A Commonsense Approach to Child Protection

A Commonsense Approach
to Child Protection

At the core of my argument for a different approach to child protection is a belief that the qualities that children's social workers possess - their ability to work collaboratively with individuals and families and support personal growth and development - are frequently unrecognised. These qualities are the sources of enormous strength and must be used as such. I believe that experienced practitioners in child protection provide an important service for society but the special qualities and skills they bring to the job are often misunderstood. Social workers who have developed enough self-belief to take on responsibility for making sound professional judgements, intervening with families in a compassionate and respectful way to promote the optimal development of the child and prevent the need for care should be valued more highly by the rest of society.

Unfortunately, many children's social workers find their experience of heavy caseloads and time-consuming court work make it difficult for them to achieve an appropriate work/life balance. The resulting high turnover of staff means that people receiving services experience frequent changes of social worker and they find this frustrating. Senior managers and councils seem at a loss to know how to improve staff recruitment and retention. These difficulties have resulted in too many posts being filled by inexperienced graduates who are not equipped to cope with what is now a very stressful job. This is not conducive to good child protection practice.

The disconnect between social work training courses and child protection practice is huge. When social work graduates enter children's services the practices and procedures they are expected to follow seem to bear no relation to the theories they have been taught. Newly qualified social workers are required to participate in the Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE) scheme designed to give them the practice skills they will need. However, they may feel ambivalent some aspects of their child protection duties. Many soon realise that they are not suited to this work and leave. Some stay because they regard children's services as a 'child rescue' service and want to make use of the powers given to them. Others are reluctant to use the full extent of their powers and view their role primarily as supporting children and young people to stay within their family and community. The best social workers are those who stay the course, develop an understanding of good child protection practice and demonstrate their capacity to make sound professional judgements.

Over the past twenty years policies of early intervention and prevention have been accompanied by a large rise in the number of children in care. In Wales the number of looked after children rose by 73% between 2003 and 2021. While the transformation of services to promote 'well-being' has focused on providing co-ordinated support to vulnerable children this has failed to reduce the demand for care placements. Unfortunately, the current practice framework does not always produce sound assessments about whether the family home is a safe environment for the child. When care proceedings commence these matters are often highly disputed and this can result in long and costly legal battles. There is now growing public disquiet about the way social workers make use of their legal powers with families.

Much of the blame for the current problems must be put on universities for producing graduates who do not have a sound grasp of child protection work. Academic teaching is more concerned with what to think than with how to think. Students acquire much of their knowledge by theorising, learning from research and discovering ideas that resonate with their own experiences. There is nothing wrong with this but it means that students do not have enough opportunities to develop an in-depth understanding of the realities of child protection practice. Social workers carry compulsory powers and, although this presents dilemmas for those of us with a commitment to social justice, most people accept that it is right for social workers to exercise controls over certain people.

A key concern at the present time is the large increase in the number of newborn babies being taken into compulsory care. Research by the Nuffield Foundation has found that many social workers do not have the knowledge and skills required to provide a comprehensive pre-birth assessment so that a decision can be made about the best interests of the child. (See link below). The task is complex and the competence with which this stage is handled will crucially influence the effectiveness of subsequent work. Unfortunately, the opportunity to engage the mothers in constructive work to address concerns at an early stage is sometimes missed because social workers fail to get to grips with the complexity of the issues. There is then a legal process which may effectively disempower mothers because it makes everything more complicated for them.

It goes without saying that social workers are stressed. Much of this comes from their desire to effect change in seemingly intractable situations and the challenge of working with the most troubled and needy people in society. It also comes from managers who do not shield them from unbearable workload pressures. What is needed is a child protection approach in children's services that is more in line with commonsense thinking about the function of social work for society.

Social Work Intervention

My thoughts about social work intervention are based on my own experience as a Senior Practitioner in Canton Family Centre, Cardiff, during the 1990s. It was a good time to be working in children's services because the profession was more confident and held in greater public esteem than it is today. Children services had fewer referrals then and employed fewer social workers. I enjoyed the challenge of putting the principles of the Children Act 1989 into practice. Although my natural inclination was to work supportively with families my line manager was very focused on child protection duties.

