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This article analyses anthropometric forms used in three different Dutch contexts around 1900: an expedition in Dutch New Guinea, the Dutch police and prison registration system, where ‘Bertillonage’ was used to identify recidivist criminals, and a state-owned reform school for girls. The authors identify the loose form as an innovative ‘paper technology’ within anthropometry that opened up entirely new ways of linking bodies to identities and was critically important in inscribing bodies into knowledge systems. The article demonstrates how this crucial innovation within anthropometry took shape in practice. In order to show the techniques through which the inscription of bodies into knowledge systems took place, the article demonstrates how the forms organized, standardized and directed measuring practices and prepared the data for further use in filing systems. Moreover, it draws attention to the tension between the forms’ potential and actual practices. The article concludes by considering the ways these forms were filed and used as ‘data’ by judicial authorities, child protection professionals and racial and criminological scientists, each of whom produced different forms of ‘paper identity’ and whose anthropometric practices enacted different bodies.

The apparent understandings of knowledge for child protection social work practice which inform the New Zealand White Paper for Vulnerable Children are contrasted with the views expressed in the Munro Review of Child Protection in England. It is argued that the rational-technical view of child protection practice knowledge critiqued in the Munro Review is the driving influence in the White Paper. It is further suggested that the White Paper is underpinned by neoliberal conceptions of individuated responsibility which conflict with the socially situated and relational understandings which are native to the theory and practice of social work. Consequently, the socio-technical social work practice knowledge form recognised and promoted in the Munro Review is marginalised in the White Paper. It is also argued that the failings of the child protection system in Aotearoa New Zealand are more appropriately associated with political and managerial misapprehension of knowledge for competent practice than with the shortcomings of social work as a vehicle for effective child protection. It is suggested that it is high time for the social work voice to be rediscovered and reasserted if effective, relationally engaged, practice with high needs children and their families is to be developed and promoted in politically challenging times.

This White Paper identifies shortcomings in the current federal child welfare financing system, and recommends changes for improvement. It calls for a funding system that allows effective implementation of child welfare laws by government at the state and federal levels. It also recommends required longitudinal independent studies of each major program receiving federal funds and a specified appropriation for that purpose. Such empirical testing would include sunset dates terminating each program where data fails to warrant continuation. Such sunset proceedings are commonly used in evaluating regulatory agencies in many states. Based on the studies they compel, programs that do not perform will be discontinued and those that do may be continued, expanded and replicated in analogous settings. The understandable reticence to expend monies on social welfare among many in Congress should be assuaged by that assured accountability. Nelson Mandela was famously quoted as observing, “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” But federal child welfare spending is a step above such general humanitarian sentiments. This is not funding for children in general. Rather, it is funding to protect and promote the well-being of those who are more than our children in a metaphorical sense. These children have been removed from their homes and their parents and are in state custody. We delegate their care to our publicly appointed and paid judges who serve as their legal parents. And their seizure by the state and their subsequent fate is largely determined by laws enacted by our elected officials and funded by us through mandatory taxation. For those who politically cite “family values” as a basic moral tenet, the status that these children hold as a direct legal part of our “family” makes their treatment a basic test of the bona fides of that stated value.

It is 40 years since the seminal description of ‘Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy’ (MSbP) by UK Paediatrician Professor Sir Roy Meadow.1 There have been a number of developments since, which include terminology, definition, prevalence and management. The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) adopted the term ‘Fabricated or Induced Illness by Carers’ (FII) in 2002,2 and updated their guidance in 2009.3 The most recent version of the RCPCH Child Protection Companion extended FII to embrace perplexing presentations with suggestions for management.4 The important evolution in the UK has been towards earlier diagnosis and intervention without the need for proof of deliberate deception. In the USA terms such as ‘Pediatric Condition Falsification’, ‘Medical Child Abuse’ and ‘Caregiver-Fabricated Illness in a Child’ have been introduced although MSbP is still widely used and deception is still implicit.5–7 In adult psychiatry, The Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders produced by the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-5) replaces Factitious Disorder by Proxy with Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another (FDIoA).8 However, as DSM-5 stipulates that the carer behaviour is associated with identified deception, this excludes many carers involved in paediatric FII. In this paper, FII will be the term used to encompass all of these terms. Paediatricians in the UK have expressed significant concerns about FII, including when and how to recognise it, how to assess risk and how to manage these cases. Even in recent literature, most cases being reported still involve deliberate physical abuse by the carer. There are few descriptions of the earlier presentations and those involving erroneous reporting that form the majority of cases seen by paediatricians. While cases continue to be brought within the umbrella of FII and into the scope of national and local FII procedures for safeguarding children,9 there have …

