Parents' involvement in care order decisions: a cross‐country study of front‐line practice

This article examines parents' involvement in care order decision‐making in four countries at one particular point in the care order process, namely, when the child protection worker discusses with the parents his or her considerations regarding child removal. The countries represent different child welfare systems with Norway and Finland categorized as ‘family service systems’ and the USA as a ‘child protection system’, with England somewhere in between. The focus is on whether the forms and intensity of involvement are different in these four countries and whether the system orientation towards family services or child protection influences practice in the social welfare agencies with parents. Involvement is studied in terms of providing information to parents, collecting information from parents and ensuring inclusion in the decision‐making processes. A vignette method is employed in a survey with 768 responses from child protection workers in four countries. The findings do not show a consistent pattern of difference regarding parental involvement in care order preparations that align with the type of child welfare system in which staff work. The goal in each child welfare system is to include parents, but the precise ways in which it is carried out (or not) vary. Methodological suggestions are given for further studies.     

Challenges and dilemmas working with high‐conflict families in child protection casework

Social workers within child protection services report that families marked by high levels of conflict between separated parents are among the most challenging cases to handle. Few studies however have focussed on how social workers themselves experience and meet with parents involved in hostile martial interactions. This article reports on a qualitative study involving 31 social workers and provides an analysis of their experiences and dilemmas in working with such families. Findings demonstrate that social workers struggle to find ways to help high‐conflict families and often find themselves at an impasse. Parents involved in such conflict are highly resistant to change, and social workers struggle to engage with them over concerns about their children. Furthermore, findings suggest that social workers lack organizationally allotted time to assist the parents. I conclude by discussing ways in which emotional support, empowering interventions, and strength‐based approaches enable social workers to manage relationships with high‐conflict families. More research on this topic is needed to support and promote better practices for social workers to be more effective in assisting high‐conflict families.     

Recognizing and addressing child neglect in affluent families

This paper explores how social workers intervene with affluent parents when there are child protection concerns about neglect. Based on data gathered from a small‐scale exploratory qualitative study with 30 practitioners from 12 local authorities across England, this study examined three overarching questions: (a) How do social workers identify risk factors for vulnerable children in affluent circumstances? (b) Which factors inhibit or enable social workers' engagement with resistant affluent parents when there are child protection concerns? (c) What kind of skills, knowledge, and experience is necessary for social workers to effectively assert their professional authority with affluent parents when there are concerns about abuse and neglect? The findings revealed that indicators of neglect can be difficult to identify and challenging to respond to when parents are affluent. Results indicate that social workers have to navigate complex power relationships with parents who are able to use their class privileges to resist their interventions. The paper concludes with a discussion of social workers' skills and capacities for engaging highly‐resistant affluent parents in the child protection system.     

Inclusive foster care: How foster parents support cultural and relational connections for Indigenous children

How do foster parents support the relational and cultural connections of Indigenous children in care? The answer matters; the well‐being of Indigenous children depends on these connections. At one of Canada's largest Indigenous child welfare agencies, we implemented inclusive foster care, an approach requiring foster parents to engage with the family, community, and cultural life of the child for whom they care. Fifteen years later, we present findings from a thematic analysis of interviews with 13 foster parents who participated in a mixed methods study exploring inclusive foster care. We discuss foster parent strategies to support the child's family relationships: setting clear boundaries, rolling with inconsistency, and understanding the family's (hi)stories. Strategies to strengthen cultural connectedness include visiting traditional territory, using personal initiative and Indigenous knowledge, and engaging in school‐based and “multi‐purpose” cultural opportunities. Drawing on foster parent stories of success, we propose ways for social workers, foster parents, and policymakers to address the cultural and relational disruption that characterizes the experience of Indigenous children in care in colonial settler societies.     

What do we know about child neglect? A critical review of the literature and its application to social work practice

Child neglect is a difficult and complex area of practice for social workers and other childcare professionals. To work effectively, practitioners need a good grasp of relevant literature and research – a point underlined by the moves to incorporate ‘research mindedness’ and ‘research literacy’ into social work education, training and practice. This paper aims to contribute to the debate around research literacy by looking in more detail at the research and knowledge base informing work with neglected children and their families, and considering the ways in which this can be applied in practice. In the first part of the paper, we provide a critical overview of the main aspects of research knowledge, summarizing ‘what we know’ currently about child neglect. Next, we look at some of the difficulties associated with this body of knowledge and at some of its limitations. Having noted these concerns, however, we go on to suggest ways in which the research evidence can be used in mainstream social work. We draw out some of the consequences for work with children and with their parents as well as considering the implications for social workers and their agencies.     

