The Department for Education has released new statistics on the number of parents and children living across the South East referred to and assessed by social services between 2018 and 2019, revealing thousands of households were already severely abusing drugs or alcohol even before the Covid-19 lockdown struck.
The figures show that between 2018 and 2019, 82,730 referrals were made to social care services across the South East which required further assessment, a figure which has risen by