Domestic violence and child protection: exploring the role of perpetrator risk assessments

This article explores the issue of severity in relation to domestic violence and provides a number of reasons for the necessary engagement by workers with such a contentious issue. The specific role that the assessment of the risks posed by the perpetrator which has now developed in some police forces in the United Kingdom is examined, and its relevance to child welfare intervention discussed. A range of factors are identified that heighten the risks of increased violence. These include prior sexual assault; stalking and controlling behaviour; substance misuse and mental‐health problems; separation and child contact disputes; pregnancy; escalation including the use of weapons and psychological abuse; attempts and threats to kill; child abuse; isolation and barriers to help‐seeking. The ways in which perpetrator risk assessment can be used to inform the filtering of referrals to the statutory child care agency, enhance multi‐agency working, provide a structure for the assessment of the perpetrator, enhance partnership‐working with survivors (usually women) and inform the protection strategies for workers are explored.     

Mothering and child protection practice: rethinking risk assessment

In recent years, across North America and the UK, child protective service agencies have increasingly begun to rely on bureaucratic, technocratic, and regulatory mechanisms for detecting and managing abuse and neglect. Coupled with a shift from concern for the general social welfare of children to a heightened preoccupation with risk or dangerousness to children, risk assessment systems are becoming integral to child protection practice.
Though risk assessment systems aim to enhance the effectiveness of child protection investigations and service provision, as well as filter out high risk cases from the rest, such systems may foster and reproduce often concealed relations of gender, race, and class. This paper presents a review of the risk assessment trend in child welfare, its general objectives, and some criticisms raised to date. Through a feminist analysis of the social construction of mothering, we re-examine risk assessment. We argue that the risk assessment trend has the potential to entrench oppressive relations of gender, race, and class in child welfare practice with mothers. We suggest that an approach to risk assessment which incorporates a 'mothering narrative' might offer a more thorough evaluation of the conditions that shape the context within which risk to children emerges.     

Multidisciplinary consultation in child protection: a clinical data‐mining evaluation

Lalayants M, Epstein I, Adamy D. Multidisciplinary consultation in child protection: a clinical data‐mining evaluation Int J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 156–166 © 2010 The Author(s), International Journal of Social Welfare © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. This article presents the results of an evaluation of a multidisciplinary consultation program in child protection by applying a clinical data‐mining approach. Using available agency records, data concerning mental health, substance abuse, and domestic violence consultations were extracted retrospectively for evaluative purposes. The results demonstrated that by examining existing records, child‐protection practitioners were able to evaluate the existing practices as well as recognize areas for program improvement. Additionally, differential patterns emerged in consultation types. Lastly, a discussion of the strengths and limitations as well as implications of clinical data‐mining studies is presented.     

The progress of child protection in South Africa

Child abuse in South Africa is a serious and escalating problem. In this article, the writer reflects on the response of the South African government and civil society organisations to the problems experienced by practitioners in their management of child abuse during the past decade. This response must be understood within the context of South Africa's transition from a past characterised by state-enforced discrimination, exclusion and inequity. The article focuses on the child protection service system and draws attention to a review conducted in the nine provincial departments of social development across the country. It discusses the recommendations of the review in light of international literature on child welfare and lessons learnt over the past ten years. Despite the progress in policy formulation, implementation remains a major problem regarding child protection in South Africa.     

Exploring the essence of enabling child participation within child protection services

The chances that children have to participate in child protection services are largely contingent upon the attitudes and skills of case managers. They have a crucial role in ensuring that a child's voice is being listened to and acknowledged in often sensitive dialogues. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate what case managers need to facilitate child participation. By handing case managers a participation toolbox developed by children and through the use of reflexive monitoring in action, we elaborated on the barriers faced in practice. The results show that the intention to facilitate child participation is quickly overruled by often subconscious thoughts and beliefs, stemming from the complex interplay of child image, protection, and participation. Case managers need to be aware of this interplay and how this unknowingly steers their actions. Therefore, iterative reflection should be facilitated within organizations for an actual change in their daily practice and to amplify the role of children in the decision‐making processes within child protection services.     