Parent–professional interviews in child protection: Comparing viewpoints

Several studies have analysed the parent–professional relationship in the field of child protection. Although social workers tend to privilege interviews when working with families and view them as a means through which to build ties, few studies have focused on these interviews. To analyse how professionals and parents position themselves, we chose to focus on the content of these interviews and on the associated interactions. To this end, we recorded 13 parent–professional interviews after receiving the consent of the concerned parties. After analysing the interviews, we asked volunteer social workers and parents to analyse their own recorded interviews. Our results confirm the asymmetric nature of the parent–professional relationship. They show that professionals' viewpoints carry more weight than those of parents. They also underscore professionals' lack of openness and the strategies parents implement to cope with this power imbalance. Lastly, our results open new avenues for reflection on the evolution of practices that may enable professionals to better take into account families' viewpoints.     

Child protection social workers' constructions of children and childhood: An integrative review

Social workers' constructions of children and childhood are central to how professionals interact with children and support their needs. The aim of this integrative review was to provide a comprehensive portrayal of child protection social workers' constructions of children and childhood. We analysed and synthesized 35 empirical studies with samples of social workers in the child protection domain where issues regarding the child or the child's situation were the study focus. The findings show that children and youth are constructed as a generalized group viewed in light of their parents. We see a fragmented and context‐free child produced by causal shortcuts strongly informed by specific and, at times, simplified and biased psychological knowledge. Moreover, we identify constructions of the child in need of protection and thereby position children as objects for intervention, separating that from children as subjects in their own rights. Although the participatory child is visible in the data material, the actual practice of involving children seems arbitrary.     

Shame and guilt in child protection social work: new interpretations and opportunities for practice

Shame is an underexplored and misunderstood emotion. It can be described as an acute awareness of one's flawed and unworthy self. It is the primary social emotion and one of our most intimate feelings developed within the context of our family of origin, which can have a devastating effect on an individual and their relationships. Social workers are routinely faced with issues of shame as an intrinsic consequence of the matters with which social work deals and also as a result of how both families and workers experience the child protection process. This paper outlines the research on shame and guilt to argue for a re‐evaluation of the key challenges faced by child protection social workers. It is argued that shame experienced by parents and carers potentially plays a significant role in these challenges, while it may be argued that ‘guilt’ has had a bad press and may potentially play an important role in the successes. An argument is made for a shame‐reducing child protection social work practice with some key themes for practitioners to consider in their attempt to improve the accuracy of assessments and intervention.     

Safeguarding children: challenges to the effective operation of core groups

Founded on an evaluative review of core group practice in a northern metropolitan borough of England, this paper highlights the tensions and difficulties that might inhibit the quality of post‐registration services to children and their families. Insights from the empirical data as well as theoretical literature have been explored in the light of current and developing policies. This exploration is focused on inter‐agency coordination; inter‐professional relationships; and partnership with parents and children. The recruitment and retention of social workers, the potential contribution of Children's Trusts, as well as unconscious processes relating to child abuse and child protection, are all given consideration.     

A Framework for Cultivating and Increasing Child Welfare Workers’ Empathy Toward Parents

ABSTRACT

Much emphasis has been placed on child welfare workers’ skills and attributes when working with parents involved in the child welfare system; however, few studies have examined the potential benefits of using an empathic approach to interacting with parents. Child welfare workers may have negative perceptions of parents involved in the child welfare system and might have a tendency to reflect these attitudes and value judgments in their practice. The lack of empathic understanding and communication between workers and parents impacts service implementation and the success of family interventions. Increasing the workers’ ability to empathize with parents can enhance their relationship while increasing parent participation in services and ultimately family reunification. This article will discuss specific ways to cultivate and increase child welfare workers’ empathy for parents by enhancing workers’ emotional response and self/other-awareness, ability to perspective take, emotion regulation, and their ability to make appropriate decisions. Implications for application to practice and training are discussed as is the need for future research to validate the proposed framework for increasing child welfare workers’ empathy toward parents.     

