The Chairperson of Child Care Reviews in Scotland: Implications for the Role of Reviews in the Decision Making Process

Correspondence to Dr A. J. Kendrick, Research Fellow, Department of Political Science and Social Policy, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 4HN, Scotland. Summary This article is based upon the first stage of a research projecton statutory child care reviews in Scotland and explores therole of reviews in the decision-making processes for childrenin local authority care. We have argued that the position ofchairperson of reviews has an important role in locating childcare reviews in the organïzational structures of the SocialWork Departments. The designation of the chairperson also hasimplications for the objectivity of the child care review. Thenature of conclusions of child care reviews is also exploredand we show that this is a complex issue reflecting the childcare review's relationships to other decision-making bodiesand the manner in which the delegation of authority for thechairing of reviews is structured. While this research is basedupon the twelve Scottish Social Work Departments we believethat the issues discussed have a general relevance.     

Maintaining Sibling Relationships--Neglected Dimension in Child Care Practice

Correspondence to Marjut Kosonen, 80, Grove Road, West Ferry, Dundee DD5 1LB, UK Summary This article describes some of the findings of a study undertakento evaluate all foster and adoptive placements in one localauthority social work department in Scotland. The numbers, characteristicsand care experiences of children in foster and adoptive carewere considered. The study found that for the majority of childrenplacement in foster care led to separation from siblings. Thechildren were most vulnerable to separation at points of entryand leaving care. Separation from brothers and sisters can havelifelong consequences for the child and his or her siblings,as few of the children were found to have plans which includedreunification with their siblings. A fragmented picture emergedconcerning siblings' living situations. Children were foundto have siblings living in a variety of situations, both inand outwith the care system. Social workers lacked full informationabout the family composition where contact with parents waslost or siblings had moved from the area. Children were mostlikely to be placed with siblings in temporary and relativefoster placements.     

Answering Back: Parental Perspectives on the Children's Hearings System

Correspondence address: Social Work Research Centre, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, Scotland Summary The potential of client evaluation is explored through a casestudy of the parental response to the children's hearings system.In particular, drawing upon a tradition which has sought toidentify the ideologies of different participants, a numberof elements which contribute to individual ideology are specified.It is shown that for many parents the pattern is not of a consistentideology but of a multiplicity of beliefs, invoked as requiredand not necessarily coherent. Previous assertions that parentswill respond only to a system based on principles of justiceare shown to be misplaced.     

Lessons learnt? Abuse in residential child care in Scotland

This paper draws on work carried out by Sen, Kendrick, Milligan and Hawthorn commissioned as pert of the Historic Abuse Systemic Review by the Scottish Executive in 2007. It considers the evidence‐based regarding abuse in residential child care from 1945 with a specific focus on Scotland. It reviews the context set for residential child care post‐1945 by the Clyde and Curtis reports, outlines how the residential child care sector developed following this, provides an overview of evidence and awareness of abuse in residential child care establishments after the 1948 Children's Act, giving particular consideration to the public inquiries and reviews of residential child care which there have been in Scotland, explores research evidence regarding the safety of convictions of residential child care workers found guilty of child abuse, and provides an overview of the main policy and practice developments which there have subsequently been in Scotland. The paper concludes by considering the progress that has been made in developing safeguards in Scotland and identifying areas where further research and development are required.     

Defensive Social Work

Correspondence to Nigel Harris, Department of Philosophy, The University, Dundee DD1 4HN. Summary Social workers with child clients face the possibility thatsome mistake or oversight of theirs could lead to a child abusetragedy, for which they may suffer opprobrium and blighted careers.How can they guard against such risks? This paper shows howsocial workers might use different types of ‘defensive’measure to protect themselves. These parallel the types of measureused by some doctors, particularly in the United States, facedwith risks of litigation on grounds of malpractice. Becausedefensive practices have undesirable consequences, it is importantto find ways to eliminate their use by protecting social workersby other means.     

Maternal Depression, Child Care and the Social Work Role

Correspondence to Michael Sheppard, Principal Lecturer, Department of Applied Social Science, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth, Devon PL4 8AA. Summary This article reviews findings on the relationship of maternaldepression and child care problems, a relationship which haslargely been ignored in social work. These findings are of particularimportance in view of the philosophy in the Children Act 1989that the best place to bring up a child is usually with theirfamily and the duty of local authorities to promote this. Thefindings consistently identify a clear relationship betweenemotional and behavioural child care problems and maternal depressionshowing that depression is likely to affect the mother's childcare abilities and also her perceptions of the child's behaviour.These have important implications for education, training andpractice, and these are discussed.     