Parental participation in child protection case conferences

Child protection case conferences (CPCCs) are a fundamental part of child protection processes within the United Kingdom. They provide a mechanism for professionals and families to share information, enter an assessment dialogue, and develop a plan for intervention and support. The participation of parents is a core feature of U.K. and Scottish CPCCs. This reflects an international trend that recognizes the rights of family members to participate in the decision‐making processes of child protection. This article reports on the analysis of 11 qualitative interviews with parents who had attended CPCCs in Scotland. The findings highlight that parents were profoundly affected by these meetings, which were experienced as distressing. Parents lacked clarity about the purposes of CPCCs and found the large number of professionals in attendance intimidating. The discursive practices and structural arrangements of CPCCs acted to privilege professional voices and marginalize the voices of parents. The findings of this study raise important questions about parental participation in CPCCs in the contemporary context of child protection practice.     

Negotiation as a style in child protection work

How child protection professionals orient to the work can be described as a style, and in the two teams reported on here, a style is emerging that is characterized by reaching for and inviting ongoing negotiation with families, with allied professionals and colleagues, and a reflexivity that is the result of the attention focused on the professional and the need to continually defend the work and explain to others one's point of view. Negotiation is a political concept that blends the reality of State authority with the practice of taking seriously the goals and interests of clients as well as the goals and interests of allied professionals. For these teams, this practice is rooted in an identity of service to the client, the importance of the protection of children and long‐standing motivations common to the helping professions.     

Relating outcomes to objectives in child protection

With the introduction of the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995, Health and Social Care Trusts in Northern Ireland have been engaged in a refocusing of children's services, shifting resources and interventions towards supporting families at an earlier stage in order to reduce the likelihood of crisis, breakdown or abuse at a later stage. Alongside this development the Government wishes to see a clearer link between the objectives of the child protection system and the outcomes for children and their families. This paper critiques the current system of performance management in the child protection system. Using data from a study exploring the characteristics and careers of children in the children protection system in Northern Ireland it is argued that the current measurements of performance are too basic and are designed principally to monitor the operation of the system rather than the impact of services and interventions on the lives of children and their families.     

Holes in the safety net: the strengths and weaknesses of child protection procedures

This paper uses findings from empirical research to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of the child protection procedures in the UK. Discontinuities in which child protection plans were not implemented arose because of limitations in the plans made, obstacles to implementation and weaknesses in the conduct of review meetings which rarely questioned the management of cases even when it was clearly deficient. The construction of risk made during the investigation carried over into the initial conference, fed into decisions about registration and had an enduring influence on the way in which later risks to children were interpreted. However, this meant that new information which challenged this view of risk was often ignored. Continuities were also evident between adequate plans for children's safety made at initial conferences and their subsequent protection. However, when children remained at home with an abusing parent, this remained true only when a new key worker had been allocated at the time of the conference. These initial plans also had an impact on the interventions provided, especially those for treatment. These findings emphasize the importance of adequate planning for children and families at initial child protection conferences and the need for an overhaul of the conduct of reviews if they are to be used more effectively.     

Protecting children in new times: child protection and the risk society

This paper examines the nature of late-modern child protection by placing it in the context of the paradigm of `risk society'. It traces out a structural transformation in the relationship between expertise and lay people that has occurred since the 1970s which resulted in the emergence of child abuse inquiries and new public disclosures of professional 'failures'. The dynamic and empowering features of social developments are identified in how institutions, professionals and lay people re-appropriate power, knowledge and reskill themselves. Traditionally repressed problems like child sexual abuse have gained recognition in a context where abused women and children – like all late-modern citizens – are reflexively engaged in constructing their own biographies and using expertise in the planning of their life projects. A radically new professional risk consciousness in child protection is traced to late-modern existential crises associated with death and sexuality and the emergence of manufactured risk, which is known and experienced by social workers as risk in the context of radically uncertain futures for children. Drawing on the work of sociologists of 'reflexive modernity', the paper aims to advance our understandings of social work and child protection beyond the one-dimensional focus of post-modernist critics on power, control and bureaucracy to recognize the new opportunities, as well as the dangers, involved in child protection in risk society.     

