Why some Conferences are Difficult: a Study of the Professionals' Experience of Some Initial Child Protection Conferences

The views of 261 professionals attending 36 initial child protection conferences with parental participation were collected by means of a questionnaire. Overall, the professionals found the involvement of parents beneficial to the consideration of risk and the decision-making process, with some provisos. The data revealed that most of the negative responses arose from one third of the conferences, and that these conferences shared particular features relating to family profile and certain conference characteristics. The nature of the difficulties is identified and explored, especially with regard to the ambiguities and the uncertainties involved in risk assessments which contributed to the professionals, negative experiences, and which seemed to be heightened by the parents' presence.     

Failures in Child Protection: A Case Study

A case example is used to illustrate how powerful a child abuser may become; where a complex hostage-type relationship develops between family members and is then extended to include the child protection worker. One consequence of this is the increased risk of re-abuse of the children. To establish this relationship the abuser uses a number of techniques such as violence, intimidation, isolation and unpredictability. In the case presented, the three children were subjected to ongoing severe abuse, although the child protection agency had known the family for 10 years. The children often denied and hid the abuse, and the child protection workers were left largely unsupported by other professionals and often appeared to comply with the wishes of the abusing parents. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Professionalization of Police in Child Sexual Abuse:

No abstract available for this article.     

Child Protection and Child Custody

Abstract

A child'S need for safety should trump any and all other considerations in family law. Child-service agencies cannot be expected to both promote reunification and child protection simultaneously. The author asserts that legislatures need to change the laws such that it is clear to the court that children come first and that safety is paramount. Although visitation between child and parent is considered to be a fundamental right, this right can and should be abrogated when initial evidence shows that such contact poses a risk of danger to the emotional or physical health and safety of the child. A new and specially trained court dealing only with issues of family violence and abuse may need to be considered.     

Beginning Practice in Child Protection: A Blended Learning Approach

Statutory child protection is arguably one of the most complex and challenging areas of work within the welfare sector. In the state of Victoria, Australia, the child protection service is delivered by a state government department, the Department of Human Services, employing over 900 staff. A significant proportion of its recruitment is achieved through employing new graduates from a diverse educational base (e.g. social work, psychology and welfare). This convergence of circumstances, inexperienced workers with a variety of professional education backgrounds, beginning work in a complex, highly scrutinised professional domain, creates a unique challenge for in‐service educators responsible for induction. The ‘Beginning Practice in Child Protection’ programme is an attempt to meet this challenge, employing multi‐modal learning resources, interactive skills based clinics combined with workplace learning opportunities structured to deliver just‐in‐time messages. In addition, on‐line ‘virtual vignettes’ that support learning at the employee workstation are utilised. Evaluation findings suggest this programme is successful in achieving its aims of a supported introduction to the work, increasing worker confidence and satisfaction while leading to quality knowledge and skills acquisition. This paper will establish the context for child protection practice in Victoria, describe the programme designed to address the need, before highlighting key messages arising from an independent evaluation.     

Emotional Labour and Skill: A Reappraisal

The article seeks to open up a critical discussion around the idea of emotional labour as skilled work. It has been suggested by some commentators that many front‐line service jobs, traditionally thought of as low skilled in terms of their technical aspects, may actually constitute a form of skilled work, since they require their holders to perform skilled emotional labour in their dealings with customers. Such discourses hold out the possibility of progress not only in intellectual terms but also with regard to improving the status and pay of many low‐waged service workers. The article subjects these claims to critical scrutiny and argues that applying the label ‘skill’ to all forms of emotion work is extremely problematic.     

我国儿童保护立法政策综述

近30年来,我国儿童保护立法政策不断发展,儿童保护涵盖了儿童救助、收养、教育、安全、医疗卫生等方面内容,已形成以宪法为基础,依托于儿童专项法律及国务院行政法规,以部门规章及政策性文件为主体的儿童保护立法政策体系。然而,存在儿童保护立法层级低,呈分散化、碎片化特征;涉及部门多,业务有重合也有空白;缺乏预防性措施;缺乏责任主体和罚则等问题。     

Parent Involvement Practices in Child Protection: A Matter of Know-How and Attitude

Modern view of child protection services implies that to help young people, simply intervening on their behalf is not sufficient. It suggests that involving parents in the assistance process is essential in order to ensure that they are most likely to play their role as parents to their children in the fullest possible way. Although several articles have dealt with the issue of parent involvement, very few have attempted to document the practices used by practitioners to encourage such involvement. This article presents the findings of a study on child protection practices for involving parents in a child protection context. It is exploratory in nature, and uses a qualitative methodology. The study population is made up of 38 child protection service workers. An analysis of the practitioners’ discourse reveals that the behaviour and attitudes used by them to encourage parent involvement are very diverse. There also appear to be key moments in securing their involvement, that is, making contact, setting objectives and means of action, and applying the case plan. In addition to corroborating earlier studies on the issue of parent involvement, our findings indicate that the majority of the caseworkers interviewed practice an approach that aims to empower clients.Funding of this project was provided by le Fonds Richelieu de recherche sur l’enfance.Marie-Christine Saint-Jacques, Geneviève Lessard, and André Beaudoin are affiliated with School of Social Work, Laval University, Quebec, Canada. Sylvie Drapeau is affiliated with Department of Foundations and Practices in Education, Laval University, Quebec, Canada.     

The Child Protection Clinic: A mixed method evaluation of parent legal representation

Providing parents with low incomes accused of child maltreatment access to quality legal representation is both a social justice issue and potential resource for improving their children's well-being. This mixed methods research evaluates a law school clinic which provides indigent parents with legal representation by law students supervised by experienced attorneys. Thirty-nine individuals knowledgeable about the clinic (12 court professionals, 5 law school faculty, 2 parent mentors, 11 students, and 9 parent clients) participated in in-depth, semi-structured, audiotaped interviews focusing on the quality of parent representation. Interviews were contextualized by extensive participant observation and document reviews. Quantitative analyses of administrative data focused on case outcomes identified by participants as desired during qualitative interviews: family reunification, timely case closure and children's placement with relatives. Outcomes for 19 children whose parents were represented by student attorneys did not differ significantly from those of a propensity score matched comparison group of 19 children whose parents were represented by fully licensed attorneys. Participants described clinic staff as providing strong legal counsel to parents, building positive attorney–client relationships, possessing positive personal characteristics, and providing a needed service to the broader community. Participants also identified areas for improvement including: educating parents around court procedures, and better cross system collaboration between child welfare and legal professionals. The Child Protection Clinic is a promising model for providing quality legal representation to parents involved with child protection in order to support child well-being.     

Ethnic Diversity and Child Protection

SUMMARY: Black and minority ethnic children in need of protection receive a poor response from health and social services. Practitioners are reluctant to intervene, and when intervention does take place it reflects a eurocentric approach that fails to engage with the ethnic diversity of vulnerable children. Increasing the levels of safety far all children, black and white, suffering or likely to suffer significant harm, requires taking positive action: collecting ethnically relevant data, a commitment to an equitable distribution of resources, consulting children and parents and involving them in planning and designing services.