A Comparative Study of Child Abuse Risk Assessment in the United States and Korea

The perceptions and judgments of social workers who interview the child and family are especially significant factors in child abuse assessment process. The current study describes and compares child protection workers’ assessment processes in Korea and the USA through the use of case vignettes and in‐depth interview. The responses from social workers in these two countries were compared and discussed in the areas of: risk assessment; perception of the main problems; tolerance of corporal punishment; and judgments about appropriateness of interventions. Most revealing was that Korean social workers determined abuse based on their child abuse definition and the US Army FAP social workers determined abuse based on their definition, which was affected by legal standards and cultural differences. Korean social workers are more likely to remove a child from the home, even in mild cases, but US FAP social workers would recommend child removal from the home as a last option. The social workers that participated in this survey play a vital role in the safety of children in child protective services. Both countries can benefit from sharing information to improve the child protection services delivered. Social workers' professional judgment leads to objective and consistent outcomes and are less likely to compromise child safety in the decision making process.     

From parental engagement to the engagement of social work services: discussing reductionist and democratic forms of partnership with families

Social work has moved from a child protection discourse towards a child welfare discourse that views the relationship between social workers and families as a partnership. Partnership with families in the field of child protection and child welfare, however, mirrors diverse ideological motives of social policy, civil society and practice. We engage in a theoretical discussion of different interpretations of partnership. We draw a primary distinction between reductionist and democratic forms of partnership with families. In a reductionist approach, social workers activate parents in order to realize the goals set by social work. A democratic approach to partnership refers to a shared responsibility between social workers, parents and children. In this approach, effective partnership is not something to be realized as an outcome, but a point of departure that implies a joint search for meaning and an experiment with which social workers engage. This engagement presents ‘non‐participation’ not as problematic but as an essential element of participation. The focus then shifts from a methodical approach to partnership – how to activate people to participate in the care process – to the question of how the engagement of social workers can be constructed together with families.     

Parental substance misuse and child care social work: findings from the first stage of a study of 100 families

Parental misuse of drugs or alcohol is known to be a common issue for child care social workers, yet there has been surprisingly little British research on the topic. The study reported here attempts to address this gap. All files going for long‐term allocation in four London boroughs over on average 1 year were examined (290 files). Parental substance misuse (PSM) emerged as a major feature of social work caseloads. Of the 290 cases, 100 (34%) involved concerns about parental substance misuse. The families involving substance misuse were more vulnerable on a variety of measures: the children were younger, the parents had more individual problems and the families lived in more difficult social situations. PSM cases tended to be ‘heavy end’ at the point of allocation: they accounted for 62% of all children subject to care proceedings and 40% of those placed on the child protection register. There was a fairly even spread between alcohol and drug misuse, and a number of cases involved both. Substance misuse specialists were rarely involved in working with families, primarily because parents said that they did not think that they had a problem. Suggestions for ways in which policy and practice with PSM might be improved are made in light of these findings.     

System abuse: towards a greater understanding from the perspectives of children and parents

The present article explores the concept of system abuse from the perspectives of children and parents. Four main ways in which the term has been used are highlighted and, with reference to the literature, the commonalities underlying the various uses of the term are explored. Reviewing the available evidence suggests that many families may become unnecessarily involved in the child protection system; this finding is discussed within the parameters of the current Section 17/Section 47 debate. Features of the investigation identified as particularly salient for children and parents include the initial phase of the investigation; investigative interviews and medical examinations; case conferences; social-worker/family interaction and the lack of follow-through services. Gaps in service provision when workers do not consider that abuse has occurred are also considered. Finally, pointers for practice during investigations are discussed in the light of this review     

Performing child protection: home visiting, movement and the struggle to reach the abused child

Social work and child protection literature, policy and practice discussions largely ignore the core experience of doing the work. Little attention is given to where it is performed, and in particular, the practice of home visiting and the emotions and challenges of accessing children it gives rise to. Although it is the methodology through which most child protection goes on, the home visit is virtually ignored, as the emphasis in policy and practice texts is increasingly on what happens in the office, at the computer and in inter-agency collaboration. Examining scenes from home visiting practices and child death inquiry reports – Baby Peter, Victoria Climbié and Jasmine Beckford – the paper identifies the core problem of contemporary child protection as being social workers (and other professionals) not moving in rooms or around houses to meaningfully engage with, touch or examine children. Analysing practice through the sociology of 'mobilities' and psychodynamic social work theory, the paper provides new ways of understanding social work experience as forms of embodied movement. It uses the concept of 'containment' to suggest ways in which practitioners can be supported to use their bodies to move more and better in performing child protection to the benefit of children, other service users and themselves.     

