Watching the Watchers

This article challenges professional orthodoxy and urges social workers to recognise that surveillance is a key component of their role. One of the functions of social work is to keep a watchful eye on families where children may be at risk of maltreatment.

Children's services operates within a state agency with statutory duties. Local government and central government are therefore required to keep children services under surveillance, scrutinising its work and intervening if necessary to raise standards of practice. Social workers themselves are watched and kept under scrutiny by the professional regulator. The effectiveness of practice is monitored by the inspectorate and the operation of compulsory measures is scrutinised by family courts. In addition, Serious Case Reviews look into inter-agency practice and processes when mistakes are made. Unfortunately, none of this provides an effective mechanism for holding social workers to account.

Children's services are facing a loss of confidence in the quality of their assessments. In a number of recent well-publicised cases they failed to prevent the death of a child and concerns have been raised about the judgement and actions of social workers. The prevailing assumption is that responsibility for safeguarding work is shared between a range of different agencies. Social workers often use this to argue that children's services should not be held responsible when mistakes are made.

Understanding the System

Dysfunction in the child protection system has arisen because it operates within a complicated web of organisational procedures which hinder its ability to do the very job it was set up to do. Serious Case Reviews are manipulated to direct attention away from the social work profession's shortcomings and never address dysfunction in the system itself.

Children's services and the supporting legal services consume huge sums of money. There are too many professional and legal errors which can only be resolved through lengthy court proceedings. Fundamental changes may be required in the more dysfunctional authorities to simplify the work, reduce costs and support social workers in developing their skills, knowledge and competence.

A major weakness in the child protection system has arisen because social work is now based on a practice methodology of supporting children in need and a naive faith in the capacity of social workers to act as 'change agents'. This leads to the absurdity of the Department for Education categorising 'child protection' referrals as 'child in need' referrals and failing to understand the distinction between these two categories.

The dominance of the needs-based model of social work practice is at the root of many problems. The disconnect between the profession's faith in supportive, needs-based work and the reality of too many authorities rated by Ofsted as needing improvement is often resolved by simply ignoring things as they really are.

The Professional Relationship

The social work profession has an ethic of caring and a long tradition of casework with children and families. Many of the families coming to the attention of children's services have multiple needs but if informal efforts to address problems are unsuccessful a firmer, more pursuasive approach may become necessary. The use of authority is therefore of central importance in child protection work. Working in partnership with parents is a guiding principle but most parents recognise the imbalance of power between the social worker and parents. However, if social workers are open and explicit about their dual roles of safeguarding and support they may achieve some degree of success in negotiating a collaborative working relationship with parents.

The complexity of child protection work produces all kinds of moral confusion among social workers. The notion of professional curiosity within child protection practice and barriers that can inhibit social workers invoking curiosity are discussed in this article here. While social workers may have the relationship skills to achieve change in families they often find that success is elusive. It may be that what has drawn them to this work is difficulties in their own past or present lives and a need to reach out to people with similar experiences. However, these issues can affect their judgement if they lie hidden and unresolved in the heart of the social worker. The professional role requires the ability to show a certain independence of thinking without being unduly influenced by personal feelings. Sound judgements come from balancing risks and holding on to complexity, while weighing up all the facts and reaching a carefully considered conclusion. All of this requires a reasonable level of maturity and experience.

The Legal Framework

It should not be forgotten that the local authority has the lead agency role for child protection, particularly where there are concerns about neglect and harm within the family. In situations where a child may be at risk of significant harm it is always better to err on the side of caution and look carefully into any concerns. Priority should be given to ensuring all staff understand their legal duties and make proportionate and timely protective interventions with children who may be at risk owing to the presence of known risk factors.

When the decision is made to trigger a section 47 of the Children Act 1989 this work needs to be carried out by social workers who are well trained and highly skilled. The social work interview with the family requires a clear focus on finding out the truth about what happened and a mindset not unlike like that of a detective. While the focus must be on the investigation social workers should always remain alert to the support needs of the family and how these could be addressed.

The task of risk assessment is an imprecise science which requires multi-professional input and everyone keeping an open mind to new information. Sometimes fateful moments to intervene are being missed because of the failure of children's services to investigate forensically and to bring together all the different pieces of information. Assessment is an ongoing process and social workers should recognise when it is appropriate to use the well-established social work tool of the child protection plan to assist in risk assessment and ongoing surveillance.

Two recent cases have revealed serious weakness in social workers' practice - one where they did too little and the other too much. In the case of Ellie Butler, murdered by her father, social workers felt paralysed by a judge's decision and mistakenly thought there was nothing more they could do to protect her. In the case of AS v TH Child questioned on FORTY FOUR occasions about alleged abuse by father a range of professionals over-reacted to false allegations of abuse, including sexual abuse, and poor social work practice effectively caused more harm to the children than good.

In both of the above cases social workers had insufficient understanding of the law and guidance with regard to section 47 of the Children Act 1989. In one they failed to ensure that Ellie was safeguarded; in the other they intervened with an investigation that lacked urgency, without an agreed strategy, and without understanding the forensic requirements of their interviews.

Important lessons can be learned from these cases. In the case of Ellie Butler it was inappropriate for social workers to use mediation to resolve her resistance to being moved from grandparents to parents without completing a comprehensive risk assessment; also, after the move, they failed to recognise that the threshold for a section 47 enquiry had been met. The other case showed that there is a need to raise standards of practice in section 47 enquiries by creating a clearer separation of the task of formal investigation from other types of social work. These concerns may well have implications for the organisational structure.

The Way Forward

It is right that social work should be held to account for the effectiveness of its work in protecting children. If the profession took more responsibility for improving its effectiveness in child protection this might reduce the need for so much external scrutiny of its work.

One idea for improving practice is to give all social workers a working knowledge of risk assessment that informs their everyday practice. In my experience, the situations putting children at greatest risk are relatively easy to spot. These include the following: a male partner in the home with a history of violence, incidents of domestic violence, parents who are addicted to drugs or alcohol and are socially isolated, a baby who is failing to thrive or frequently presented for medical attention, teenagers who repeatedly go missing from home. All social workers should be trained to look for indicators of risk such as these and to bring their broader understanding of children's developmental needs to the multi-disciplinary risk assessment.

Social workers desperately need help to make their job easier. One simple way to do this would be to create a centralised team for section 47 investigations. Splitting off the formal investigation from the other types of social work has many advantages. Although all social work combines protection with support an investigation requires a mindset on the part of the social worker that is very different from that of a support worker. It requires more detachment, more probing and considerable skills in terms of tact, perception and judgement.

Not all social workers are suited to child protection investigations. This is why it makes sense to have a specialist team that is comfortable with this type of work and is appropriately selected, trained and supported. I am sure that some social workers would enjoy the challenges of this particular role, find satisfaction in it and recognise its contribution to improving decision-making in child protection work.

Hilary Searing