'The Tip of the Ice Berg': Children's Complaints and Advocacy in Wales--An Insider View from Complaints Officers

This paper is based on findings of a Welsh Assembly Governmentfunded review of children’s independent advocacy servicesin Wales with reference to their involvement in complaints madeby children, or by their parents or carers on their behalf,about local authority social services. It draws, primarily,upon qualitative interviews with local authority children’scomplaints officers, whose task is to receive complaints orconcerns, field these to appropriate social services staff,maintain oversight of their progression and keep complainantsinformed of developments. The paper describes the challengesthat complaints officers perceive children encounter in movingcomplaints forward, especially in a context where independentadvocacy services are involved and where these services areviewed with some suspicion by social services staff. It suggeststhat complaints officers play a pivotal part in managing thesometimes contested and complex interface between service providerand child and may do so from a position of limited authorityand influence. The role of complaints officers in engaging withcomplainants and their advocates, and with those colleaguesimplicated in complaints, has rarely been the topic of research.This paper provides accounts from these key staff that helpilluminate the tensions and difficulties that can enter thechildren’s complaints process.     

Mapping the Needs of Children in Need

This paper reviews the literature on mapping needs, with particularreference to children in need, and locates this within the legalmandate for children’s services planning and New Labour’smodernization policies for social care work. The paper surveyspossible approaches to mapping needs and highlights the challengesinvolved. One research project, which collected informationon children in need from a variety of different agencies withinone geographical location, is then used to question mapping’scontribution to the achievement of quality, co-ordination andresponsiveness in modernized child care services. The paperincludes a critical review of the extent to which mapping researchinforms practice, of the contested nature of need, and of anapproach that rests on identifying those in greatest need andtargeting available resources at those most at risk.     

Children and young people with a hidden disability: an examination of the social work role

Summary There has been little research attention paid to the natureand extent of social work intervention with children and youngpeople with invisible impairments. The recent study describedhere found that children and young people with a hidden andstigmatizing impairment received a social work service whichwas at a minimal level. The children and young people were affectedby physically induced incontinence, and described how they facedan environment which created particular tensions. Their parentsconcurred with this overall picture and reported unmet needs.Recommendations are made about social services input, but itis recognized that the level of social services interventionavailable to these families may, in part, be a reflection ofa low priority assigned to disabled children generally. It isargued that, although such an assignment is a common picturein recent research about social services provision to disabledchildren, a change in priorities is needed which recognizesthe importance of coherent support to disabled children as ameans of improving their environment and thereby reducing families'stress levels and the likelihood of abuse or rejection.     

Social Workers' Understanding of Autistic Spectrum Disorders: An Exploratory Investigation

How social workers perceive autistic spectrum disorders (ASD)will inevitably impact upon how they assess the needs of childrenwith ASD and their families, and upon the types of service orinterventions they seek to provide to meet those needs. However,little is known of social workers’ understanding of thecondition. Using a research instrument devised by Mavropoulou and Padeliadu (2000),a study was carried out of all social workers working with disabledchildren in an English local authority. The results showed thatthough many workers had a good understanding of some aspectsof the condition, there was also confusion about some key factsconcerning ASD, the characteristics of ASD and scientific terminology,an inaccurate understanding of intervention approaches, anda more positive attitude towards the ability of generic servicesto meet need than was supported by the literature. Implicationsare discussed in terms of the provision of services to familiesof children with ASD in the UK, and the limitations of thisstudy are recognized.     

Quality Indicators: Disabled Children's and Parents' Prioritizations and Experiences of Quality Criteria when Using Different Types of Support Services

Correspondence to Dr Wendy Mitchell, Social Policy Research Unit, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK. E-mail: wam1{at}york.ac.uk Summary Current health and social care policy seeks to develop and refinestandards of service quality. However, policies have so farlargely focused upon statistically based service output indicators.Recognizing the importance and yet limitations of this, especiallyin services for disabled children and their families, this paperdraws upon qualitative and quantitative data to explore indicatorsthat are meaningful and relevant to disabled children and theirfamilies. Results demonstrate the need to look beyond a genericfamily-based perception of service quality, as children andparents value different aspects of service quality and prioritizedifferent indicators when using different types of services.Although some indicators are regarded as ‘core’quality indicators, irrespective of service type, others areonly prioritized for specific types of services.     

