Devon Safeguarding Digest – November 2025
Welcome to the Devon Safeguarding Digest. This regular update will help you stay up to speed with safeguarding news and local policy changes.
The Good Childhood Report 2025
The Children’s Society has published its Good Childhood Report for 2025. The Children’s Society annual household survey was completed in April to June 2025 by 2,007 children and young people aged 10 to 17 from across the UK, and their parent or carer.
Children considered having somewhere to live as the most important thing for their future. Personally, they were most worried about getting good grades; societally, they were most worried about rising prices.
Some of the recommendations include:
- Training on bullying for all relevant professionals and organisations
- Whole-school approaches to wellbeing
- Support for primary to secondary school transition
- End punitive behavioural policies in schools
- Restoring and expanding youth services
- A focus on holistic wellbeing in early support hubs rollout
- Increase opportunities for young people to directly influence their society
Children’s Commissioner report on work on children’s social care since 2021
The Children’s Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, has published a new report summarising her work on children’s social care, and the work of her office, since taking up the position on 1 March 2021.
32% of local authority children’s services (covering 36% of children in care) in England are currently judged Inadequate or Requires Improvement. Even in local authorities rated good or better, the Children’s Commissioner frequently finds breaches of children’s rights, such as children being placed in illegal homes or moved out of loving foster homes for cost-saving reasons.
Recommendations include a new Children’s Act, incorporating the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into law, and a range of improvements to support families, children in care, and care leavers.
Coram launches nationwide call for adoption stories to mark 100th anniversary of The Adoption of Children Act 1926
The Adoption of Children Act 1926 introduced a legal process by which the rights and responsibilities for a child could be transferred from birth parents to adoptive parents in England and Wales.
The children’s charity Coram will be running a programme of activities in 2026 to mark the centenary of adoption. As part of this, Coram is aiming to gather 100 stories of adoption from across the years, reflecting changes in adoption and capturing the diverse experiences of adopted people, adoptive parents, birth families and others touched by adoption.
For more information and to share stories of adoption, visit the Coram Voice website.
Children’s charity highlights crisis of school exclusions
The Coram Children’s Legal Centre has published an article on their work attempting to turn a rising tide in school exclusions in England. The 2023/24 academic year saw permanent exclusions climb 16% to 10,885. 686 of these were aged 4-7. This increase is expected to continue.
Children with additional challenges are disproportionately affected. Regional disparities exist. The ruling in the recent High Court case of R (CWJ) v Director of Legal Aid Casework & Lord Chancellor has opened up the possibility of legal aid being granted in a significant number of school exclusions appeals going forward.
New report on managing social worker workloads
A new report from the Department for Education summarises the work of the National Workload Action Group, which has explored social worker workload over the last two years.
The report emphasises the need for continued innovation, investment in technology, and a systems approach to reform.
Exchange of views between government and Domestic Abuse Commissioner
The Domestic Abuse Commissioner has called for urgent action from the government to help and support child victims of domestic abuse:
‘Tens of thousands of child victims are currently not getting the level of help and support they need to recover from abuse, and I remain largely unclear on what the government intends to do about it.’
These are part of a wider statement from the commissioner by way of reply to the government’s official response to her recent report on children’s experiences of domestic abuse.