Disabled children face going into care over workforce challenges

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Children with disabilities risk being taken into care because of workforce challenges being experienced by support providers.The shocking admission was made by Stirling Council officials at a meeting of the council’s finance, economy and corporate support committee last week.However, the officers added that they were working hard to avoid any such scenario.Councillors were told that, in the case of Children with Disabilities, while there were no budgetary pressures to report, this was as a result of “a continued restricted service from providers, due to their challenges with workforce recruitment”.An agenda report provided to councillors stated: “Service action [on Children With Disabilities] is being taken to reduce current waiting lists and it is planned that this will be addressed over the next year.“This will result in an increased cost for care packages in the future.“This is an area of increasing demand but limitations on service does risk further escalation that children may be taken into care as a result of the limited service at present.”The council’s chief social work officer Marie Valente said: “We currently cannot get full care packages for some of our children with disabilities and that’s linked to some of the third sector organisations that we commission – but they are working on that.“We are seeing improvement and will continue to monitor that so hopefully over time we can fulfill the care packages people are asking for.“Some of the care packages are not being met, although not all of them.“We do endeavour to ensure all families get some form of support and care both from the third sector and our Children and Disabilities Team, so we have our own staff who work with these families as well.“We are very