Absent presence: the ongoing impact of men's violence on the mother–child relationship

This paper draws from interviews with 45 mothers and 52 children who participated in an action research project to develop activities to support women and children in the aftermath of domestic violence. A thematic analysis was used to analyse the data and explore the question: In what ways does the perpetrator of abuse remain present in the lives of women and children following separation? The paper invites workers to recognize the distortions created by domestic violence that may need to be identified and addressed in the aftermath of violence. The ways in which past trauma, erosion of self‐esteem and the undermining of the mother–child relationship continues to create a shadow across the present relationship are identified. The continued presence of the perpetrator of abuse through child contact arrangements and ongoing harassment is also highlighted. The ‘absent presence’ of the abusive partner is posited as a concept to assist workers with a framework through which to understand problems in the mother–child relationship which emerge when living with and separating from a violent partner. The paper has implications for social workers orientating practice to focus on perpetrator accountability and support strengthening the mother–child relationship.     

A Comparative Study of Child Abuse Risk Assessment in the United States and Korea

The perceptions and judgments of social workers who interview the child and family are especially significant factors in child abuse assessment process. The current study describes and compares child protection workers’ assessment processes in Korea and the USA through the use of case vignettes and in‐depth interview. The responses from social workers in these two countries were compared and discussed in the areas of: risk assessment; perception of the main problems; tolerance of corporal punishment; and judgments about appropriateness of interventions. Most revealing was that Korean social workers determined abuse based on their child abuse definition and the US Army FAP social workers determined abuse based on their definition, which was affected by legal standards and cultural differences. Korean social workers are more likely to remove a child from the home, even in mild cases, but US FAP social workers would recommend child removal from the home as a last option. The social workers that participated in this survey play a vital role in the safety of children in child protective services. Both countries can benefit from sharing information to improve the child protection services delivered. Social workers' professional judgment leads to objective and consistent outcomes and are less likely to compromise child safety in the decision making process.     

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

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

Assessment and decision-making in a case of child neglect and abuse using an attachment perspective

Assessment and decision-making in complex cases of child abuse and neglect is a difficult and taxing process. Although social workers have become increasingly good at collecting information, often under the direction of agency checklists and manuals, there is less confidence in knowing how to make sense of that information for purposes of assessment and decision-making. Theories help organize knowledge and attachment theory is proving to be a powerful player in helping practitioners make sense of what they know. The paper outlines the basic tenets of attachment theory. When adapted to the context of social work, a key principle of an attachment-based practice is the recognition that young children develop a range of adaptive strategies that are designed to help them cope with, survive, and function in whatever caregiving environment they happen to find themselves, including ones in which there is abuse and neglect. Although these strategies are functional within the context of adverse caregiving environments, they carry the risk of children suffering a variety of developmental impairments and failure to develop social competence. A case is described in which there are elements of abuse and neglect both within and across the generations. An attachment perspective is used to analyse and assess the quality and character of parenting and the different adaptive strategies developed by each child in the caregiving context in which they have found themselves. The assessment is then used to inform the decision whether or not to leave the children in the care of their mother or to place them with a long-term substitute family, with or without contact.     

Avoidance and confrontation: social work practice in relation to domestic violence and child abuse

Action on the relationship between domestic violence and child abuse has been slow to emerge in mainstream child protection agencies. This paper reports a qualitative study of child protection files. Particular attention was given to the issues for Asian families. Initially the numerous strategies which social workers and other professionals at child protection conferences used to avoid the issue of domestic violence are explored. However, there was also a small, but emerging, pattern of child abuse in the context of domestic violence being taken seriously. In each of these cases strong expectations were placed on women to separate from or remain separated from men who were violent. These expectations were backed by 'threats' or the actual accommodation of children often with little interagency support for women undertaking this difficult and dangerous task, or before women were ready to undertake this separation. Suggestions are made about aspects of the organizational context which need to change if good child protection is also to include appropriate protection and support for the child's mother.     

