The Welfare of the Child: An Examination of Judicial Opinion about Medical and Social Work Evidence in Adoption Cases

Summary An examination has been made of judicial decisions concerningadoption and custody of children since 1926. It has been foundthat, despite the legal principle that the 'welfare of the child'should be paramount, the law has been interpreted by judgesin ways at variance with the judgements of doctors and socialworkers about the child's welfare As late as 1969, by the orderof a Judge, a child was removed from adoptive parents and givento the jurisdiction of her natural father, who had strangledthe child's mother. The Law Lords in 1971 decided that medicalevidence about the harmful effects of a child's removal froma secure foster home was generally unnecessary, Judges beingable to decide these issues themselves. Cases are cited, whichhave not reached the courts, of children being taken from securefoster homes and placed in unsuitable surroundings by naturalparents. Some proposals for a change of law are proposed, aswell as in social work practice. The principle formulated isthat greater stress should be laid on the mental health andfuture well-being of the child, than on parental rights overthe child     

Social Workers and Child Welfare

Correspondence to Dr Gunvor Andersson, Lund University, School of Social Work, Box 23, 22100 Lund, Sweden. Summary What problems do social workers at social services offices haveto face in their child welfare work? How do they handle theproblems, and how important is the relation between the socialworker and the child's parents? The research project includes189 child welfare cases with 0–3-year-old children inten local communities in Sweden. The article shows that thesocial work can be categorized into four different types ofwork, where the work done, as well as the relation between thesocial worker and the child's parents, differ. (1) The socialworker is mediating help and support and has a positive contactwith the child's parents. (2) The social worker is exercisingcontrol and authority and has a negative contact with the child'sparents. (3) The social worker is doing treatment-oriented workand has a personal involvement and a relation to the parentsthat is important for the family and not exchangeable. (4) Thesocial worker is solely engaged in investigatory work with norelation to the child's parents, rather a neutral contact. Inthe categorization the concepts contact and relation are differentiated.Only in the treatment-oriented category, encompassing aboutone-fifth of the children, can one speak of a relation. In allcategories there are elements of both help and control, butdifferent ways of handling this doubleness.     

Discourses of Child Protection and Child Welfare

Correspondence to Gordon Jack, University of Exeter, Department of Social Work and Probation Studies, Amory Building, Rennes Drive, Exeter EX4 4RJ Summary The history and dominance of the discourse of child protectionand its influence over social work practice with children andfamilies is discussed in the light of recent research into theoperation of child protection systems in the UK and elsewhere.The often negative effects of current approaches on professionals,parents, and, particularly, children are highlighted. The issuesof confidentiality and empowerment appear to be of central importancefor current debates about the welfare of children and youngpeople. Three strategies for change are outlined and discussed. It isargued that a fundamental challenge to the child protectiondiscourse is required. Parallels are drawn with the changeswhich occurred in attitudes and responses towards football supporters,following the Hillsborough disaster in 1989. The dangers and shortcomings of the present reliance on a diseasemodel of ‘abuse’, with its focus on individual pathology,are analysed. Support is provided for the development of a newdiscourse, which acknowledges the social contexts within whichallegations of ‘abuse’ arise, and without whichsocial work will continue to be restricted to a procedurallydominated conservative orientation to child welfare.     

Parents' Views on Social Work Interventions in Child Welfare Cases

Correspondence to Trevor Spratt, Lecturer in Social Work, School of Social Work, The Queen's University Belfast, 7 Lennoxvale, Belfast BT9 5BY, Northern Ireland. E-mail: T.Spratt{at}qub.ac.uk Summary This article reports findings from the third part of a three-partresearch project examining the potential for social workersto shift from a child protection to a child welfare orientationin their practice. Whilst social workers in the UK have beenencouraged to make such changes, they have been hampered byconcerns to manage risk. Findings reported from the earlierparts of the project, indicated that there was potential fora substantial proportion of child protection work to be redesignatedas child welfare work, but that where this was achieved in practice,there was evidence of the continued influence of child protectionprocesses as social workers sought to manage the risks inherentin child welfare cases. The study reported here sets out toascertain the views of parents who were subject to child welfareinterventions. The findings indicate that while parents feelapprehension with regard to contact with social workers, inthe majority of cases successful relationships are formed. Itis argued that social workers display considerable skill inmonitoring potential risks whilst engaging with families andthat the subtleties involved in such activity are not capturedby official measures of governance which concentrate on moreabstract indicators of performance.     