I worked in a supportive team and we understood the value of working with parents and vulnerable children over a long period of time and getting close enough for open and honest discussions. When a case went through legal proceedings I found the Orange Book an excellent guide to conducting assessments in child protection work. (See reference below). I regret that it was eventually withdrawn - apparently because some social workers used it as a mega-questionnaire and failed to realise they needed to use it selectively.

The need to work in partnership with parents is enshrined in the 1989 Act and, although there has been confusion about the meaning of partnership, it is a useful way of thinking about the nature of social work practice. Both parents may need to be encouraged and supported to take seriously their parental responsibilities. However, there is a central dilemma regarding the question of how social workers can share responsibility with parents - as it may not feel like a partnership of equals. Their skills in developing effective working relationships with parents without losing sight of the over-riding duty to protect the child are at the core of this work. The qualities of sound judgement, wisdom and tact in the social worker are profoundly important in view of the risks to children if mistakes are made.

Risk Assessment

Multi-agency working in risk assessment is an essential part of good child protection practice. In addition children's social workers need a coherent knowledge base in assessing risk. Universities have put a lot of resources into the search for an evidence-based framework for risk assessment that is 'scientific' and 'holistic' on the assumption that this will improve assessments and make them more objective. However, good assessment requires more than a list of all the factors to consider. The risk assessment usually starts with investigative work and continues with a focus on engaging family members and collecting more information. The relational and emotional aspects of social work practice therefore play a key role in assessment. The concept of 'respectful uncertainty' should also lie at the heart of practice and be followed by critical evaluation of information.

Recent research by Ariane Critchley reveals a great deal of uncertainty amongst social workers about how to improve pre-birth assessments. (See link below). While safeguarding is everyone's responsibility, in reality, it is social workers who have lead responsibility for child protection work and an ethical imperative to protect the rights of the unborn child. Their style of working therefore has to be proactive. Very often the child protection conference and child protection plan are key to good practice and at some stage more coercive measures may need to be considered. However, this is an area of practice defined by subjectivity and uncertainty and many social workers are struggling with it.

The growing number of risk assessments carried out during pregnancy is something that makes many people feel uncomfortable. It seems heartless to consider removing a baby from a mother soon after birth. Obviously, social work intervention is necessary with a pregnant woman who is addicted to drugs or alcohol. But what should be done about people with a worrying lifestyle who are known to agencies and are to become parents? This is a relatively new area of practice and the assessment of risk is completely different from other types of child protection work where social workers need credible evidence that the child has been harmed. In this situation the task is one of anticipating whether the unborn baby will be at risk of significant harm in the future. The risk is essentially theoretical and disagreements about what action should be taken are inevitable. It should not be forgotten that some young people with difficult backgrounds find that parenthood makes them change their lifestyle and they actually become more mature.

Safeguarding and Child Protection Intervention

It is often claimed that the safeguarding approach is preferable to a child protection intervention because it does not stigmatise people. While safeguarding is presented as a service primarily concerned with meeting individual need and promoting wellbeing it appears that many parents assume it is actually 'child protection'. A number of problems can arise from this. Firstly, it alienates parents who have been pressurised into giving their consent to a social work visit and secondly, it seems to make social workers uncertain about the purpose of the task they are given. When social workers reach out to families who do not seek help on their own initiative this may be experienced by parents as threatening and become a barrier to genuine collaborative working. There is also too much uncertainty within children's services about the circumstances that require a shift from a safeguarding to a child protection approach. The 1989 Act introduced the threshold of 'significant harm' to indicate the need for more coercive measures and staff at all levels should have a sound grasp of the meaning of this concept in practice.