Calling Social Work

New Labour has promoted the use of information and communicationtechnology. Call centres are a key development in this strategyand are now in use for accessing social services. In officialpolicy, the use of call centres is presented as an aspect ofattempts to change the relationship between service users andthe purchasers and providers of services. In contrast, we suggestthat the use of call centres in social care does little to shiftthe balance of power. Call centres bring together four dimensionsof New Labour discourse: learning from the private sector, cuttingcosts, technology and consumerism. Three issues emerge fromtheir development: the undermining of social work’s senseof place; the circumscribing of service user participation;the rationalization of social workers. The call centre servesas a signifier of what, it is claimed, the combination of NewLabour’s consumerism and technology can achieve. Thissignification disguises call centres’ properties of efficiency,calculability, predictability and control. Contrary to the rhetoricthat accompanies them, call centres may be curtailing serviceuser participation, as well as delimiting the social work role.Accordingly, their use has important, but as yet largely unresearched,implications for service users and social workers.     

Locus of Control, Coping and Proto Prevention in Child and Family Care

Despite a sustained emphasis that appropriate responses aremade to children and families in need, recent policy documentsexpress a concern about the high thresholds for receipt of children’sservices preventing many high-need families from accessing help.Where this is the case, families are liable to have to fallback on their own resources. This raises the question: how dothese families, particularly mothers (frequently the primarycare-givers), cope? Locus of Control (LoC) has been shown tobe a significant factor in the confidence, and capacity, ofindividuals to respond to their external environment. This articlefocuses on applicants for children’s services who didnot meet the thresholds for service receipt, focusing on theircoping strategies in the light of the LoC of the women. Thefindings show that LoC did have an impact on coping strategies,and, in particular, points to the greater likelihood of avoidancestrategies in those with an external LoC and of stress underminingActive Coping by those with internal LoC, in the absence ofservices. These are discussed in the light of prevention, recentlyconceptually extended to include activities by the families,as well as the provision of services.     

Children's Views of Family Group Conferences

The note reports one part of a research study which looked atthe experiences of the first twenty families who participatedin a family group conference pilot project. The research reportsthe largely positive views of twenty children aged between sixand sixteen who were interviewed and/or returned questionnaires.Based on the experiences of the children in this project, children’sinclusion in family group conferences is generally to be encouraged.They mostly valued the experience of being consulted and welcomedopportunities for families to develop relationships and worktogether on issues, free from the attentions of social services.Nonetheless, although family group conferences can usefullyinclude children and have a clear role in child welfare practice,they are not necessarily the route to empowering practice forall children and families.     

A Child's Eye View: Dementia in Children's Literature

This paper explores accounts and understandings of dementiathat are encountered infrequently. Children’s views ofdementia are under-explored and yet children, too, must be beinginfluenced by the growing public knowledge of dementia as anamed disease, particularly of old age. The first section notesthat many children will encounter dementia among family members,their grandparents and great-grandparents in particular. Thesecond section considers fictionalized accounts of dementia.These are assuming greater exposure, not so much in the professionalwelfare domain, but as a plot or character device in contemporaryfiction. This paper combines these two areas by discussing anumber of publications written for young people where dementiais a central issue, motif or characteristic. These include dementia-relatedmaterial targeted at a children’s readership. This isfollowed by development of themes arising from analysis of threenovels written for young people, emanating from Canada, Australiaand the UK. The paper ends with a series of discussion pointsfor social-work practitioners, educationalists and voluntary-sectorsupport or self-help groups working in dementia care and inolder people’s services.     

Theorizing Sexuality, Sexual Abuse and Residential Children's Homes: Adding Gender to the Equation

This article is primarily concerned with emphasizing the importanceof gender in relation to understanding and responding to sexualityand sexual abuse/exploitation issues within residential children’shomes. Initially, past research and inquiry reports are analysedand evaluated, not only in relation to their overall conclusionsand recommendations, but also with regard to their consideration,misrepresentation or omission of gender issues. A theoreticalframework is then drawn up which takes into account historicaldebates and contestations around notions of gender. This illustrateshow gender is frequently conflated or merged with understandingsabout sex and sexuality. This theoretical conceptualizationis then extended to consider the effects of the social constructionof childhood and childhood sexuality, and how sex, gender andsexuality may commonly be represented and understood withinorganizational, public-sphere contexts. Important findings froma recent indepth qualitative research project focused on sexualityissues in children’s homes are then presented thematicallyand through narrative excerpts. These findings are also locatedwithin and made comprehensible in relation to the theoreticalframework previously constructed. The conclusion examines theimplications of the findings presented and their theorization,and briefly evaluates the usefulness of recent policy initiativesintended to improve the care and development of ‘lookedafter’ children.     