This article examines the place of gendered relationships between parents with regard to child protection work in England, and the effects of this on mothers who are abused by their male partners. These areas are discussed within an emotionally, socially, and politically charged set of issues concerning to what extent the State should intervene, why, and how between parents and their children in terms of parental rights and child protection. In this way, the article examines fault lines in the Western world’s ideology of the family, and concepts and realities of parental, mothers’ and children’s rights. In examining dominant and competing discourses on parental rights in child protection work, the case is made for the need to disaggregate concepts and approaches away from parental rights per se, to viewing the possibility of needing to see fathers and mothers needs and rights as at times being in conflict. This becomes particularly problematic in relation to mothers’ rights to their own protection from abuse, and how this relates to professional interventions when both the mother and the children are being abused. It considers the need to acknowledge and foreground taking account of how the mother and child(ren) are experiencing the abuse, not how society and professionals might like to view the situation by way of an idealized view of families through a particular ideological lens.

International child protection standards aim to ensure that non-governmental organisations ‘do no harm’ but the current approach to reporting abuse may actually leave children unprotected and, in some cases, expose them to greater risk. This discussion paper gives voice to concerns raised by local practitioners in Africa and places them within the context of available research in order to stimulate a debate aimed at enhancing the impact of current safeguards. Drawing on systems theory and the work of Pierre Bourdieu, the article illustrates how the current model of reporting often fails to take into account the significant disconnect between formal and informal protection mechanisms, as well as the unpredictability of individual decision-making. Examples from research and practitioner experience illustrate how reporting procedures may provide a route to protection which is impractical and undesirable to local people, and may ultimately be unhelpful to local practitioners. The article calls for further research to inform changes to the current approach and for a review of funding requirements in order that local organisations have greater scope to engage communities in the co-creation of procedures, thereby indigenising responses to ensure that they are realistic and genuinely respond to the specificities of children's lives. ‘The current approach to reporting abuse may actually leave children unprotected’ Key Practitioner Messages Formal reporting procedures may actually offer routes to protection that are inaccessible or unacceptable to local people. Reporting procedures should be developed with a much greater participation of local people. There is a need for investment in piloting and implementing locally led approaches to capacity building. The engagement of donors is critical in order to develop a new approach to evaluating ‘child safe’ organisations. ‘Procedures should be developed with a much greater participation of local people’

The author's clinical experience with the Child Protection and Mental Health Care systems informs this brief practice-focused paper. The author posits that Secondary Traumatic Stress and Vicarious Trauma are central to understanding the impact of relationally traumatic material and the experience of individuals, families, team and the wider ecology of care systems. In particular, the author hypothesises that the tendency of systems to become fragmented in operation, with silos of sub-parts working parallel to each other, may be a natural adaptation to the ways in which traumatic experience ripples across system boundaries. This ‘ripple effect’ may lead to increasing emotional and relational reactivity, and survival-oriented inward focus of energies and efforts. The metaphor of the brain and nervous system is used to explore ideas of connection and integration in care systems. Trauma-informed leadership by individuals and teams is also touched upon in relation to reducing fear-driven clinical practice.

This paper examines the current and emerging evidence base regarding the continuum of responses for children and young people who display harmful sexual behaviours.

At the time of interview, Bronwyn Hyde was the Senior Social Worker, Mental Health, at Orange Health Service in rural New South Wales. She graduated in social work in 1976 from the University of Sydney and commenced work in rural NSW with the fledgling Community Health Services, as one of two social workers within a multidisciplinary team. After gaining a diploma in education, Bronwyn was employed in the TAFE system for some years within the child studies and community services sectors, firstly as a part-time teacher and then as a full-time teacher and acting head teacher. She then returned to social work in 2001, securing a position with a child and adolescent mental health team working across both hospital and community settings in Orange. During this time she attained a Graduate Diploma in Mental Health (Child and Adolescent) from the Institute of Psychiatry, before completing her Master of Social Work (Advanced Practice) at Charles Sturt University in 2009. Prior to her return to social work in Australia Bronwyn worked as a social worker in a culturally diverse area of East London, for Newham Social Services, in the field of child protection. She is currently enrolled in the Doctor of Social Work course through Charles Sturt University and is completing her research on recovery-oriented practice within a rural mental health inpatient facility. Her thesis is entitled “The lived experience of an admission to a mental health inpatient unit—what’s recovery got to do with it?” Bronwyn’s life and practice suggests to emphatically refocus on basics: deep listening, relationship building, locating in the people world and questioning the “taken for granted” assumptions.

PROLOGUE AND INTRODUCTION: THE INCIDENT AT ELDORADO, TEXAS CARDELL K. JACOBSON AND LARA BURTON SECTION 1: HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL PATTERNS OF POLYGAMY IN THE UNITED STATES: ESTRANGED GROUPS 1. A Repeat of History: A Comparison of the Short Creek and El Dorado Raids on the FLDS Martha Sonntag Bradley 2. One Vision: The Making, Unmaking, and Remaking of a Fundamentalist Polygamous Community Heber B. Hammon and William Jankowiak 3. Life Among the FLDS: Not Perfect, But Not Deluded and Not Monsters Ken Driggs 4. History, Culture, and Variability of Mormon Schismatic Groups Janet Bennion 5. Differing Polygamous Patterns: Nineteenth Century LDS and Twenty-First Century FLDS Marriage Systems Kathryn Daynes SECTION 2: SOCIAL SCIENTISTS EXAMINE POLYGAMY AND THE SEIZURE OF THE FLDS CHILDREN 6. Demographic, Social and Economic Characteristics of a Polygamist Community Tim B. Heaton and Cardell K. Jacobson 7. The Many Faces of Polygamy: An Analysis of the Variability in Modern Mormon Fundamentalism in the Intermountain West Janet Bennion 8. "What's Love Got to Do with It?": Earthly Experience of Celestial Marriage, Past and Present Carrie A. Miles 9. Social Scientific Perspectives on the FLDS Raid and the Corresponding Media Coverage Ryan T. Cragun and Michael Nielsen 10. Learning the Wrong Lessons: A Comparison of FLDS, Family International, and Branch Davidian Child-Protection Interventions Gary Shepherd and Gordon Shepherd 11. The International Fight Against Barbarism: Historical and Comparative Perspectives on Marriage Timing, Consent, and Polygamy. Arland Thornton SECTION 3: LEGAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES SURROUNDING THE SEIZURE OF THE FLDS CHILDREN 12. The Intricacies and Ethics of Parental Genetic Testing Deborah L. Cragun and Ryan T. Cragun 13. Child Protection Law and the FLDS Raid in Texas Linda F. Smith

With attention focussed on child abuse and measures for child protection in many countries around the world, efforts have been made to understand something of the nature and dimensions that lie behind abuse. Now the time has come to look at domestic violence in its other manifestations - not only parent to child as in child abuse, but also husband to wife or cohabiter to cohabiter. What, however, has been missing from this widening of concerns has been a focus on parental behaviour toward their children which involves the use of physical punishment in child rearing but which may fall short of the legal definition of abuse. This gap is about to be considered with the emergence in Australia of the EPOCH campaign in which Oz Child is to be a leading participant.

Background In November, 2012, a John Moore's University publication Protecting People Promoting Health presented a public health approach to the crime prevention agenda. Sandwell Public Health Department and the Sandwell Crime and Disorder Partnership has sought to implement evidence-based interventions in its partnership work on community safety and crime prevention over many years. Methods The West Midlands Crimegrip project hosted by Sandwell held implementation seminars for systematic reviews of effective interventions, including methadone maintenance and harm reduction for drug problems; early-years interventions including Highscope and interactive schools drug programmes; youth mentoring programmes; street lighting; neighbourhood policing; and situational crime prevention. Three examples of strongly evidence-based programmes will be presented: a methadone maintenance programme for persistent offenders; creation of safe environments; and early years programmes for improvement of long-term health and safety. These examples show how the translation of evidence into practice is delivering improved outcomes locally. Findings Among these programmes are methadone maintenance and harm reduction, which produced a 30% fall in domestic burglary when clients in treatment doubled in 2004, and acquisitive crime continued to decrease. This programme has been accompanied by target hardening and repeats victim programmes, design of crime supplementary planning guidance applied to new housing developments, and other measures to reduce burglary. The effect of closed-circuit television (CCTV) continues to be challenged, but although evidence for the primary prevention of crime remains questionable, the effect in crime detection and the routine use of CCTV as a method for crime detection is unquestioned. The Greets Green New Deal for Community area reported substantial community satisfaction with improved street lighting and a reduced fear of crime, consistent with research evidence. Early years and other educational interventions have a substantial long-term effect on child protection, preventing a cycle of deprivation and abuse and preventing crime as the young people reach adulthood. Schemes implemented in Sandwell as part of a portfolio were required to include the family nurse partnership, Highscope training for nursery and primary school teachers, universal nursery school provision since 1984, teaching parenting skills through evidence-based regimens such as Triple P, use of Bookstart, and Time to talk and speech therapy interventions to improve learning outcomes. All these schemes have contributed to an increase in school readiness of 5-year-olds, and to improved GSCE outcomes and reduced teenage pregnancy rates over 15 years. Each of these measures can be taken as proxies for improved outcomes for young people and reductions in social stress and likelihood of engagement in criminal activity. Interpretation The evidence that these interventions produced beneficial outcomes might be judged circumstantial. However, the fact that improved outcomes have been noted after implementation of evidence from good research studies should be what the research community would like to see happen and should be what the service community wants to implement. The context of this paper is therefore not one of showing what works through pure research; it seeks to show how the evidence for what works can be implemented and how improved outcomes can be delivered through knowledge of what works. This paper is therefore a discussion of how research results can be translated into service outcomes and how we can develop both knowledge transfer and public health audit. The present austerity and welfare reform policies set the conditions for extreme poverty and for exacerbation of social stress, violence, abuse, and neglect. Collective responses by the health and local authorities to protect individuals and families through welfare support mitigate but do not prevent adverse crime and social consequences. Formal research evidence for these programmes is limited in the published work but is necessary. Public health services in local authorities need to embrace a greater partnership with the public health research establishment. There remains a gap in applied health research. Funding Individual service interventions were funded through Sandwell Primary Care Trust, Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, and the Safer Sandwell Partnership. Research reviews were supported by The Home Office West Midlands and the National Institute of Health Research Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care Birmingham and Black Country (CLARHC-BBC) programme.

Background Feasibility studies are often a helpful prelude to constructing fundable research proposals. Where the intended research is in a foreign country, focuses on a vulnerable population, and is aggravated by political and pragmatic challenges, feasibility studies become essential. Albinism, a genetic condition of reduced melanin synthesis, is a major public health issue in southern Africa. Whilst much is known about the health needs of children with albinism, little is understood about how to address these effectively in low income countries. Further, the child care and protection needs of children with albinism are largely unexplored. Zimbabwe's current political and economic climate presents additional challenges to research on the topic. Method The technical, economic, legal, collaborative, operational, schedule and political feasibilities (acronym TELCOSP) to undertaking a study on children with albinism in Zimbabwe were explored over a six week period of fieldwork in the country. Results Using the TELSCOSP framework allowed a deconstruction of each challenge to provide innovative solutions. The economic and legal feasibility aspects presented some difficulties that will require flexibility and perseverance to overcome. Conclusion With the assistance of the local communities and people with albinism in Zimbabwe, the obstacles appear surmountable. The feasibility study provided a productive framework for addressing potential challenges in studying the needs of Zimbabwe's children living with albinism.

A survey was conducted among professionals expert in the field of child protection to determine which papers or book chapters they felt had been the most influential. From their responses, a list of the 50 most mentioned papers and chapters was compiled. This list was sent to a large group of child protection professionals with the request that they rank the 15 publications which they considered most important. To compare the views of child protection professionals with the number of times these publications had been cited in the literature, a citation search was carried out. Kempe, Silverman, Steele, Droegemuller, and Silver's (1962) paper "The Battered Child Syndrome" and Summit's (1983) paper "The Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome" received the highest ranking from the professionals. "The Battered Child Syndrome" also achieved the highest ranking in the citation search. Although there were a number of discrepancies between the professional rankings and the citation search, eight papers appeared in the top 15 rankings achieved by the professional survey and the citation search. Such a review of the influence of child abuse literature has limitations, although it does help to show which papers appear to have had an important and lasting influence.