Social workers have onerous responsibilities in their work with children who require a formal child protection response. Obviously, social workers perform better in a management culture which is supportive and in stable teams where morale is high. I was fortunate during the 1990's in having plenty of experience before taking on child protection duties and having access to consultation from an experienced social worker. Since then there has been a major policy shift away from child protection. Worse still, some academics assume child protection is something to be avoided because it amounts to 'muscular authoritarianism'.

I believe that certain social work interventions have the potential to reach out to children with emotional and behavioural problems, whose attachments within the family have gone wrong, to give them the help and support they need. It is often debatable whether this work should take place under a safeguarding or child protection agenda. However, finely balanced decisions have to be made and, if compulsory measures are considered, these should take account of the difficulties for children if their ties with the birth family are permanently severed. Training courses should therefore assist students in developing a sound understanding of good-enough parenting, child development and the place of attachment theory in social work practice. While attachment has long been seen as significant in theories about child development, other ways of thinking about the development of a personal identity and sense of belonging may also require consideration, particularly when working with looked after children.

Psychoanalytic Ideas

The thrust of policy and practice in child protection work is to elevate the significance of evidence obtained from research, particularly when this supports the current professional orthodoxy. While it is appropriate to strive for evidence that is scientific and rigorous, particularly during court work, there are limitations to the scientific method when studying the personal interactions between social workers and their clients. If the profession continues being dismissive of psychoanalytic theories, on the grounds that they have little empirical support, and excludes this source of knowledge and insights into people's subjective feelings, it will fail to raise standards of practice. Students might have a range of theories about relationship-based work but the deeper problems of the human psyche remain largely unexplored. Without any recognition of psychoanalytic ideas much of the learning that takes place during training is too cerebral and leaves them unprepared for the emotional demands of the job.

I will describe a piece of multi-agency child protection work with a family in which psychoanalytic ideas informed my practice. This was a pre-birth assessment with a woman whose previous child had been removed from her and adopted. Earlier in her life she had been in a violent relationship and suffering from depression and this child had shown serious developmental delay linked with brain damage, possibly as a result of non-accidental injury. There was no reason to think that she had caused the injury. She and her new boyfriend were both delighted about her pregnancy but were socially isolated and had no family support. She had moved far away from the area where she grew up and was not known to agencies. She was anxious about her ability to cope with her new baby and welcomed social work support.

The mother had suffered poor mothering as a child, which included neglect, and had been admitted to care at the age of 12. She had lost contact with her former foster mother. The couple related well to me and were therefore quite accepting of the decision to include the baby on the child protection register. She and her partner seemed vulnerable and needy people and I sensed that they welcomed my interest in them.

During my visits after the birth of her baby I noticed that the mother was often tired and lethargic and inclined to relate to her baby in a slightly detached way. She used her relationship with me to explore difficult and painful feelings from her childhood that were troubling her. I therefore adopted a therapeutic style of working. I visited once a week, listened carefully to her and tried to understand what she was going through emotionally. She clearly wanted to be a good mother but motherhood had made her realise how unloved by her own mother she had felt and difficult feelings of sadness and loss came to the surface. She needed my support in working through these feelings.

The relationship that I developed with the parents enabled me to closely monitor the level of risk to the child and to give advice that was generally well received. I observed the mother gradually becoming more confident and secure in her role as a mother and when the child was six months old his name was removed from the child protection register. There were some concerns about the overall functioning of the family in the longer term. The mother remained a vulnerable and anxious person and the father had a rather detached style of relating. These factors obviously raised some concerns about their future and so the parents were told to contact children's services if they needed further support.

The experience of The Monroe Young Family Centre tells us more about the place of therapy in child protection work. This project was set up in London in the 1990s, to work with families of children under five years where there were serious concerns that had resulted in children's services becoming involved. The project was informed by psychoanalytic thinking and staff used a therapeutic approach in their work. The centre offered an assessment programme and a treatment programme. Most of the referrals involved neglect, assessment of parenting capacity and physical abuse, in the context of family violence or parental mental illness.