Liberty and Respect in Child Protection

Correspondence to Sally Holland, Cardiff University, School of Social Sciences, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3WT, Wales, UK. E-mail: HollandS1{at} cf.ac.uk Summary The paper begins by introducing Isaiah Berlin's concepts ofpositive and negative liberty and the application of these conceptsto child protection. There is discussion of some recent debateson the social and political context of state social work andchild protection in particular. The authors then consider, inturn, the experience of children, parents and social workersin the child protection system. There is also a considerationof partnership and rights. The conclusion is that opportunitiesfor statutory child protection to be liberating are limited,but that there is more potential than the most pessimistic accountsmight allow. Rather than libertarian child protection, socialworkers can aim for child protection practice that is respectful.The paper concludes with some principles for respectful practice,based on the ideas of Richard Sennett. Most importantly, Sennett'sideas recognize the importance of relationships in social welfareand acknowledge the context of inequality within which socialwork takes place.     

Working with Parental Substance Misuse: Dilemmas for Practice

Correspondence to Dr Brynna Kroll, Department of Social Work, University of Exeter, Richards Building, St. Luke’s Campus, Heavitree Road, Exeter EX1 2LU, UK. E-mail: brynna.kroll{at}plymouth.ac.uk Summary The impact of parental substance misuse on child welfare isnow being increasingly recognized. Drug and alcohol problemsfeature in a substantial proportion of families where thereare child-care concerns and raise issues about engagement, confidentiality,assessment and inter-agency practice. This article exploressome of the dilemmas faced by social welfare professionals whowork with substance misusing parents. Based on a qualitativeanalysis of 40 semi-structured interviews with a wide rangeof practitioners from both adult focused and child and familysettings, in both the voluntary and statutory sector, a varietyof emerging themes will be discussed and linked to those fromother studies. The problems of working with denial, the tensionscreated by different agency objectives and protocols and theway in which children can often fall through gaps in serviceswill be highlighted, as will the way in which some professionalshave sought to resolve the dilemmas they encounter. This willthen be used as a basis for beginning to look at constructiveways forward in relation to training, interprofessional andinter-agency communication and service delivery.     

Helping Children Directly

Summary The mothers most able to respond to the child's communicationsare those whose personal needs do not obtrude and who have onlya minimum of preconceived ideas. Thus they are able to considerthe child as an individual and are interested in his expressionof individuality. They want to listen and to understand andenjoy the flow of communication between him and them. (Heinickeand Westheimer¹)     

The Influence of Performance Measurement on Child Welfare Policy and Practice

Correspondence to Clare Tilbury, School of Social Work and Applied Human Sciences, University of Queensland Q 4072, Australia. E-mail: c.tilbury{at}social.uq.edu.au Summary The increasing use of performance measurement in child welfarepromises to have significant consequences. Performance indicatorsare not neutral or merely technical—they represent viewpointsand values that may influence policy and practice. This three-partarticle examines how this may occur. The first part outlinesa theoretical approach to understanding the policy significanceof performance indicators. As they become part of the frameworkwithin which policy debates occur, indicators may frame policyissues, create boundaries around options for solutions, definestandards for evaluating results, and set the terms of publicdiscourse. The second part discusses the background to the developmentof performance measurement in child welfare in Britain, theUSA and Australia, locating it as integral to contemporary approachesto public sector management. The third part examines the performanceindicators used in these jurisdictions-aspects of performancemeasured, underlying assumptions about ‘good’ performance,and how they construct child welfare. Existing indicators narrowlyconstruct child welfare in terms of investigations and out-of-homecare, whereas the child welfare literature suggests a broaderapproach with more attention to family support. The articleargues that there is space to negotiate on the new managerialistterrain, developing an approach to performance measurement thatcontributes to better services and outcomes for children andfamilies.     

Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg? Examining the Relationship between Child Neglect and Poverty

Correspondence to Dr Dominic McSherry, Institute of Child Care Research, 5a Lennoxvale, Belfast BT9 5BY, UK. E-mail: dominic.mcsherry{at}qub.ac.uk Summary The chicken and the egg conundrum neatly reflects the way inwhich the debate over the relationship between child neglectand poverty/social deprivation has developed over the last fewdecades. Some would argue that child neglect is the manifestationof a neglecting society that permits child poverty to exist,that is poverty leads to child neglect. Others contend thatit is the way that neglecting parents think, behave and interactwith other people that ultimately leads them to live a lifeof social deprivation and to neglect their children, that isparental characteristics lead to poverty and child neglect.However, these seemingly opposing perspectives can be resolvedif we consider that this relationship, like the ultimate resolutionto the chicken and egg conundrum, is circular and interdependent.     

