violence-in-teenage-intimate-36n7197svu.pdf

Partner exploitation and violence in teenage intimate relationships

1. Introduction. 2. Design of the research. 3. Manager's perspectives. 4. Categories of children's homes and their residents. 5. Daily life in children's homes. 6. Staffing. 7. Quality of care in children's homes. 8. Conclusion. Bibliography. Index.

Children's homes revisited

While the focus of this consensus statement and the review volume that preceded it (Whittaker, Del Valle, & Holmes, 2014) is on therapeutic residential care (TRC), a specialized form of group care, we view our work as supportive of a much wider effort internationally concerned with the quality of care children receive when, for a variety of reasons, they need to live away from their families.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0886571X.2016.1215755

Therapeutic Residential Care for Children and Youth: A Consensus Statement of the International Work Group on Therapeutic Residential Care*

This paper documents the views of a sample of 80 children and young people, aged 10–18 years, living in foster and residential care placements in England, regarding their educational experience whilst being looked after. The children were interviewed as part of an ongoing evaluation of the Taking Care of Education project, a development programme designed to facilitate improvements in the education of looked after children, co-ordinated by the National Children's Bureau and funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation. Interviews with the sample asked children to assess their current educational progress and identify individuals who supported or hindered their education, as well as the availability of educational support in care placements. Teaching staff were frequently mentioned as providers of support, whilst social workers were often associated with hindering educational progress. Children and young people had access to a range of educational supports in care placements, and these were more widely available in residential settings than in foster care. Children offered a range of pertinent suggestions as to how the educational experience of those in the public care system might be improved.

David Berridge

Papers

Theory and explanation in child welfare: education and looked-after children

Partner exploitation and violence in teenage intimate relationships

Children's homes revisited

Therapeutic Residential Care for Children and Youth: A Consensus Statement of the International Work Group on Therapeutic Residential Care*

Who takes care of education? Looked after children's perceptions of support for educational progress