What do parents think about statutory child and family social work services in the UK?

Higher levels of ‘service user’ satisfaction are associated with more positive outcomes in many service settings. They are also an important measure of service quality in their own right. In this article, we report the results from a survey of 500 parents in relation to statutory child and family social work services in the UK. Our primary outcome measure was the Client Satisfaction Questionnaire, a valid instrument that has been used in a range of settings and types of service. Parents overall had relatively low levels of satisfaction, compared with research in other settings. Levels of dissatisfaction were higher for parents from lower socio-economic groups and parents of adolescents. The small number of parents in our survey who received short-breaks or residential care for their children gave higher satisfaction ratings. An important limitation of these results is that the sample is not representative. Parents from higher socio-economic groups were over-represented compared with the general population and were therefore very overrepresented compared with the population of families who receive a statutory social work service. These findings nevertheless suggest that parents are likely to be dissatisfied with the services they received and suggest a pressing need for more representative data to understand the experiences of parents across the UK.