THE number of children in the care of Blackburn with Darwen Council has remained constant over the last six months, councillors have been told.

The number of young people with open social,work cases has also stabilised as 13 new staff have been recruited.

The figures were reported to the borough’s full Council Forum last night by Children’s Services boss, Cllr Maureen Bateson.

She praised work done by Ipswich-based agency Skylakes Social Work to support the council’s ow staff in the past year on a short-term contract.

Cllr Bateson told colleagues: “The number of cases open to children’s social care has stabilised over the past nine months to 1,606, with the support provided by Skylakes proving invaluable.

“The number of children in care is 376 and has remained at this level over the past six months which is 30 higher than the equivalent period 12 months ago.

“The most pronounced rise over the past year has been in the number of children subject to child protection plans, which currently stands at 316, but had been as high as 370 during the late spring.

“More than 500 children are being supported by early help services, with half of the lead professionals coordinating support for children and families being drawn from school staff.

“A new team of six social work team support officers have also been recruited to support the workload of social workers and a review of the work with troubled families is underway.

“Additionally the family group conference work is being extended with seven additional practitioners to work intensively with families on the cusp of social care to prevent entry.

“The Skylakes commission to reduce social worker caseloads has come to a successful end and the department is building on this work by taking early intervention to prevent escalation into statutory services through a number of new approaches.”

Cllr Bateson asaid: “These include the complex case hub multi-agency pilot to work with families where there is evidence of high risk, high harm domestic abuse, parental emotional wellbeing issues, parental substance and alcohol misuse. “Additionally the Family Group Conference work is being extended with seven additional practitioners to work intensively with families on the cusp of social care to prevent entry.”