When I read that children’s social work in England has just recorded its largest annual workforce increase since 2017, with 38,292 registered social workers now in post, my first thought wasn’t about the number itself. It was about what sits behind it: thousands more people whose job, at its core, is to listen to children and act on what they hear.
That’s not a small thing. And it’s not just a workforce statistic either. It’s a signal about capacity, about stability, and about what councils are now able to do that they couldn’t do as easily a few years ago.
Why this number matters more than it looks
Workforce figures can feel abstract until you connect them to the day-to-day reality of practice. A rising number of registered social workers means, in practical terms, smaller caseloads, more time per child, and less reliance on agency staff who often don’t have the chance to build lasting relationships with the children they’re supporting.
Anyone who has worked in or alongside children’s services knows that continuity is everything. A child who has had five different social workers in two years learns, understandably, not to bother opening up to the sixth. Growing and stabilising the permanent workforce is one of the few levers that genuinely rebuilds that trust over time.
So when we talk about “growing capacity,” we’re really talking about the conditions that make good listening possible. Time. Consistency. Headspace. The things that get squeezed first when a workforce is stretched thin.
What growing capacity means for how councils listen
At Mind Of My Own, this is the part that resonates most with our own purpose. We exist to help children and young people express their views, wishes and feelings, and to make sure those views genuinely shape the decisions made about their lives. That mission only works if the people on the other end, the social workers, IROs, and practitioners using our tools, have the time and stability to actually engage with what a child is telling them.
A larger, more settled workforce changes what’s possible in practice:
- More consistent relationships. Children can build trust with a worker they see repeatedly, rather than repeating their story to someone new every few months.
- More time to use participation tools properly. Mind Of My Own Apps like One App aren’t meant to be a box-ticking exercise; they work best when a practitioner has the time to sit with a child’s responses and follow up meaningfully.
- More capacity for genuinely child-led reviews. When caseloads ease, there’s more room for care reviews, meetings, and plans to reflect what a child actually said, not just what fits the paperwork.
- A workforce with more headspace to recognise when something isn’t being said. Some of the most important information from a child comes through what they don’t say directly. That takes attentiveness that’s hard to sustain in a workforce under constant strain.
None of this happens automatically just because the numbers are up. But it does mean the conditions for good, consistent listening are improving in a way they haven’t for several years.
A cautious kind of optimism
We’d be the first to say one year of workforce growth doesn’t undo years of pressure on children’s social care. Retention remains a challenge, and growth in numbers doesn’t always translate evenly across every council or every team. But directionally, this is good news, and it’s worth naming as such.
For us, it reinforces something we already believe: the technology we build is only ever as good as the people using it, and the relationships they’re able to build with the children they support. A bigger, more stable workforce gives that relationship more room to breathe.
If this workforce growth continues, the conversation shifts from “how do we cope” to “how do we do this well.” That’s exactly the conversation we want to be part of, and it’s why participation, not just provision, needs to stay at the centre of how councils support the children in their care.