Assessing Child Protection Risk

Correspondence to Lorraine Waterhouse, Lecturer, Edinburgh Centre for Social Welfare Research, 23 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LN. Summary The article outlines a set of child protection criteria usedby social workers for the evaluation of risk in sexual abusecases. The criteria were distilled from research findings basedon a sample of 51 child sexual abuse cases drawn from ChildProtection Registers in Scotland in 1987/89. Criteria dividebetween two types: primary (child care) criteria which concentrateon assessing circumstances prevailing within the family home;and secondary (disclosure) criteria which serve to either substantiateor refute disclosure. Primary criteria include attitude of non-abusingparent to alleged perpetrator; access between referred childand alleged perpetrator; type of abuse; age of child or youngperson; attitude of alleged perpetrator to allegations; andparental attitude to social work investigation. Secondary criteriainclude belief or disbelief of child; psychological symptomsin child; physical signs of abuse; children's attitudes towardsremaining at home; and criminal or psychiatric history includingalcohol or drug abuse. In practice the criteria tend to be usedlike a set of building blocks: tall towers represent higherrisk; low towers lesser risk. Given the enormous stakes involvedin child protection decisions, front-line practitioners wereunder considerable pressure to ‘play it safe’.     

Children's Homicide as an Indicator of Effective Child Protection: A Comparative Study of Western European Statistics

Correspondence to Colin Pritchard, Professor of Social Work Studies, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO9 5NH. Summary It is known that the extreme consequence of child abuse is adead child. Attempts to determine the success of services toprevent child abuse and subsequent deaths confront the problemsinherent in trying to prove a negative. The use of an epidemiologicalapproach resolves some of the methodological problems by measuring‘failure’ to protect in an examination of children'shomicides rates over time. Between 1973 and 1988 it was found that there was a substantialreduction in baby homicides in England and Wales, equivalentto a fall of 61 per cent and a 57 per cent reduction in Scotland.In a comparison with the other fifteen Western European countries,England and Wales topped the league of improvements in children'shomicide, and Scotland was fourth. Such improvements suggestadvances by the child protection services. Explanations forthe positive British results are considered.     

Temporary Foster Care

Summary In order to improve outcomes in temporary foster care the authorbelieves there is a need to develop alternative models for practicethat would (a) define the social work task (b) specify in operational terms how that task would be accomplishedand thus would be amenable to empirical testing. (Temporaryfoster care is defined as the provision of substitute familylife for a child received into care, where there is a clearintention to re-unite the natural family at a future date). This article deals with the essential preliminaries to the developmentof a practice model. The first part surveys the relevant literature;part two develops a theoretical framework for practice aroundthree themes which are considered central to a considerationof foster care. These are the separation experience, the placeof the natural family, and role clarification. Other crucialvariables such as the age of the child, the nature of the problem,or the parents' potentiality for change are not dealt with withinthese papers, but are nevertheless seen as important issuesto be considered at the stage of designing a model for practice.     

Changing Behaviour in a Residential Group Setting for Elderly People with Learning Difficulties

Correspondence to Ms K. Cigno, Department of Social Policy and Professional Studies, University of Hull, Hll HU6 7RX. Summary Group living is not an easy situation for residents and staff.A client with a long history of institutionalized care and aggressivebehaviour proves to be a challenge to care staff who attemptto improve the quality of her life and that of her fellow residentsthrough a behavioural intervention aimed at reducing the numberof disruptive incidents and increasing the use of social skillsand activities for this client. The results indicate a lesseningof incidents of ‘unreasonable behaviour’ and anincrease in self-esteem. The appropriateness of this approachto elderly clients' problems is discussed.     

Some Characteristics of Abusing Families Referred to the NSPCC

Summary The results from 85 social work schedules completed at a numberof NSPCC units for the treatment of non-accidental injury showthat there is a decreasing trend in the seriousness of recentreferral injuries and confirms the prevalence of facial bruising.Children under four were those most at risk, the mean age ofchildren being 20 months. Early parenthood appears to be a characteristicof these and other families with the likelihood of larger thanaverage families by the time the family is completed. Maternalill-health, especially psychological ill-health, is a confirmedfinding and general family violence rather than the scapegoatingof a single child was frequent. Family disruption was high withseparation, housing and employment changes, and previous criminalityoccurring in a disproportionate number of families.     

Does Area Team Organization Make a Difference?

Correspondence to Roger Fuller, Senior Research Fellow, University of Stirling, Social Work Research Centre, Stirling FK94LA, Scotland Summary The paper describes early stages of a programme of researchdesigned to investigate the effects of different ways of organizingsocial work teams. Initially conceived as an attempt to studythe relative effectiveness of specialist and generic team organization,the focus has been broadened to encompass a range of wider andsometimes cross-cutting organizational variables. After a briefreview of attempts to specify organizational characteristicsand of the methodological problems they pose to the researcher,a preliminary study is reported. This compared services to theelderly delivered by teams exemplifying some of the more prominentorganizational types. The study tentatively identifies a numberof factors which distinguished between teams in social workactivities and in rudimentary measures of client outcome. Thedimensions of further work which would fill out these earlyfindings and explore further organizational effects are sketched.     

Social Work and Self-determination

Correspondence to Department of Political Science and Social Policy, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 4HN. Summary Self-determination is a curious concept, related to, but notquite the same as, freedom and autonomy. As an ethical principle,the principle of self-determination bears little relationshipto the way social workers behave. It is used as if clients werebeing allowed a free, independent choice; but clients are subjectto pressure, and the social work relationship is often conceivedwithin a structure of authority. As a guide to practice, theconcept of self-determination ignores the cases where directionis legitimate or desirable. Self-determination can be seen as a professional ideology—aninter-related set of values and ideas. The concept is derivedfrom a number of ideas and values outside social work, but itappears to have little direct relevance to social work in practice.The paper suggests that the concept of freedom may be more usefuland less remote from the realities than ‘self-detemination’is.     

