Researchers from University College London have found that a quarter of all children in England receive services from children’s social care before turning 18. This latest research, published in the International Journal of Population Data Science (IJPDS), casts a new light on the extent to which children’s social care intervenes across the population.

‘Children in need’ are a legally defined group of children assessed as needing help and protection as a result of risks to their development or health. This group includes children on child in need plans, on child protection plans, children looked after by local authorities, care leavers and disabled children.

Official statistics show that on 31st March 2023, 3.4% of all children aged 0-17 were defined as in need. Based on this, our research aimed to understand how many children are ever in need, up to age 18. To do this, we used an anonymised, national dataset called the Child in Need census, which collects information from all children’s social care departments in England.

We estimated that almost one in three children living in England are referred to children’s social care before turning 18. The majority of these children received an assessment by a social worker. Further, according to our estimates, 25.3% of all children living in England will be recognised by children’s social care services as a Child in Need at least once before they turn 18, and that 7.1% will receive a child protection plan.

Senior research Fellow and lead author, Matthew Jay said, “these findings raise questions about the extent to which government policies contribute to the circumstances in which a quarter of all children are so vulnerable that they need intervention from children’s social care services. Policies on income, employment, housing, education and health could be more focused on enabling the circumstances in which parents can bring up their children to be healthy, happy and to achieve their potential.”

 

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Matthew Jay, Senior Research Fellow in Epidemiology, UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, London, UK

Jay, M. A., Troncoso, P., Bilson, A., Thomson, D., Dorsett, R., Pearson, R., De Stavola, B. and Gilbert, R. (2025) “Estimated cumulative incidence of intervention by children’s social care services to age 18: a whole-of-England administrative data cohort study using the child in need census”, International Journal of Population Data Science, 10(1). doi: 10.23889/ijpds.v10i1.2454.