The Influence of Child Protection Orientation on Child Welfare Practice

Summary This article reports the findings of the second part of a two-partresearch project examining the potential for social workersto make changes in their work with families and children. Whilstsocial workers in the United Kingdom have been encouraged toshift from a child protection to a child welfare orientationin their practice, such changes have been hampered by professionaland organizational concern to manage risk. The research exploresthe influence of a child protection orientation on practicein child welfare cases. The findings, from two file analysesand interviews with 26 social workers, indicate that such aninfluence is indeed apparent. This is evidenced in two ways;first patterns of practice in child welfare cases are similarto those in child protection cases. Secondly, while the majorityof social workers express an attitudinal desire to move towardsa child welfare orientation, they still prioritize the managementof risk in their practice. It is argued that social workersneed permission from their employing organizations to make changesin their practice. This, in turn, requires such organizationsto state clear goals in line with a child welfare orientationand develop holistic strategies to achieve these.     

Child protection services and parental reactions to children's behaviour

A commonly used expression in child protection is the term 'physical abuse'. This paper consists of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of a 100% sample of 'physical abuse' child protection cases drawn from research in an Australian state child welfare agency, which shows that about 90% of these concerned incidents in which parents used physical punishment to control children. Resulting physical harms to children (where they occurred) were generally of a very minor nature. The paper examines these results in the light of research findings in the UK and Australia on patterns of physical punishment used by parents to control children. Such findings suggest that those child rearing practices that make frequent and systematic use of physical punishment are located largely amongst lower social class parents, who believe that such practices are an essential and normal component of effective parenting behaviour. One interpretation of child protection services in respect of these cases is that they are concerned primarily with the normalization of child rearing practices. The paper concludes with a discussion of the limited impact of the Swedish anti-spanking law of 1979, which appears to have only reduced the use of physical punishment by those parents who may not necessarily have believed in such measures in the first place. However, legislation of this nature has the potential to criminalize a substantial sector of the population, but at least state intervention under the aegis of a specific criminal law provides a clearer mandate than does intervention under much looser, broader and subjectively interpreted child protection legislation.     

Children's participation in child protection—How do practitioners understand children's participation in practice?

Children's participation is essential to achieve good outcomes for children involved in child protection systems. Despite this, research has consistently found children report low levels of participation, are poorly consulted and feel inadequately involved in decisions about their lives. To explore how practitioners understand children's participation, 18 in-depth interviews were conducted with statutory child protection practitioners in Australia. The interviews explored the ways child protection practitioners understand children's participation. Our findings show practitioners conceptualize children as rights holders and believe it is essential to hear directly from children about their needs and wishes to keep them safe. Practitioners identified the importance of transparent processes and decisions. Different understanding of participation emerged, with some participants talking about children as their central focus but not discussing meaningful participation of the child. It appeared that children's participation relied largely on the views and skills of individual workers, as well as their ability to incorporate meaningful participation in limited time and in complex practice environments where children's safety is a primary concern. Systemic changes to address time barriers, training practitioners to understand and implement participatory practice, and seeking children's input into service design, will support consistent and meaningful participation.     

What social workers do in performing child protection work: evidence from research into face‐to‐face practice

Little research has been done into what social workers do in everyday child protection practice. This paper outlines the broad findings from an ethnographic study of face‐to‐face encounters between social workers, children and families, especially on home visits. The social work practice was found to be deeply investigative. Children's bedrooms were routinely inspected and were the most common place where they were seen alone. A high proportion of children were not seen on their own because they were too young and the majority of the time was spent working with parents and children together. Small amounts of time were spent with children on their own and some first encounters were so rushed that social workers did not even introduce themselves to the child. This arose from two key factors: firstly, organisational pressures from high workloads and the short timescales that social workers were expected to adhere to by managers and Government; secondly, practitioners had varying levels of communication skills, playfulness and comfort with getting close to children and skills at family work. Where these skills and relational capacities were present, social workers were found to have developed deep and meaningful relationships with some children and families, for whom it was apparent that therapeutic change had occurred.     

‘They didn't tell me anything; they just sent me home’: children's participation in the return home

The reality of child protection systems typically demonstrates a lack of attention to the voices of children. There are studies that confirm this fact and offer evidence of the benefits of participation, but gaps remain regarding the elements and processes that favour it. This qualitative study attempts to contribute to knowledge in this area through a detailed analysis of the perspectives of the actors involved and the role that children play in the return home. This article analyses the elements involved in the participation of the children when a return home is proposed after a period of family or residential foster care. As part of the study, 18 semi‐structured interviews were conducted and 22 discussion groups were created with a total of 135 participants (63 child protection services workers, 42 parents and 30 children and adolescents). The data were analysed using a content analysis process and underwent a peer review process in Atlas.ti. The results indicate that the participation of children and adolescents in the return home centres around (i) understanding the return home, (ii) strategies and emotional processes and (iii) social support.