Emotional Intelligence, Emotion and Social Work: Context, Characteristics, Complications and Contribution

Emotional intelligence (EI) has become one of the new management‘buzz’ terms. It is suggested that this is the missingingredient that separates average from top management or performance.However, despite its potential relevance for social work practice,there has been little investigation and few reports about itsapplication in social work settings. This paper seeks to stimulatedebate about the role of EI in social work practice by consideringits development, definitions and problematics. Whilst the empiricalevidence supporting the existence of a separate and measurableEI is ambiguous and emergent, the role of emotion in the organizationof human behaviour is more firmly established. The paper examinesthe role of EI and emotion in relation to five core social worktasks: engagement of users; assessment and observation; decisionmaking; collaboration and co-operation; dealing with stress.The paper situates itself in the rapidly changing context ofsocial work: the merger of social services departments withlarger more powerful bureaucracies; the movement towards integratedservice delivery; and the new social work degree. It is arguedthat social work needs to identify its claims to professionalcompetence at a time of such change, one of which is the abilityto use relationships to address users’ needs. This requiresthe capacity to handle both one’s own and others’emotions effectively.     

Good Practice in the Education of Children in Residential Care

Correspondence to The Directors, New Horizons (Child Care) Ltd., Unit B, Silkmoor, New Street, Frankwell, Shrewsbury, Shropshire SY3 8LN, UK. E-mail info{at}new-horizonschildcare.co.uk Summary Research shows that the education of children in residentialcare is generally poor, in terms of both process and outcome.This has highlighted the uncertainty over how best to educatethese children and a pessimism over what they can achieve. Drawingupon the findings of an evaluation of a children’s home,this paper argues that children in residential care can havegood educational outcomes. It also shows that it is possibleto identify the processes by which these outcomes can be broughtabout. However, this largely positive assessment is predicatedupon education being defined broadly in respect of ‘process’and ‘outcome’. Moreover, it is important not tounderestimate the formidable challenges inherent in this work.While the multi-agency nature of this work gives rise to oneof the most significant, it has to be recognized that responsibilityfor the education of children in residential care falls primarilyto children’s homes. If children’s homes are tomeet the increasing expectations that are being made of them,national and local government will have to undertake a radicaltransformation of residential childcare, especially in termsof attitudes towards, and resources invested in, this sector.Central to this is the establishment of a qualified and properlysupported workforce.     

Evaluating Children's Services: Recent Conceptual and Methodological Developments

This article considers recent innovations and challenges withrespect to the evaluation of children’s services interventions.It sets out a method for designing and evaluating services thatis based on research evidence gathered on individual cases andthat permits revision of those services in the light of emergingresults. It starts by describing briefly different ways of identifyinga discrete group of children with similar needs. It then outlinesapproaches to ensuring that an intervention for those childrenis underpinned by theory and research evidence–includingthe idea of ‘logic modelling’–before discussingthe importance of capturing accurately how well the interventionis implemented. Experimental and non-experimental methods ofassessing an intervention’s effectiveness are considered,with particular emphasis on techniques for enhancing the causalinference that can be drawn from studies and the importanceof matching method and purpose. The article also demonstrateshow the principles and methods used in relation to evaluatingservices for groups can be applied in clinical work with individualcases, and identifies the benefits of this general approachto evaluation over and above the information that it provideson what works.     

Social Networks and Social Service Workers

Correspondence to Peter Sharkey, School of Law, Social Work and Social Policy, Liverpool Polytechnic, 98 Mount Pleasant, Liverpool, L3 5UZ. Summary ‘Networks’ is a word often used in the discussionof social work practice and within social services departments.It was a word which was central to the Barclay Report (1982)and important within the more recently published Griffiths Report(1988) on community care. It is a word also known to sociologistsand anthropologists through the development of ‘networkanalysis’. There is, however, a fairly wide gap betweenits use within social work and its use within social science.This article tries to explore this gap and the ways in whichsocial science ideas might have some use and relevance to socialservice workers. It does this by using some illustrative datafrom a study done of the personal networks of thirty elderlypeople who were all clients of a social service district office.     

