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Background Mothers who have children removed from their care often have complex needs. These women have poor health outcomes and are dying earlier than their peers from preventable and amenable causes. Yet there is little known about how health care services might mitigate these risks. This study aimed to listen to the voices of women who had children removed from their care to understand their experiences of health and healthcare. Methods We used a narrative approach to collect and analyse interview data with six mothers who had experienced child removal in England. Each participant was asked to reflect on their life and main health challenges. Results Three narrative subplots were developed to consolidate experiences of unmet health need: (i) 'on paper you're normal': narratives of complex need, (ii) 'in my family, everyone had issues': narratives of whole family need and (iii) 'I'm still mummy, no matter where they are': narratives of maternal identity and health. Conclusions Findings highlight limitations within current systems of support, including a culture of distrust and women falling between the gaps of services. Women's narratives illustrate opportunities for health intervention, especially immediately following child removal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to present a mixed methods study of child criminal exploitation (CCE), particularly in the form of "county lines", in three local authorities in southeast England. The data is analysed using a framework constructed from two relevant contextual and relational theories to understand experiences of CCE and the safeguarding responses undertaken to protect young people from harm. Design/methodology/approach: Data were drawn from a survey (n = 118); interviews (n = 5) and focus groups (n = 15) with professionals; interviews with parents (n = 4); and from secondary analysis of eight interviews with young people affected by criminal exploitation. The analytic framework was applied to the data to answer two research questions: what is the role and significance of young people's interactions with peers, parents and professionals in their CCE trajectories; and how do professionals understand and address risks within contexts in which young people are exposed to CCE? The mixed methods data collected by the authors were coded and analysed using this framework. Findings: Although professionals were aware of contexts and relational power dynamics, the situated and temporal nature of CCE remained overlooked within safeguarding systems. Professionals required more space, time and support to fully and flexibly engage with young people and their families to increase safety. Originality/value: There is limited research available that critically examines safeguarding responses to CCE in diverse geographic and cultural contexts. This paper contributes a critical account of how professionals might create connections and opportunities for change with young people, identifying structural constraints within practice systems alongside emerging examples of effective practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the England part of a research project exploring judicial decision making in eight jurisdictions with respect to care applications in respect of new-born infants. Descriptive data are provided on a total cohort of 278 care applications made to three English family court care centres in 2016. Attention is paid to final orders made and findings are reported on differences between the three care centres with respect to the proportions of orders made (mainly placement orders; but also care orders and Special Guardianship Orders). A particular focus of the paper is on the 'transparency' of court processes as evidenced by the availability of transcripts of judgements. To add to the small proportion of cases (11%) where a transcript was available, 30 English judgements on new-borns reported to the BAILII data base in 2016 were also analysed. Differences were found between proportions of orders made when a judgement transcript was or was not available. It is argued that these results add to the call for greater transparency in the family courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a history of critique, concentrated discussion and improved assessment processes, neglect continues to be a major challenge for child protection services. This paper draws on findings from a government‐commissioned analysis of 'serious case reviews' (SCRs) in England, arising from incidents of serious child abuse in 2017–2019. There were 235 cases, for which 166 final reports were available. Alongside a quantitative analysis of the whole cohort, we undertook an in‐depth qualitative analysis of 12 cases involving neglect. A key challenge in responding to neglect in its different forms is that it can be so widespread amongst families that practitioners no longer notice its severity or chronicity – it becomes normalised. In this paper we explore two dimensions of the 'paradox of neglect' where it seems to be everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. The first is that neglect is so closely bound up with the prevalence of poverty that little action is taken to address it. The second is that the overwhelming nature of neglect can blind practitioners to other forms of maltreatment that may also be present within a family. Practitioners, now more than ever, need to recognise the dimensions of this paradox to protect children from neglect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social work case files hold rich detail about the lives and needs of vulnerable groups. Traditional case-reading studies to gain generalisable knowledge are resource-intensive, however, and sample sizes thereby limited. The advent of 'big data' technology, and vast repositories of centrally stored electronic records offer social work researchers novel alternatives, including data linkage and predictive risk modelling using administrative data. Free-text documents, however – including assessments, reports, and case chronologies – remain a largely untapped resource. This paper describes how 5000 social work court statements held by the Child and Family Court Advisory Support Service in England (Cafcass) were analysed using natural language processing (NLP) based on simple rules and mathematical principles. Thirteen factors relating to harm and risk to children involved in care proceedings in England were identified by automated computer techniques, and almost 90% agreement with professional readers achieved when the factors were clear-cut. The study represents an innovative approach for social work research on complex social problems. In conclusion, the paper discusses learning points; practical implications; future research avenues; and the technical and ethical challenges of NLP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a statutory duty for all practitioners to record information in child protection work in England. Case recording is a daily task for practitioners, yet an under-researched area of practice. This continuing professional development (CPD) paper will consider the context in which case recording takes place and highlight messages from child protection reviews and enquiries before exploring learning from contemporary research. The complexities of case recording will be considered and how practitioners can reflect upon and improve their daily case recording skills. Practitioners are encouraged to keep the child's views and experiences central and consider the long-term impact of case recording on adults who have experienced abuse and neglect in childhood. Key Practitioner Messages • Case recording is a complex and nuanced task, often missing the multiple perspectives inherent in a child's narrative. • The views, experiences and identity of individual children and young people can be lost in case recording, especially for very young children, older children and those in sibling groups. • Case recording has a support function for care experienced adults to understand their childhood histories, aiding recovery from abuse and neglect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family group conferences (FGCs) in child welfare share decision-making with family members by bringing the immediate and wider family together to make a plan to meet a child's needs. This paper reports survey findings on FGC provision