Child protection social work and men's abuse of women: an Irish study

This paper reports the findings of an exploratory study of the response of social workers within a community care setting, in a large Dublin suburb, to cases involving men's abuse of women. This research aims to focus on what child protection workers do regarding this abuse, and what they say about what they do, thereby giving readers a sense of the action taking place in this social work team. The data, generated from both qualitative and quantitative methodological research, reflects this aim, as it taps into the working model of responses to men's abuse of women held by social workers, and identifies what influences that, thereby reflecting the realities and constraints of everyday work. At the time the research was carried out (2000), the results confirm that the prevalence of cases involving men's abuse of women on this team was in line with international findings. This research revealed an absence of a team policy, an agreed definition of intimate violence in this context and agency practice guidelines, and illuminated how these gaps act as a deterrent to effective intervention. This paper explores some of the ethical and practical dilemmas that may arise for child protection social workers intervening in cases where the abuse of women by men is present. Recommendations arising from this research identify a need for a clear policy and best practice guidelines for social work staff in relation to this abuse.     

Women's abuse of their children in the context on domestic violence: reflection from women's accounts

This paper draws upon the findings of a study that looked at women's experiences of mothering in the context of co-occurrence of domestic violence and child abuse, and considers the issue of women's violence towards children – while acknowledging the fact that men are the main perpetrators of violence towards women and children in these families. The paper first explores the relationship between women's victimization and women's violence, and suggests that women's abuse of their children can be seen as a consequence of their own experiences of domestic violence. The findings nonetheless suggest that abused women have agency, and therefore have responsibilities when they chose to use violence towards their children. The paper also considers the feelings of guilt and blame that tend to arise in these circumstances. Implications for research, policy and practice are identified.     

Risk assessment and domestic violence – how do child welfare workers in three countries assess and substantiate the risk level of a 5‐year‐old girl?

This paper examine how a sample of 301 child welfare workers in Norway, England and California, USA assess risk in cases of domestic violence. Decisions in child welfare cases are made under a high degree of uncertainty, and by using the vignette method, we explore whether child welfare systems and risk assessment approaches result in different assessment of risk level and substantiations. We find both cross‐country differences and similarities: Norwegian workers consider the risk level to be significantly higher than their peers in England and USA. However, workers' justifications for and identification of decisive factors in the case are strikingly similar across countries. These similarities are observed for both high‐risk and low‐risk assessors, and they may exist due to widespread knowledge about domestic violence and its negative consequences. We argue that the international differences in risk level assessments are due to system differences in the countries studied.     

Child welfare workers' views of fathers in risk assessment and planned interventions,a comparison between English and Norwegian workers

In a comparison of 53 child welfare workers' risk assessment based on a vignette case about a 9‐year‐old girl, less than one‐third of the child welfare workers in England and Norway, intended to work with fathers. Only 28% and 14%, respectively, suggested involving the stepfather, in spite that, the vignette said he lived with the girl and her mother. The invisible fathers in child welfare have been well documented, but fathers and stepfathers in particular, were surprisingly invisible in the Norwegian context, known for its strong focus on gender equality and institutionalized support for the father role. The child welfare workers seemed to prefer working with the mother and other professional agencies, rather than involving the father(s) and other family members. Although this may reflect the reality of families within child welfare, they are in contrast with the prevailing family ideology and practices in the society at large, both in England and in Norway.     

“She was accused of colluding with the mother”; the training and support needs of parent‐and‐child foster carers: A qualitative study

Parent‐and‐child foster placements are used to accommodate parents with their children, either when the mother is a looked‐after child or as a setting for a parenting assessment. Despite this being a specialized role with significant potential for affecting outcomes for disadvantaged families, there is currently a lack of accessible learning opportunities for foster carers on the physical and mental well‐being of women with complex needs such as a history of domestic abuse, substance abuse, perinatal mental ill‐health, or having a learning disability. Parent‐and‐child carers experience some unique stresses and value the support of others with similar experiences; this kind of peer support is currently largely absent. This qualitative study has used ten focus groups with foster carers, eight interviews with mothers, and nine interviews with supervising social workers, to inform the development of an online learning resource and a social media‐based peer support network for parent‐and‐child foster carers.     

Mothering and child protection practice: rethinking risk assessment

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

More present than absent: Men who use domestic violence and their fathering

An earlier article referred to the “absent presence” of the perpetrator in the lives of children and their mothers who have lived with domestic violence. It identified the ways in which the shadow of the perpetrator continued and was evidenced in the “symptoms of abuse” that both women and children experienced in spite of his absence. The current article argues that fathers who use violence are actually more present than absent in the lives of children (and women), even following separation. A mixed method approach surveyed men in Men's Behaviour Change Programs (N = 101), and interviewed women who had experienced violence (N = 50). The studies reported that the majority of men in both the quantitative men's study (80%) and the qualitative women's study (77%) had substantial contact with children. The women's interviews highlight the problematic fathering that many of their children experienced, both before and after separation. They reported very high levels of child abuse and poor attitudes to both women and children. The article concludes that the family violence and child welfare systems are poorly configured to address fathers who use violence and continue to hold substantial parenting roles, including following separation.     

Domestic violence and child protection: towards a collaborative approach across the two service sectors

Domestic violence continues to be one of the most significant aspects of child abuse and neglect in Australia. However, the children are not well served by either child protection or domestic violence service sectors, which continue to operate as segregated, tertiary response systems. This paper reports on research that examined bridges and barriers to effective collaboration between child protection and domestic violence services in responding to children affected by domestic violence. The differing conceptions and responses of the workers from each service sector, in relation to children and families affected by domestic violence, is discussed in the light of gaps in service provision in both sectors. In doing so, areas of common ground for more effective collaboration between these service sectors are identified, including the prioritizing of emotional and psychological abuse, supporting and empowering abused mothers, strengthening the mother–child relationship, and supporting children and families across a continuum of service provision, particularly in the medium‐ to long‐term. Understanding each other and finding common ground across the two service sectors is paramount to improving how each responds to children and families affected by domestic violence.     

Assessment of the developmental needs of children in need: Estonian child protective workers' case reflections

Child protective workers must be able to evaluate children's developmental needs in order to assess problems and delays. Skilful and comprehensive assessment leads to outcomes for children that promote their well‐being and development. This paper presents the findings of a qualitative study on a sample of Estonian child protective workers that investigated their assessments of the developmental needs of children in cases with child protection concerns. Only half of the child protective workers considered some dimension of the child's developmental needs in their assessment, suggesting a profound need to incorporate a developmental assessment framework and implement training of such in Estonia to increase child protective workers' competencies to conduct consistently comprehensive assessments.     

Social workers' attitudes towards female victims of domestic violence: A study in one English local authority

This paper aims to explore childcare social workers' attitudes towards female victims of domestic violence in England. The study discusses the concept of “mothering” and the processes through which mothers are potentially denigrated rather than empowered. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with social workers in a single child protection agency to investigate their perceptions of domestic violence, its gendered nature, and the implications for their practice. Participants' responses were coded using thematic analysis. The results demonstrated social workers' cognisance of the challenges domestic violence poses for abused mothers in terms of the ability to safely parent their children. Although the study is not without its limitations, it nevertheless indicates the need for a more holistic approach to safeguarding children within domestic violence settings. Moreover, it underscores the necessity for improving awareness about the prevalence and importance of domestic violence as a child safeguarding concern within social work training. Indeed, improved training would help to develop social workers' knowledge and understanding of service provisions and partner agencies, thus potentially improving practice in this critically important area.     

Domestic violence and child abuse: developing social work practice

This paper takes as its starting point the report produced by the Social Services Inspectorate (1995), entitled Domestic Violence and Social Care , which seeks to alert social workers to the links between domestic violence and child abuse and urges the profession to respond more effectively to these two interconnected forms of violence. Having examined the research findings which provide evidence for these links, the theoretical and service delivery contexts in which these two forms of violence have been studied and conceptualized by the social work profession, both in the United Kingdom and in the United States, are identified. Studies of the social work response to domestic violence are discussed and some of the difficulties experienced by social workers in responding effectively to the needs of families where both forms of violence are experienced are considered. In particular, the issues of 'invisible' men and 'trapped' women and children are explored. It is argued that effective social work intervention which challenges these stereotypes will require additional resources and the article concludes with a consideration of whether the Messages from Research report might herald a shift in the approach to child protection that would promote the allocation of resources to this area of work.     

Linking illicit substance misuse during pregnancy and child abuse: what is the quality of the evidence?

In most Australian states, legislation makes provision for professionals to report their concerns about the future welfare of an unborn child to appropriate authorities. The legislation establishes guidance for the implementation of family supports to minimize future child protection involvement. Given the legislation and the potential benefits, empirical research linking substance misuse during pregnancy and child protection involvement is relatively limited. We review 21 original studies linking substance misuse during pregnancy with child protection outcomes and the potential generalizability of results to the Australian context. The majority of studies reviewed were conducted in the USA and were mostly retrospective. Other differences between studies include sample sizes, comparison groups, study setting, participants’ ethnicity and pattern of drug use. In the postnatal literature, it is well established that child abuse is associated with a complex array of factors including partner, as well as broader family factors and yet, the studies reviewed focus upon maternal substance abuse without including the wider context. Given the available evidence‐based literature, it is difficult to come to definitive conclusions that can assist clinicians involved in frontline decision‐making for early intervention. Well‐designed research, accessible by antenatal health‐care professionals, is needed to adopt an evidence‐based approach to risk assessment in the prenatal context.     

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

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

Exploring approaches to child welfare in contexts of domestic violence and abuse: Family group conferences

This article sets out to explore service provision for families affected by domestic violence and abuse. For most families where there are child protection concerns, there are possibilities for intervention from child welfare agencies and domestic abuse services, but these have been criticised as having distinct and disconnected practice cultures and orientation. Recognising this divergence, in this paper, we advocate for safeguarding children affected by domestic violence and abuse using the family group conference (FGC) model. This offers possibilities for a coherent response that integrates both child‐ and women‐centred concerns in a holistic approach to family safety and well‐being. Furthermore, it is well documented that safeguarding work involves professionally‐led decision‐making that is pre‐occupied with the management of risk. FGCs, however, promote a partnership approach that engages families in a more democratic decision‐making process. As such, FGCs offer families the opportunity to develop their own safety and support plans for the protection and care of children recognising the family's inherent strengths.     

Between the maternal and the professional: the impact of being a child welfare officer on motherhood

Child welfare officers experience stress from exposure to child neglect and abuse and the burden of responsibility for children's well‐being. This qualitative study addresses the question: How do social workers who are child welfare officers perceive and cope with the influence of their professional occupation on their relationships with their own children? The research is based on in‐depth interviews with a purposive sample of 10 child welfare workers who are mothers (of 2–4 children aged 2–23 years). The data analysis illustrates how the professional identity and the maternal identity of the child welfare officer fluctuate between two positions. The first is ‘anxious motherhood’ in which anxiety is the prism through which the welfare officer views the world as dangerous for her children, stimulating protective, control‐enhancing actions. The second position is reflective motherhood in which the welfare worker struggles with her own stresses and conflicts as a mother and searches for an experience of meaningful, positive motherhood. The findings reinforce the need to raise the consciousness of child welfare officers regarding the impact of encountering distress and trauma on their own well‐being as parents. In this way, they can prevent secondary traumatization and enhance professional and maternal growth.