Keyworkers Re-examined: Good practice, quality of care and empowerment in residential care of older people

Correspondence to Rosemary Bland, Department of Applied Social Science, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, Scotland Summary Social work definitions of ‘good practice’ in residentialcare which were originally developed in work with children andyoung people have also been applied to residential settingsfor other user groups, including older people. However, anylink between such elements of practice and positive outcomesfor users has not always been demonstrated. The introductionof market principles and orientations into social welfare inthe 1980s re-defined the social work ‘client’ asa ‘consumer’ with the associated power to make choicesin the area of social care. The success with which such an approachcan be applied to services for people who are very often, notin a position to exercise much choice, is debatable. Alongsidethe notion of the ‘consumer’ or ‘user’of services has grown the ideology of ‘empowerment’of people who use social work services. Drawing on findingsfrom a recent study, this article explores the contributionof the keyworker role to good practice and the empowerment ofolder people living in residential homes. It concludes that,because their understanding of the concept and practice is largelyundeveloped, the role as currently interpreted is not consonantwith good practice and tends rather to reinforce the power ofstaff.     

Advocacy for disabled children and young people: benefits and dilemmas

Recent policy has emphasized the need for advocacy services for children and young people, developments that have gone hand‐in‐hand with greater levels of participation of young people in decision‐making. Advocacy for disabled young people is especially important, as they are a particular vulnerable group and have, traditionally, been even more excluded from decisions about matters affecting their lives. This paper reports the findings, as they relate to disabled young people, from a study that investigated the role of advocacy for looked‐after children and children in need. The paper highlights some of the benefits of advocacy for disabled children, the dilemmas facing advocates between advocating and acting in someone's ‘best interests’, identifying the client and the boundaries between advocacy and social work. It argues that time given to establish a close relationship with a disabled child or young person is crucial if advocacy is to be effective and participation in decisions affecting their lives a reality.     

Supervision, Role Strain and Social Services Departments

Correspondence to Department of Social Work and Social Administration, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, Western Australia, 6009 Summary The paper analyses the potential for ambiguity and ambivalencetowards the supervision of practice in social services departments.While supervision may be integral to much social work practicein clinical settings, the culture and tradition of supervisionin social services departments looks to be permeated with confusionabout ‘supervision’ or ‘consultation’,the nature of accountability and the functions of supervisionof qualified and experienced practitioners. To move beyond anideology prescribing supervision, the paper considers evidenceof the effectiveness of supervision practice, analysing thetransition from practitioner to line-manager/supervisor andthe subsequent strain on the supervisor's authorities of positionand of expertise in some current arrangements for supervisionin field-work ‘teams’. Finally, there is an unequivocalassertion that effective supervision is an essential componentin the monitoring of client service and the maintenance of practitionersengaged in stressful forms of practice. Such supervision needsto recognize the managerial and administrative tasks necessaryto protect the agency and the client from poor quality practice,while also respecting the emotional and educational needs ofnewly qualified and experienced practitioners exposed to thedemands of high-risk judgement and practice.     

Chronic Child Abuse: The Characteristics and Careers of Children Caught in the Child Protection System

The introduction of the Quality Protects initiative in Englandand the focus on performance management has challenged socialservices departments to examine the systems, processes and outcomesfor children who have their name on a child protection register.Research indicates that approximately one-quarter of the situationsin which children are registered could be described as chronic—thatis, they remain on the child protection register for significantperiods of time, experience more than one period of registrationor suffer a further incident of significant harm whilst subjectto a child protection plan. In this article, the findings froma research study conducted into this group of vulnerable childrenare reported, focusing on the characteristics of the childrenand their families, and their careers in the child protectionsystem. The paper concludes with observations about the weakconceptualization of performance management and the need torecognize the complexity of the factors that influence children’scareers in the child protection system.     

The Vulnerabilities of Children whose Parents have been Sexually Abused in Childhood: Towards a New Framework

Correspondence to Carol-Ann Hooper, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK. E-mail: cah13{at}york.ac.uk Summary Concerns about the parenting capacity of adults with a historyof childhood sexual abuse have often been framed in individualizingand pathologizing ways. This paper draws on qualitative researchwith twenty-four women survivors of childhood sexual abuse todevelop a new framework for understanding the possible vulnerabilitiesof their children that may help inform anti-oppressive practice.The framework places the mother-child relationship in its broadercontext, taking account of the role of the immediate family,the extended family, the community and the state. Within eachlevel of context we identify the range of issues that couldcontribute to children’s vulnerability, elaborating theprocesses involved. Some issues recur within different contexts,for example the impacts of survivors’ issues around attachment,and others connect across contexts, such as the impact on childrenof deterioration in their mothers' mental health when appropriateservices are not available. All of these issues may affect survivors’well-being and access to social support and hence their abilityto care effectively for their children. Ways of supporting bothsurvivors and their children involving greater collective responsibilityfor children, effective collaboration between mental healthservices and child-care services, and professional responseswhich take account of contextual issues are identified.