Placing Children on Child Protection Registers: Risk Indicators and Local Authority Differences

Correspondence to Dr David Gordon, School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, 8 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1TN, UK. Summary Wide variation in rates of children on protection registersin different authorities has led to doubts about the reliabilityof local decision making. A study of 1,752 referrals, for suspectedabuse or neglect in eight English local authorities, found thatindicators of child and family vulnerability were more importantthan local area in explaining selection for initial child protectionconference and placement on registers. There appeared to beagreement on ‘common-sense’ risk indicators butstronger measurements of risk would enable child protectionprocedures to be better targeted.     

Can Voluntary Support Projects Help Vulnerable Families? The Work of Home-Start

Jane Gibbons, NISW, 5-7 Tavistock Place, London, WC1H 9SS Summary In an exploratory study, we examined the characteristics ofa sample of families referred to a branch of Home-Start (a voluntaryorganization to help stressed parents of under-fives) and thework of its volunteers. Comparison with families on social workers'case-loads suggested that Home-Start was able to work with awide variety of families, including those with severe difficulties,and that it offered a qualitatively different and complementaryservice to that of the local authority.     

Children in Need and their Families: Outcomes of Referral to Social Services

Jane Gibbons. Social Work Development Unit. University of East Anglia. Norwich NR4 7TJ. Summary The Children Act provides a clear remit to local authoritiesfor the provision of services to children in need and theirfamilies. Increased service provision needs to be supportedby evaluation of effectiveness. The paper describes an attemptto develop instruments for this purpose. In a sample of 122families containing children under 14 who were referred to socialservices departments, indicators of family needs, services receivedand their outcomes were used to examine whether services werematched to needs; and whether they had any effect on familyproblems in the short term.     

Clients' Reactions to Task-Centred Casework: a Follow-Up Study

Summary Four hundred people who came to a hospital casualty departmentduring one year after taking an overdose were randomly assignedto an experimental task-centred casework service or to the routineaftercare service. Half the sample was followed up four monthsafter overdose and the remainder 18 months after it. Clientsin the experimental group were more satisfied with the servicethey had received and showed more immediate improvement in socialproblems. A task-centred method (agreement on target problems,work on tasks and adherence to a time-limit) proved feasiblein about half the experimental cases.     

Task-centred Casework with Marital Problems

Summary The use of task-centred casework with people who have maritalproblems and have taken an overdose is described. The stagesof task-centred work are illustrated and difficulties whichwere encountered are discussed. Task-centred casework is seento be a feasible and helpful method of working with people withmarital problems.     

SOCIAL SECURITY AND AGGREGATE CAPITAL ACCUMULATION REVISITED: DYNAMIC SIMULTANEOUS ESTIMATES IN A WEALTH-GENERATION MODEL

This paper re-examines Feldstein's(1974, 1982)results of the effect of social security on private capital accumulation in the context of a simultaneous-equation model of capital accumulation. The model incorporates dynamic feedback effects in capital accumulation and is estimated by FIML to incorporate theoretical restrictions that are tested against the data. It is then simulated as a full dynamic model to analyze the long-run effect of SSW on private capital accumulation. The simulated effects are in the same direction as found by Feldstein, but are considerably weaker.