Cohort profile: Children in Need Census (CIN) records of children referred for social care support in England

Abstract

Purpose: The Children in Need Census (CIN) is a case-based administrative dataset on children referred to social care services in England. CIN includes information on the 'needs' of children, and whether they received social care support. Local and national government bodies in England currently use CIN for evaluation purposes. Data are accessible to researchers under certain conditions, allowing researchers to investigate the health implications of adverse childhood experiences. However, CIN suffers from lack of metadata, meaning it can be challenging for researchers to process and interpret data, particularly if researchers are unfamiliar with the English children's social care system. To address this issue, we provide the background to CIN and describe the available data from 2008 to 2016.

Participants: CIN is derived from case records held by English local authorities on all children referred to children's social care for a 'needs assessment', regardless of whether they are eventually assessed as 'in need of social care support'. Local authorities submit these case records to the UK Department for Education for collation. CIN holds information on an estimated 2.76 million children from October 2008 to March 2016. Since 2013/2014, just under 900 000 children have been recorded in the CIN annually, equivalent to around 8% of children in England (annual prevalence). Approximately, 650 000 children enter or renter the dataset each year, equivalent to 5% of children in England (annual incidence).

Data summary: Of the estimated 2.76 million children in the data, 50% are male and 47% female. 45% are referred to children's social care services due to abuse or neglect. 10.7% of children in CIN went onto a child protection plan, meaning they were judged to be (at risk of) suffering significant harm.

Future plans: CIN data collection is annual and ongoing. Data from the most recent census period typically become available for researchers in the following Spring.

Keywords: child protection; social medicine.

Figure 1

Overlap between the CIN population (as legally defined) and the Department of Education’s National Pupil Datasets (CIN, CLA and School Census). Size and overlaps are not to scale. Child population sizes are estimates for a 12-month period between April 2015 and March 2016. CLA, Children Looked After return; LA, local authority.