THE number of emergency admissions of children into care has halved thanks to a pioneering social services initiative.

Durham County Council's social services department is one of the first in the country to develop a community support team to link with its out- of-hours emergency duty team, which deals with more than 6,000 referrals of families at risk each year.

The initiative means staff are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Nationally, emergency admissions of children and young people into care are rising, but following the support team's introduction, figures for County Durham over the past three months are half those of the same period last year.

Peter Kemp, county council's director of social services, said: "Quite often, the emergency duty team response was to place a child or young person in care to resolve the immediate situation quickly. But with the new resources we have in place, we can now offer a seamless service, which means less emergency admissions.

"It appears to be having an immediate impact, which is very good news indeed."

The emergency duty team comprises a number of residential and community staff, who work with young people and their families out of normal office hours to help prevent family breakdowns, which often lead to emergency admissions into the care system. They also work with older people with mental health difficulties.

The staff now have extra help from the community support team, whose role is to have more in-depth involvement to help families resolve their problems and build better relationships.

A service is also offered to foster carers when difficulties arise outside of office hours, and extra social workers have been taken on to support the team's work.

The emergency duty team can be contacted on (01325) 375724, Mondays to Fridays, from 5pm to 8am, and all day Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays.