Policy transfer,social pedagogy and children's residential care in England

Much concern has been expressed about the quality of care and poor outcomes for looked‐after children (‘children in care’) in England, especially regarding residential homes. This paper builds on a recent evaluation of the piloting of the continental European model of social pedagogy (SP) in English residential care. It does three things: it considers the theoretical social policy literature on policy transfer and its implications; discusses European residential care for children and the discipline of SP; and reflects on these debates and the situation of children's residential care in England. The paper concludes that there are some major hurdles to a widespread implementation of SP in England. This particularly concerns the differing social, professional and political context of children's residential services across neighbouring countries.     

What social workers talk about when they talk about child care proceedings in the District Court in Ireland

Court proceedings are a fundamental and increasingly time‐consuming aspect of social work practice. However, to date, there is a relatively modest body of literature considering the experiences of social workers in instituting child care proceedings and giving evidence in court. This paper draws on data gathered as part of an in‐depth qualitative study of professional experiences of District Court child care proceedings in Ireland and presents findings regarding the experiences of social workers in bringing court applications for child protection orders. It seeks to answer 2 key questions: First, how do child protection and welfare social workers experience the adversarial nature of child care proceedings in the District Court? Second, what are the views of child protection and welfare social workers on the strengths and weaknesses of child care proceedings as a decision‐making model for children and young people? The main findings are that social workers expressed significant reservations about the predominantly adversarial model that currently operates in Irish child care proceedings and about the level of respect that social workers are afforded within the operation of the system.     

Addressing common forms of child maltreatment: evidence‐informed interventions and gaps in current knowledge

This paper reviews interventions for preventing the occurrence and recurrence of major types of child maltreatment. We begin with an overview of the challenges of establishing evidence‐based interventions to prevent child abuse and neglect in many countries, and underscore the importance of this need with child maltreatment incidence rates in the USA, and how much each type and subtype contribute to child out‐of‐home placement. Next, we identify the well‐supported, supported and promising interventions for each child maltreatment type and subtype, according to their level of research evidence using an evidence‐based clearing house. The paper closes with a discussion of the implications for practice, evaluation, policy and agency management, including intervention knowledge gaps that showcase areas that need additional practice research.     

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.     

Social work with children and families in Ghana: negotiating tradition and modernity

Ghanaian social workers practise in a poly‐ethnic nation comprising a multitude of different indigenous cultural practices and a modern urban sector largely divorced from a rural population adhering to customary law. This qualitative study explores how Ghanaian practitioners negotiate the contradictions between child welfare legislation and customary law. Data were gathered from semi‐structured interviews with 36 qualified social workers employed by the Department of Social Welfare and thematically analysed. The study found that legislative provision normalizes nuclear family forms and runs counter to customary law. Social workers are shown to struggle with the ethical dilemmas the law poses without being able to resolve them in a manner consonant with Ghanian workers' code of practice. The study makes recommendations for social changes to policy, practice and training.     

The Common Assessment Framework: the impact of the lead professional on families and professionals as part of a continuum of care in England

This paper utilizes data gathered as part of an exploratory study to assess the costs and impact of the Common Assessment Framework (CAF), to examine the impact that the lead professional role had on families and workers. The study found that both families and workers believed the lead professional to be central to the CAF process, providing a range of support, coordinating multi‐agency responses to need and acting as a single point of contact between families and workers. The paper highlights the need for consideration to be given to inter‐agency working, data sharing, training for workers and the capacity implications for those taking on the role. The extent to which the lead professional might be more integrated into the continuum of support for vulnerable children and families is also examined. The paper highlights the need to consider the lead professional's role in not only preventing the need for more intensive services, such as those provided by statutory social work, but also maintaining outcomes achieved once a child protection plan is closed, or a child is reunified with his or her birth family after a period of being in care. The implications of the findings for policy and practice are discussed.     

On the margins of the child protection system: creating space for relational social work practice

In the UK, a threshold divides between two categories of children, child protection (CP) and child in need. Each category tends to be treated as a homogeneous entity, despite containing heterogeneous levels and forms of risk and need. CP practice, accompanied by regulation, protocols and procedures, aspires to achieve a coordinated multi‐agency response to identified concerns with available resources targeted towards this category. However, it is well known that those children assessed as falling just below the CP threshold can still have high levels of need and risk, requiring a level of social work involvement beyond the low‐resource and low‐oversight model that generally accompanies a child in need categorisation. This paper probes an approach to practice, which divides levels of risk within the child in need category enabling adequate, coordinated support and oversight to be provided for children and families with complex needs. Evidence from our study evaluating this approach suggests that a simple protocol provided a clear process within, which social workers and agency partners felt confident and safe to practice outside of the formal CP framework. The protocol prevented drift and helped to create a space within, which relational social work practice flourished.     

Less than human: a qualitative study into the experience of parents involved in the child protection system

This paper reports on the findings from a qualitative study into the experiences of parents who were involved in the English child protection system in 2013. Seventeen in‐depth interviews were conducted involving 19 parents and/or partners, and a framework approach was used to analyse the data. There were positive experiences of individual social workers and some positive experiences of the child protection system. However, the overwhelming theme of the parents' experiences was that the system was uncaring, inflexible and for some harmful to both themselves and their children. Despite being included in the child protection process, parents felt they were not afforded the same rights as a participant, as a decision‐maker or as a partner in seeking to improve the situation. The threat of consequences silenced parents who felt unable to speak out or challenge the things they disagreed with or coerced others into signing agreements they did not agree to. Such experiences related to a sense that they were being treated as ‘less than human’. These findings are considered within the context of recent reforms within the English child protection system.     

Progress of the social service professions in South Africa's developmental social welfare system: Social work,and child and youth care work

This paper examines the progress of the social service professions delivering developmental social welfare in South Africa, a subject we have followed closely over the last 20 years. Being policy-driven, developmental social welfare stemmed from expert social analyses that resulted in technically oriented solutions, including the broadening of social service professions. Twenty years on, it is hard to see developmental social welfare, as envisaged in government policy, in action, since the practice reality does not differ drastically from the prior apartheid system with the government's heavy reliance on social security as a poverty-alleviation measure. The expanded social security budget has led to underfunded services and a crisis for social service professionals. This paper focuses on the regulated professions of social workers, and child and youth care workers. Our examination of critical issues for these occupational groups revealed that South Africa still has a long way to go in building a strong social service workforce.     

Social work and the shadow father: lessons for engaging fathers in Northern Ireland

The legislative framework of social work practice has consistently highlighted the need to work in partnership with parents, with far‐reaching implications for families. However, the importance of engaging fathers in social work practice is an issue that has received limited attention within academic debate and research. A research study undertaken across six family centres, investigated paternal involvement in family centre social work in Northern Ireland. The study involved 46 semi‐structured interviews with social workers, fathers and mothers. This paper presents the views of 22 social workers on the barriers to paternal involvement in family centre interventions. A range of factors were identified which served to inhibit or promote engagement of fathers. There were substantially more deterrents than promoters, a clear indicator of the problematic nature of paternal involvement. The findings highlight that both attitudes and practices of social workers influence the engagement of fathers. Recommendations drawn from the findings are presented for the development of father – inclusive social work practices and research.     

Trial and error: attending to language barriers in child welfare service provision from the perspective of frontline workers

This paper reports on a qualitative study that used focus groups to gather data from the perspective of child protection workers on their experiences in providing services to clients with limited English proficiency (LEP). The goals of the study were to understand processes of relationship building and service provision that could contribute to improved practice. Focus groups are ideal in obtaining data on how a group deals with particular situations and for understanding their decision‐making processes. Measures to ensure rigour and trustworthiness were taken throughout the study. Findings provide rich and multilayered insights into the complexity of providing services for families with LEP showing that agencies use bilingual workers as well as interpreters for services. Participants noted, however, that services continued to be inconsistent with unclear guidelines and training about how and when to access interpreters. Lack of training for bilingual workers was also identified. Confidentiality issues, barriers to engaging with clients, problems with the quality of interpretation and role confusion together with benefits including interpreters being cultural and language ‘conduits’ and links to culturally specific services; enhanced communication decreasing the possibility of inaccurate assessments and lessening power differentials; and help with workload were noted.     

Theory and social work: A conceptual review of the literature

This article presents a conceptual review of the literature concerning social work and theory. Based on analysis of 93 research studies, drawn from literature in English published between 1968 and 2016, the review considers the many ways that theory is conceptualised in the literature, and asks meta‐theoretical questions about how and why different conceptualisations arise. The article examines definitional questions and ambiguities concerning the use of theory, extant research on the use of theory by social workers in practice, hostility expressed regarding theory in social work, the theory/practice divide and perspectives that emphasise theory's utility or functionality. The article points at some methodological and ethical limitations concerning current research, and summarises dominant, as well as less prominent, versions of what counts as theory within the social work discipline, before finally suggesting that further meta‐theoretical research is needed.     

Making a target work: Messages from a pilot of the 6‐month time limit on care proceedings in England

Since 2014, it has been a legal requirement in England and Wales for child care proceedings to be concluded, apart from “exceptional cases,” within 26 weeks. When this was first proposed, there were concerns that it might lead to poorer decision‐making or to delay being squeezed to either side of the court proceedings, before or afterwards. This paper reports on the messages from a pilot programme to hit the 26‐week target that took place in London in 2012–2013. The study compared the progress of the cases from the pilot year with those the year before, 180 cases in total, involving 256 children. The local authorities involved were able to achieve considerable improvements in timeliness, not just in the proceedings, but for the pre‐ and post‐court processes too; and the quality and fairness of decisions did not seem to be impaired, in terms of the plans for the children and subsequent outcomes over a period of 2 years. “Targets” do not generally find a warm welcome in the social work literature, but this paper shows that when collaboratively implemented, with a measure of flexibility and adequate resources, they can be an effective way of helping to achieve positive change.     

What social workers do in performing child protection work: evidence from research into face‐to‐face practice

Little research has been done into what social workers do in everyday child protection practice. This paper outlines the broad findings from an ethnographic study of face‐to‐face encounters between social workers, children and families, especially on home visits. The social work practice was found to be deeply investigative. Children's bedrooms were routinely inspected and were the most common place where they were seen alone. A high proportion of children were not seen on their own because they were too young and the majority of the time was spent working with parents and children together. Small amounts of time were spent with children on their own and some first encounters were so rushed that social workers did not even introduce themselves to the child. This arose from two key factors: firstly, organisational pressures from high workloads and the short timescales that social workers were expected to adhere to by managers and Government; secondly, practitioners had varying levels of communication skills, playfulness and comfort with getting close to children and skills at family work. Where these skills and relational capacities were present, social workers were found to have developed deep and meaningful relationships with some children and families, for whom it was apparent that therapeutic change had occurred.     

Linking children's social care data to information about their care proceedings to understand the use of care proceedings and their effects on parents,children and local authorities.

Care proceedings are the most powerful child protection intervention; local authorities make applications for over 20,000 children each year in England and Wales. The Department for Education holds two administrative databases of children who receive services, for children looked after and children in need. These databases do not record the use of care proceedings. Data linkage is a powerful tool for revealing patterns not visible from a single data set; the Outcomes for children before and after care proceedings reform study linked these administrative records with a research database of care proceedings to examine children's care and service journeys associated with care proceedings. The researchers also devised a simplified method for use by local authorities with their own records and tested this with North Yorkshire County Council. Analysis of the linked data reveals how care proceedings are used and the impact of care proceedings on care demand. It provides the basis for analysis of cohorts of children subject to proceedings and feedback to social workers, children's guardians, and the judges and lawyers on their decisions and children's outcomes.     

Changing practice cultures in statutory child protection: Practitioners' perspectives

Many child protection systems struggle to implement effective models of frontline practice in the context of high caseloads, increasing costs, and compliance‐focused bureaucratic cultures. This article discusses changes brought about by “Practice First,” a framework for practice introduced to improve the quality and effectiveness of child protection work in New South Wales, Australia. Findings drawn from quantitative and qualitative research with practitioners show that the initiative was effective in changing cultures of practice. It enabled workers to spend more face‐to‐face time with families and build relationships and was perceived to improve the quality of decision‐making. At the same time, the article highlights difficulties in attempting to embed change in practice cultures when broader systemic challenges persist.     