The Social Worker as 'Bad Object'

Correspondence to Dr Marguerite Valentine, 56 Osbaldeston Road, London N16 7DR Summary A ‘bad object’ has been defined as an ‘objectwhom the subject hates or fears, who is experienced as malevolent.A bad object may be either an internal or an external object’(Rycroft, 1988, p. 100). This paper explores the circumstancesin which public fears and anxieties over child abuse becomeprojected into the social worker. It discusses how social workersintroject these feelings, become a ‘bad object’,and how social services departments have developed a numberof strategies which defend against feelings of blame and responsibility.The exploration is derived from my own experiences and observations,and applies Kleinian psychoanalytic theory to studies of institutionaldefences.     

Communication in Care and Coercion: Institutional Interactions between Family Supervisors and Parents

Summary In this study the interaction of 51 videotaped professionalcommunications between Dutch family supervisors and parentsof children under family supervision were analysed. Family supervisionlies at the interface of care and control. This is evident inthe communication of professional child welfare workers withtheir clients for whom they have to clarify their rights. Theanalysis shows some of the strategies used by Dutch family supervisorsin cases of formal decisions and other interactions where theyanticipate confrontation with the client. In this way, familysupervisors separate their caring from their repressive functions.Nevertheless care and control were found to be successfullyintegrated in some communications.     

An Act of Empowerment: The Children, Young Persons and their Families Act (1989)

Correspondence to Marie Connolly, Department of Social Work, University of Canterbury, Christchurch 1, New Zealand. Summary In 1989, New Zealand introduced child protection legislationthat embraces a model of family decision making. The model,based on traditional indigenous decision-making practices, hasrevolutionized social work with children and families in thechild care and protection area. This paper considers the developmentof the legislation in terms of its antecedent factors and itsvision. It looks particularly at some of the care and protectionprovisions of the legislation, and explores, by use of casestudy, some of the issues of using a family decision-makingprocess as a practice model.     

Assessing Adoptions in Difficulty

Correspondence to Dr David Howe, Lecturer in Social Work, University of East Anglia, School of Economic and Social Studies, Norwich NR4 7TJ. Summary Although most adoptions are judged a success, a small numberof families and their adopted children run into behaviouraland relationship difficulties. The Post-adoption Centre, London,is a specialist agency which works with a number of client groups,including adopters and their families. The assessments madeby the Centre's counsellors of adoptive families were analysed.Two dimensions defined the counsellors' assessments. One recognizeda strong developmental perspective and owed much to the recentwork of David Brodzinsky. The other emphasized the complex emotionalinteractions that can take place between parents and child.Because of its originality and ability to refine the qualityof assessments, the analysis concentrates on the second dimension.When the developmental and interactional perspectives are combined,five assessment themes emerge. These are described and illustratedwith case examples.     

Degrees of Involvement: The Interaction of Focus and Commitment in Area Child Protection Committees

Correspondence to Robert Sanders, Lecturer in Applied Social Studies, The Department of Social Policy and Applied Social Studies, University of Wales Swansea, Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PP; e-mail: R.Sanders{at}swan.ac.uk Summary As part of a review of the role and effectiveness of Area ChildProtection Committees (ACPCs), the authors examined a numberof aspects of the involvement of member agencies in the processof joint development of child protection policies. Interviewswith agency representatives and analysis of documents were usedto explore ACPC composition, attendance at meetings, agenda-setting,effectiveness of representation, and perceived inter-agencyrelationships. Substantial differences were found in the extentto which agencies were involved in the ‘ownership’of the child protection system, with some agencies which couldmake important contributions very much on the periphery of theprocess. It is suggested that this helps to perpetuate the currentemphasis on investigation and registration despite researchfindings which strongly challenge the effectiveness of suchan approach. The article looks at two factors that may influenceagencies' involvement: decentralization of decision making,and the mismatch between the dominant ACPC agenda and policypriorities within agencies other than social services and police.They conclude that basic principles underpinning child protectionservices, for example the policy emphasis on investigation ofall allegations, the development of child protection as a serviceapart from mainstream child welfare, and the role of socialservices as the lead agency should be examined to achieve theeffective involvement of all ACPC member agencies.     

Strange Meeting: Marxism, Psychoanalysis and Social Work

Summary It is suggested that the polarity between Marxism and psychoanalysisis one factor hindering the development of social work's professionalidentity. The first section of the article suggests ways inwhich a dialogue between the two perspectives might be established.In the second section such a dialogue is applied to a numberof central concepts in social work theory and practice.     

Private Children's Homes

Summary The paper provides survey and intensive research material onthe private children's homes sector. It is shown that this sectoris currently in decline. Private homes are found to be shelteringchildren with long and complex care histories and to adopt adistinctive residential style. Although private homes providevaluable long term continuity, they are less likely to offerthe same range of community services as do residential settingsmanaged by the local authority and voluntary child care agencies.