Factors associated with placement breakdown initiated by foster parents – empirical findings from Germany

This study investigates the effects of covariates on the probability of placement breakdown in non‐kinship family foster care. Breakdowns are distinguished according to the initiator: children, carers, foster parents and the local child welfare authorities. The children concerned had entered foster care at ages ranging from 0 to a maximum of 17 years (n = 14 171). A significantly higher risk of breakdown on the initiative of the foster parents is found in male children, children whose parents receive financial support, children whose parents were removed from the register of carers, children who were between 6 and 15 years old when they joined the foster family, children who had earlier lived in a different foster family or residential care, children from patchwork families and children whose joining of a foster family was the result of disruptive social behaviour. Two‐thirds of the children from non‐kinship family foster care who stay in the foster family was ended on the initiative of the foster parents are subsequently looked after in residential care. That is three times the rate for all terminated foster relationships. Breakdowns on the initiative of the foster parents thus indicate a high risk of unstable care history developing and accordingly necessitate prevention strategies.     

Swimming with Dolphins: The Assessment Framework, New Labour and New Tools for Social Work with Children and Families

Correspondence to Dr Paul Michael Garrett, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK. E-mail: paul.garrett{at}nottingham.ac.uk Summary Local authorities, in England, implemented the Framework forthe Assessment of Children in Need and their Families in April2001. The Framework is the first ‘official’ standardassessment model intended for use in the initial assessmentof all ‘children in need’ under Part 111, section17 of the 1989 Children Act. This new ‘conceptual map’needs to be understood in terms of previous policy documentsand earlier technologies of intervention related to child protectionand, more broadly, child welfare. However, it also needs tobe more expansively perceived, fixed and located as it relatesto other elements in New Labour's political ‘project’.The Framework's preoccupation with an ecological approach toassessments and with questionnaires and scales are likely tohave major implications for social work practice and for micro-engagementswith children and families.     

Residential Programmes for Children and Youth: An Exercise in Re-framing

Summary The key functions of residential programmes for children andyouth irrespective of their location in the health care, education,social welfare or criminal justice system are identified inthis paper. The issues of mandate for and status of those servicesis addressed. Finally, a series of propositions are offeredwhich seek to show how those factors influence the social positionand public credibility accorded to those important componentsof the group care field.     

The Selection of Parents and Children for Legal Action in Connection with Unauthorized Absence from School

Summary Information was obtained about four groups of poor school attenders.Parents of one group of the children had been invited to a meetingof the LEAs School Attendance Section. Parents of a second grouphad been prosecuted for their child's poor attendance. The thirdgroup consisted of children brought before the Juvenile Courtbecause of their poor school attendance, and the fourth groupwas of poor attenders against whom no formal action had beentaken. Interviews with education welfare officers provided informationabout the presenting problem for each group and the reasonsfor the action that was taken. Interviews with social workersinvolved with the group of children before the Juvenile Courtyielded very similar information to that provided independentlyby education welfare officers. The project identified some apparentproblems in the present system.     

A Role for a Support Person for Child Witnesses in Criminal Proceedings

Correspondence to John Williams, Department of Law, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, Hugh Owen Building, Penglais, Aberystwyth, Dyfed SY23 3DY Summary The 1989 Children Act greatly extends and enhances the roleof the guardian ad litem (GAL) as the officer appointed by thecourt to safeguard and protect the welfare of the child in civilchild protection proceedings. But how do children fare whenthey are involved as witnesses in criminal proceedings? Sincethe latter part of the 1980s it has been recognized that theirimmatunty requires a more sensitive and caring approach thanthat adopted for adults in the criminal courts. As a resulta number of innovative procedures intended to alleviate stressin child witnesses have been introduced. But one outstandingissue of major importance, that of providing support for childrenbefore and during an appearance in a criminal court, needs tobe addressed urgently: the GAL is only available to childrenin civil proceedings. Drawing on the experience of the UnitedStates, where Victim Assistants are used to provide help andsupport for child victims and witnesses, and where the appointmentof GALs for child victims in criminal proceedings is gainingincreasing acceptance, the authors argue that the American exampleoffers much that may usefully be adopted in tailoring the Britishsystem to the special needs of child witnesses. A number ofmodels for the role of the Support Person for child witnessesin the British system are put forward for consideration.     

Social Work with Failure-to-Thrive Children and their Families: Part I: Psychosocial Factors

Summary The problem failure-to-thrive is described and a brief reviewof the main causal theories is provided. Part I of this studydetails an investigation of psychosocial factors associatedwith non-organic failure-to-thrive in 17 children (comparingthem with two contrast groups). There were significant differences between the groups (interalia) in the adverse temperamental attributes of the index children,problems in the mother's feeding of their children and otheraspects of their interactions and relationships. The mothersshowed no specific psychopathology but were socially disadvantagedin various ways. The implications of these findings—preventiveand therapeutic—are discussed.     

