King's College London

James Blewett, Senior Policy Fellow at the Unit, responds to the government’s plans for children’s social care in Professional Social Work magazine (11 February 2026). He identifies funding challenges, concerns around a lack of testing and evaluation of new measures, and difficulties in multi-agency working.

James also discusses conceptual challenges in the following domains:

• The interface between the family help service and the multi-agency child protection team.
• The role of the child protection conference chair.
• The role of social workers and alternatively qualified staff in the family help service.
• What constitutes a family decision-making meeting?

This publication

Blewett, J. (2026) 'Four challenges facing England’s children’s social care reforms', Principal Social Work, 11 February.