Assessment of the psychometric properties of the Graded Care Profile version 2 (GCP2) tool for measuring child neglect

Child neglect is highly prevalent, with extensive effects on children's development and often long‐lasting consequences. It is a complex issue, and the identification and assessment of neglect presents particular difficulties for professionals. The Graded Care Profile (GCP) is a tool that can help practitioners to assess neglect, but the updated version of this tool (GCP2) requires psychometric testing. We sought to test the GCP2 with qualified social work practitioners in the United Kingdom. Interrater reliability was assessed by comparing GCP2 scores between 3 pairs of practitioners following assessments of 30 children. Concurrent validity was assessed by comparing GCP2 scores to scores obtained using 2 other validated measures with 15 children. Professionals were surveyed concerning face validity. There was a substantial level of interrater agreement for 2 domains and a moderate level of agreement for the other 2 domains. There were strong correlations between the GCP2 and the other tools across all domains, and face validity results were positive. In conclusion, although this was a small sample, our findings provide preliminary evidence that the GCP2 has adequate psychometric properties pending further rigorous psychometric testing. It is thus likely to be a useful tool in aiding professionals in the assessment of child neglect.     

Webster‐Stratton Incredible Years Basic Parent Programme (IY) in child care placements: residential staff carers' satisfaction results

The aim of the present study was to investigate residential child care staff satisfaction with their involvement in the Webster‐Stratton Incredible Years Basic Parent Programme (IY). In an exploratory, not randomized study, 27 professionals from two different short‐term Portuguese residential child care centres (IG1, n = 15; IG2; n = 12) completed weekly IY evaluations and an overall satisfaction questionnaire at the end of their participation in the IY intervention. The weekly level of satisfaction was assessed with regard to each of the programme's components (content, DVDs, group leaders, group discussion). At the last session, they filled out a questionnaire aimed to evaluate the levels of satisfaction regarding the programme overall, the teaching format, the group leader(s) and the usefulness of specific educational techniques they learned. Data indicated that residential staff carers were highly satisfied with the weekly sessions and with the overall usefulness of the intervention programme. Results are discussed in terms of implications and future research directions.     

Five years in care: documented lives and time trajectories in child welfare

Child welfare practice is temporally structured and includes a variety of follow‐up activities. Practice‐based follow‐up has not, however, been much explored when studying children's paths in the child welfare system. This paper is based on a study of children (103) who were taken into care in 2006 in 10 Finnish municipalities and their paths in care until 2011. The social workers' institutional knowledge of their ‘own’ clients comprises the core of the research design. The paper reflects on the nature of this data from the point of view of the notions of temporality. The analysis highlights four temporal trajectories used in retrospective analysis of children's paths in care: the linear time trajectory of the decisions and changes in the institutional positions, the temporally fragmentary trajectory of childhood and youth, the circular time trajectory of professional understanding of the child's path and the silent time trajectory. Each one documents the children's paths differently; the linear one tends to be the ‘natural’ and most easily available trajectory and consequently, the children's paths are documented via decisions and institutional positions. The analysis suggests that more attention should be given to the complexity of time and temporality when studying children's paths in child welfare.     

South Asian immigrants' experience of child protection services: are we recognizing strengths and resilience?

Ethno‐racial minority families who come in contact with child protection services face unique challenges that include different ideas about appropriate child rearing practices, possibly different definitions of child maltreatment, the possibility of racial biases and service provision that does not address their particular needs. Ethno‐racial minority immigrants encounter additional barriers to services associated with the challenges of settlement in a new cultural environment. Although considerable research has explored these issues, knowledge of the experiences of ethno‐racial families who have been in contact with child protection is limited. The current paper provides insights from a qualitative study that explored the experiences of one ethno‐racial group (South Asians) in Canada. Findings suggest a variety of reasons that families come into contact with the child protection system, and the characteristics of the sample highlight their difficult financial and employment circumstances. Themes include participants' desire to be better informed about the reasons for child protection involvement and about what they can expect from the worker and the agency. They also identified a wish for services that not only recognize their cultural diversity but also respond to the needs of the whole family. In‐home services were especially appreciated. The findings reveal the resilience and personal agency among participants that can be enhanced through strength‐based approaches to practice. Helping others, establishing community networks and developing needed services were avenues of resilience identified.