Determinants of Substitute Child Care Practice

Correspondence to Dr Matthew Colton, Department of Social and Administrative Studies, Barnett House, Wellington Square, Oxford CX1 2ER Summary The first part of this paper attempts to examine the factorswhich help to define foster and residential care practices.The discussion is informed by a comparative study of fosterhomes and Children's Homes, which was reported in the previousissue of this journal (BJSW 18:1). Overall, care practices inthe foster homes compared very favourably with those observedin the Children's Homes. It is argued that this finding owesmuch to the bureaucratization of Children's Homes. The secondsection considers the implications of my work for policy andpractice in the field of substitute child care. Use is madeof the insights provided by the preceding section to suggestways by which the major shortcomings identified by empiricalresearch might be ameliorated. This statement includes an argumentin favour of a significant expansion of family placement forolder children in public care, and a proposal for a child-orientedalternative to the sorts of Children's Homes visited.     

Foster and Residential Care Practices Compared

Correspondence to Dr Matthew Colton, Department of Social and Administrative Studies, Barnett House, Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2ER Summary This paper reports what is, remarkably, the first systematic,in-depth, comparative study of foster and residential care practices.The overall research objectives were: (1) to delineate and comparecare practice in special foster homes (i.e., homes accommodatingchildren traditionally considered too old or disturbed for fosterplacement) and Children's Homes for older children in localauthority care; and (2) if possible, ascertain whether the responsesmanifested by children in such settings can be related to thecare practices they experience. The approach adopted was essentially sociological. A lengthyperiod of field-work in two local authorities featured the useof a range of research instruments and included the collectionof data on the following: the management of recurrent–mainlydaily–social events; children's community contacts; theprovision of physical amenities; the controls and sanctionsused by caretakers vis-à-vis children; the roles of caretakersand their behaviour and attitudes towards children; and thecharacteristics of children, their behaviour towards caretakers,perceptions of their social environments and progress duringplacement. Quantitative methods were used in data analysis becausethey provide a useful guide to the import of observed differencesbetween foster homes and Children's Homes. Care practice in the foster homes was, overall, significantlymore child-oriented than in the Children's Homes. Moreover,the responses of residential children appeared to fall shortof offering justification for the ways that the lives of suchchildren seemed to differ from those of foster children.     

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.     

Adolescents Who Sexually Abuse and Residential Accommodation: Issues of Risk and Vulnerability

Summary This article, arising out of quantitative and qualitative researchstudies conducted by the authors, begins with a brief overviewof current knowledge about male adolescent sexual abusers andassociated policies, procedures and services. A particular concernraised by professionals and welfare agencies, who are strugglingto develop appropriate responses to young sexual abusers, concernsthe circumstances and problems of young people who are placedin residential accommodation as a result of their sexually abusivebehaviour, often where there are also child victims of sexualabuse. The vulnerability of young sexual abusers and the riskthey pose to others is considered in the light of the findingsof qualitative research by one of the authors into the constructionand control of children and their sexualities in residentialchildren's homes. This research suggests that the inadequateways in which sexual behaviour in children's homes is perceivedand managed, serves to compound the problems of both the sexuallyabusive and non-abusive adolescents placed there. The findingsfrom both authors' research are then theorized within broaderconceptual frameworks about the nature of childhood, childhoodsexuality and institutionalization and its links with peer sexualabuse.     

The Characteristics of Children with a Disability Looked After away from Home and their Future Service Needs

Correspondence to Professor Roy McConkey, School of Nursing, University of Ulster, Newtownabbey, N. Ireland BT37 0QB. E-mail: r.mcconkey{at}ulster.ac.uk Summary Little is known about the characteristics of children with disabilitieswho meet the British legal definition of ‘looked after’children. Data were obtained on 108 such children living withinone geographical area in Northern Ireland and who spent 90 daysor more in a 12-month period living away from the family home.However, this figure may under-estimate the numbers, given thedifficulties in tracking children aged over 14 years who wereadmitted to hospitals on a short- or long-term basis. The medianage of the children was 14 years; most had learning disabilitiesallied with challenging behaviours, communication difficulties,autism and some were technologically dependent. Many of theirfamilies experienced a range of problems. One-third of the childrenwere accommodated in various residential settings but half ofthese placements were in hospital or adult residential accommodation.However, there were marked differences in the services providedto this client group by the four provider agencies. Future serviceneeds included increased respite breaks for families and theprovision of both more residential placements and more appropriateaccommodation, especially for teenagers. The dilemmas in reconcilingthe need for local, but specialized, service provision are discussed.