Decision‐making under uncertainty in child protection: Creating a just and learning culture

The argument is made for having a positive error culture in child protection to improve decision‐making and risk management. This requires organizations to accept that mistakes are likely and to treat them as opportunities for learning and improving. In contrast, in many organizations, a punitive reaction to errors leads to workers hiding them and developing a defensive approach to their practice with children and families. The safety management literature has shown how human error is generally not simply due to a “bad apple” but made more or less likely by the work context that helps or hinders good performance. Improving safety requires learning about the weaknesses in the organization that contribute to poor performance. To create a learning culture, people need to feel that when they talk about mistakes or weak practice, there will be a constructive response from their organization. One aspect of reducing the blame culture is to develop a shared understanding of how practice will be judged and how those appraising practice will avoid the hindsight bias. To facilitate a positive error culture, a set of risk principles are presented that offer a set of criteria by which practice should be appraised.     

Constructing women in child protection work

This paper is based on an ethnographic study of the occupational culture of a social work team in the UK. It is a discussion of some key aspects of social workers' construction of women as clients. Data were collected from observation of routine case talk, reading of case files and in-depth interviews with social workers. The conclusion of the research is that three defining discourses can be identified in the culture of the social work office: women as oppressed, women as responsible for protection, and women as making choices.     

Professionals' attitudes about victims of child sexual abuse: implications for collaborative child protection teams

In responding to victims of child sexual abuse, considerable attention has been given to multidisciplinary collaborative response teams. Recent evidence, however, suggests that team members may be divided by differences in attitudes towards victims and offenders and about the causes and consequences of abuse. This paper draws on a larger study of the various professionals who make up one child abuse response system in Newfoundland, Canada. In particular, the paper focuses on social workers, teachers and the police, and their views about the characteristics and credibility of sexual abuse victims, and the extent to which they attribute to the victim some responsibility for the abuse. Data for the study were collected in two stages: key informant interviews; and a survey of social workers, teachers and police. The analysis includes an interpretation of the role of gender, professional group membership and experience with cases. The most striking finding is the extent to which the child's age and behaviour appears to influence differentially attitudes about the victims' credibility. These differences complicate multidisciplinary collaborative initiatives since it would appear that those with the least real case experience, and the least knowledge about the relationship between abuse and behaviour, are the ones most likely to be the first point of contact for reports or disclosures.     

Ontario child protection workers' views on assessing risk and planning for safety in exposure to domestic violence cases

The use of standardized tools to assess risk for children is mandatory in the child protection sector in Ontario. Factors that can be used specifically to assess the risk of lethality in exposure to domestic violence (DV) cases, however, are largely missing from these tools. Using data from an online survey of 138 child protection workers in Ontario, the current study examines practitioners' risk assessment and safety planning practices with DV cases. Findings provide an overview of the frequency of risk assessment and management strategies within various environmental contexts (e.g., urban and rural) and populations (e.g., indigenous and immigrants/refugees). According to the practitioners sampled, assessing and managing risk are frequently and consistently completed across the province, although specific strategies and challenges vary. Although mandatory provincial child protection tools are commonly used, some workers report using other specific DV risk assessment tools to complement their own measurement of risk and planning for safety. Respondents emphasized the importance of working collaboratively with families and professionals in other sectors to address risk. Implications for future research include exploring the barriers and challenges of using DV‐specific risk assessments in child protection and factors contributing to these challenges as identified by practising child protection workers.     

