One child in every 20 in Middlesbrough is receiving help from social services, shocking figures show.
The Teesside town has the second-highest rate of children in contact with care services in the country - the equivalent of at least one in every single school class.
And Hartlepool and Northumberland are also in the top 10, with the ninth and tenth highest rates in England respectively.
Today, councils have said the figures represent a “compex picture” while one campaigner praised social services for coping with the vast numbers needing their help.
Jeremy Cripps, chief executive of charity Children North East which works with children facing poverty, said: “It is a credit to local councils that they continue to provide support to very high numbers of children who are in need, despite huge cuts in central government grants to North East councils.”
The figures, released by the Office for National Statistics this week, showed that 694 out of every 10,000 children in Middlesbrough are getting some form of intervention from social services.
That equates to around one in every 20 children, and is second only to Torbay in Devon.
However the numbers have actually fallen by 11.6% from 2013, with 2,197 children in need of social service help at the end of March 2014 compared to 2,485 the previous year.
Just under half (47.1%) of the children needed help due to family dysfunction, while social services stepped in due to abuse or neglect in 28.5% of cases, the figures showed.
The Sunday Sun was unable to reach anyone at Middlesbrough Council for a comment, but Councillor Jeanette Walker, chair of the council’s children and learning scrutiny panel, this week said the Troubled Families programme – known as Stronger Families in Middlesbrough – was “working well” in the town.
It is understood that every school in Middlesbrough has a named social worker attached to it.
Meanwhile, some 1,226 children in Hartlepool were in contact with social services last year, up from 1,112, a 10.9% increase.
That is 608 children for every 10,000, with the majority of cases (51.2%) being taken up due to abuse or neglect.
A Hartlepool Council spokesman said: “Most of the increase in the figure for Hartlepool is due to the work which the council is doing to identify and support more families which are vulnerable.
“Despite the severe financial pressures which the council faces, it will continue to make the wellbeing of children a priority.”
Northumberland has seen a 17% rise in children in contact with social services.
Around 607 children per 10,000 are in need, making it the tenth-worst area in England. The total needing help rose from 3,153 children in 2013 to 3,681 in 2014.
Elsewhere in the region, Sunderland also saw a sharp increase in the amount of children needing care, up from 2,353 to 2,663 (12.8%).
Its rate of 489 children needing help per 10,000 puts it in the worst 20 in the country.
Coun Pat Smith, portfolio holder for Children’s Services at Sunderland City Council, said: “The latest statistics confirm what our own experience has been here in Sunderland, that there has been a steady but marked increase for the past few years in the number of children and young people needing support.
“It’s a complex picture and there is no single reason why numbers are increasing year on year, but it does present a challenge for us and our safeguarding partners here in Sunderland as we work to protect vulnerable children and continually improve our practices.”
Redcar and Cleveland, Stockton and Newcastle also came in above the national average.
In Redcar and Cleveland, 428 children per 10,000 needed social service help, in Stockton it was 491 per 10,000 and in Newcastle it was 447 - up 8.4%.
Newcastle city council pointed out that its most recent figure for 2015 gave a rate of 386.2 children per 10,000 - down 13.5% from the March 2014 figure.
Across England there were 397,600 children in need of social service intervention as of the end of March 2014, equating to an average of 346 per 10,000 - a rise of 19,000 youngsters.
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