During its four year period of operation staff turnover was high and the tensions within the team meant there was little stability. Judith Trowell has written about the experience (see reference below) and vividly illustrates the inherent contradiction between therapy and child protection. However, families on the assessment programme did appear to change and their problems were reduced. So the assessment was 'therapeutic' and not simply an appraisal. In general the problems that were addressed were mostly those relating to poor practical parenting. The parents were helped to become more aware of their children's basic needs and this resulted in an improvement in management of mealtimes and bed times and conflict resolution. However, it was found to be impossible to engage the parents in therapeutic work aimed at helping them to think about the underlying reasons for their difficulties and to gain insight.

Using the Child Protection Plan to Effect Change

When a child is on a child protection plan the social worker has a central role in assessing the level of risk, taking the necessary action to support and protect the child and mobilising services and practical help. The child protection plan is drawn up at a core group meeting to which the parents are invited. Essentially, it is a list of the various tasks to be carried out by people at the meeting and a record of any agreements reached with the parents.

So what was my own understanding of the assessment task and the threshold for compulsory measures? In retrospect, I would say I approached the task using 'gut feeling' - based on an early appraisal of the situation as it happened. 'Gut feeling' actually has within it a rapid process of analysing new information while also taking into account all the relevant background information. This gave me the clarity I needed to help me think about the most appropriate style of working with parents. Another important aspect of my work was to show professional curiosity and to avoid getting stuck in the track of a single way of thinking. Sometimes we have to give people the benefit of the doubt and try something else if our initial assumptions seem incorrect. This may seem risky but risk can never be completely eliminated. Obviously, social workers responsible for a child protection plan need ongoing support from those around them. This work requires thoughtful, reflective practice and includes the process of listening to the views of many different people - so that there is a greater chance that balanced decisions will be reached.

Child Protection and Social Class

The profession has a strong commitment to incorporating social justice principles into practice and social workers know that the people most likely to receive help are working class and living in poverty. It is inevitable that people working in local government have to accept resource constraints and sometimes decision-making is based on purely pragmatic considerations. In this environment it is not surprising that the social work profession struggles to keep alive its traditional faith in the value of skilled child protection practice and sound professional judgement. However, it would be wrong to claim that the current problems are simply due to a lack of resources or an inappropriate focus on child protection duties.

In Wales the delivery of children's service is based on a needs assessment - followed by the provision of appropriate care and support. However, this focus on support does not give enough recognition to the primacy of statutory duties under the Children Act 1989 and the Adoption and Children Act 2002. As a consequence of this over-simplistic notion of social work practice the arrangements for gathering Social Services Statistics are merely concerned with measuring the effectiveness of support services. Important data on child protection practice, such as the number of section 47 investigations, are not collected and this area of work is never subjected to formally structured analysis or feedback.

Middle class social workers may assume they are entitled to claim professional status but if they do not have a sound grasp of the full extent of their responsibilities some people will question their capacity to act in a professional way. Social workers are trained to recognise the significance of power and class differentials between themselves and working class families. However, the profession also needs to develop a learning culture and a safe place for members who are interested to address the emotional dimension of child protection practice.

Unloved Social Work

The original concept of child protection arose in 1962 when The Battered Child Syndrome was published and society was horrified at the evidence that some children were harmed by their parents. In 1993 James Bulger, a 2-year old boy, was brutally murdered by two 10-year old boys. It later emerged that the family backgrounds of the 10-year olds, although dysfunctional in different ways, included neglect, maternal depression and alcoholism. This raised awareness of the urgent need to improve child protection services. All agencies now are required to recognise any situation that may pose a danger or harm to a child and trigger a safeguarding referral.

The traditional social work identity is based on social workers exercising sound professional judgement. If their judgements seem unreliable it is inevitable that the public will lose confidence in the profession. However, it would be wrong to fall into the trap of thinking the problem lies with the workforce. What is needed is a challenge to the existing models of learning about social work practice in children's services and a stronger emphasis on recruiting mature, well-rounded people with relevant life experience. Training courses should be made more accessible for people from varied backgrounds and consideration should be given to apprenticeships for those less suited to the academic route into social work.

Hilary Searing