Cumulative harm in the child protection system: The Australian context

Cumulative harm is a major child protection concern, with significant consequences for child well‐being and development often into adult life. This systematic literature review examines how the construct of cumulative harm is understood and operationalized within current Australian child protection legislation, policy, and practice and situates this within an international context. Scholarly articles and grey literature were qualitatively analysed to explore two main research questions: How is cumulative harm to children identified, assessed, and ultimately incorporated into child protection and legal structures? And what are the most effective responses to cumulative harm identified for child protection practice? What was found was that although the construct of cumulative harm is increasingly incorporated into child protection practice and legislation, in practice, this remains crisis‐driven. Although the literature emphasized prevention and early intervention as responses to reducing the cumulative impact of adverse childhood experiences, there is negligible research on what constitutes an effective response to cases involving cumulative harm. They are cases which are less visible within the child protection paradigm; attention to the impact of risk of maltreatment and its influence on long‐term developmental outcomes is less well addressed creating uncertainty and ambiguity about effective responses for child protection.     

Context-contingent decision-making in child protection practice

Research on child protection practice has been concerned mainly with the problem of the maltreating parent. System philosophies and processes and the influences on these, while addressed by some authors, have not received the attention they deserve. Understanding the ways in which child protection practices are constructed offers insights into the equitable or otherwise application of these processes to different groups of parents within our communities. In the study reported here we examine how child protection workers make decisions about removing children and subsequently initiating court proceedings. By focusing our analysis on a particularly vulnerable group of parents, those with intellectual disability, we highlight the ways in which child protection workers carry out their legislative mandate to keep children safe.     

Practice challenges at the intersection of child protection and mental health

This paper examines the complexity of collaboration between child protection and mental health services, where a parent has a mental illness and there are protection concerns for children. The paper reports on data from focused in‐depth interviews with 36 child protection workers, adult mental health workers and child and youth mental health workers. Data were analysed thematically, using NVivo to facilitate data management and analysis. Two dimensions were identified. The first, the process of collaboration, relates to four factors that assisted the collaborative process: communication, knowledge, role clarity and resources. The second dimension considers the challenges presented to collaborative work when a parent has a mental illness and a child is in need of protection, and identifies issues that are inherent in cases of this kind. Two types of challenge were identified. The first related to characteristics of mental illness, and included the episodic and/or unpredictable nature of mental illness, incorporating information from psychiatric and parenting capacity assessments, and the provision of ongoing support. The second type of challenge concerned the tension between the conflicting needs of parents and their children, and how this was viewed from both the adult mental health and the child protection perspective. Implications for policy and practice are identified in relation to the need for service models that provide ongoing, flexible support that can be intensified or held back as needed.     

What is child protection? Historical and methodological issues in comparative research on lastensuojelu/child protection

This article addresses comparative research on what has come to be called, in (British) English, 'child protection' or, rather differently, in Finnish ' lastensuojelu '. In developing a cross-national research project on lastensuojelu /child protection practices in England and Finland, we found it necessary to go back a few steps, to address what might usually be considered as 'background issues'. This article discusses the welfare state traditions in both countries, especially with respect to families and children, in order to contextualise the focus of ongoing qualitative research on micro comparisons. When comparing the mundane practices of child protection and the ways problems and clienthoods are constructed, as in this study, historical, social, cultural and linguistic issues matter. Indeed, very basic concepts such as 'child protection' and 'child protection case' become problematic in the comparison.     

The child in child protection: Invisible and unheard

The paper presents findings from a qualitative study of four child death reviews published in Australia. The study was informed by the theoretical concept of childism. A critical social research methodology facilitated the exposure of childist dynamics in statutory child protection. The transformation of child protection practices and systems has traditionally relied on the imposition of never‐ending structural changes, policies, and procedures. This paper proposes that transformation and the erosion of childist dynamics is contingent on humane and ethical statutory child protection agencies.     

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.