in the UK in 2022 and explores whether in England the presence of an FGC service and the rate of FGC provision is associated with the rate of children in care, entering care, in kinship foster care and leaving care. Seventy-nine per cent (n  = 167) of local authorities in the UK provided FGCs to families, and 14 per cent (n  = 29) did not. Services that were more established offered a more diverse range of FGCs. The introduction of FGCs in English local authorities was associated with a higher rate of children in care, but also higher rates of kinship foster care, a key goal of FGCs where it is not possible for children to stay with their parents. Higher rates of FGCs were associated with more children leaving care, possibly due to reunification with birth families. To understand in more detail, the circumstances of children in and leaving care in local authorities with FGCs, individual data linkage studies are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2023, the UK Government published its long-awaited reform strategy for England's children's social care system. Whilst the strategy set out planned reforms for several aspects of the wider system, an area requiring particular 'priority' was the purported workforce instability seen within child protection social work. However, the strategy has subsequently faced criticism on the basis that the suggested reforms were not satisfactorily informed by the testimonies of practicing social workers. This paper draws from a mixed-method study to report on the lived experiences of a sample of 201 child protection social workers practicing across England, in the context of better understanding the factors which they believed were impacting on workforce stability within England's child protection system. Implications that emerge are the need for an increase in the monetary commitment offered by the UK Government (especially in the context of tackling high caseloads, and improving local authority pay scales to reduce the allure of agency work); a targeted emphasis on challenging local cultures preoccupied with evidencing compliance over time spent with children; and the Government taking a more assertive role in tackling the often-counterproductive commentary perpetuated by politicians and media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social workers routinely make judgements and decisions as part of their everyday practice. The nature and quality of these can have a significant and long‐lasting impact on the children and families concerned. In this paper, we present an analysis of more than 20 000 judgements (n = 21 193) made by social workers (n = 586) in relation to case vignettes, based on a series of anonymized referrals (n = 12) to social services in England. We do so to ascertain how accurately the social workers were able to predict subsequent actions, events and outcomes, and to calculate the ratio of true positives to false positives at various decision thresholds. We find that the social workers' predictions were more accurate than chance in relation to all but one of the referrals, albeit at the cost of a high rate of false positive errors. We consider these findings in relation to what appears to be a general lowering of the threshold for child protection interventions in England in recent years and in relation to who suffers the injustice of false positive errors in child and family social work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines populous perspectives of the government's responsibility to intervene in situations of possible parental neglect of children in England, Finland, Norway, and California (USA), and ask if institutional context, defined as child protection system and children´s wellbeing situation, are formative for people's perspectives on government responsibility for children in vulnerable situations and how they view children´s future. With representative samples of populations responses to a survey vignette using ordered logistic regression, findings indicate that the institutional context shed some light on differences on state responsibility. However, similarly to welfare state research, there are differences and contradictions in important dimensions that require further investigation, especially on citizens perceptions of neglect and on intrusive interventions. Citizens with a comparatively higher education are evidently much more supportive of state responsibility for children and child protection interventions than other citizens. This finding is similar to those of other studies of state responsibility. Overall, there is a high level of support in populations for the provision of public services to children and families in vulnerable situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examined relationships between area‐level deprivation, local authorities' social care expenditure and the rates of children entering care proceedings in England using a novel data linkage of de‐identified records provided by the Children and Family Court Advisory Service (Cafcass). Using structural equation modelling, the authors found strong positive relationships between socioeconomic area deprivation and high rates of children undergoing care proceedings in England between 2015 and 2019. Preventative social care expenditure is associated with lower child rates when adjusting for deprivation. Our findings suggest that deprived and underfunded local authorities respond to an increased need by prioritizing care arrangements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supervision is widely recognised as a core activity for social work. In this paper, we explore the nature of decision-making in supervision, using a collection of twelve audio-recordings from one child protection team in England. We apply Conversation Analysis to see how potential actions are put 'on the table', by whom, and the interactional work that occurs before any final decision is made. Within these data we find that supervision may not be an especially key site for decision-making. When actions are proposed, we identify three primary patterns: unilateral decision making, bilateral decision making and polar questions which instigate decision making sequences. In each, it is almost always the supervisor who proposes a possible future action, and the social worker who responds. If the social worker is agreeable, there is often little further discussion. When the social worker resists the proposal or there is further talk around the future action, the subsequent conversation was likely to focus on how it reflects on the worker's professional competence, rather than the merits of the action and implications for the family. These findings raise the question of how (and where) casework decisions are made in this social work team, if not in supervision. They also suggest we need to pay more attention to issues of professional standing and creating opportunities for shared decision making when thinking about supervision. Our analysis furthers current knowledge of what happens in social work supervision by demonstrating how epistemic and deontic domains, as well professional competency, are interactionally relevant forces shaping the decision-making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns parenting assessments which are integral to child-safeguarding professional processes in England, and which involve Deaf parents whose primary language is British Sign Language (BSL). In an under-researched area of social work, the research aim was to contribute to the existing literature by eliciting the practice wisdom of specialist professionals. Specifically, it draws upon their linguistic and cultural knowledge of the Deaf community when they are involved in parenting assessments with Deaf parents who are subject to safeguarding concerns. Data about these professionals' actual experiences of navigating Deaf cultural-competency in contemporary child protection practices were collected through seven video-recorded, semi-structured interviews conducted in BSL. Using interpretive phenomenological analysis, data were analysed in their source language (BSL). This article focusses on one key theme, termed 'Professional Recognition', which incorporates a) the identification of specialist roles and b) the impact of referral processes and protocols on assessment outcomes. The findings highlight participants' perspectives on the benefits and disadvantages of their specialist role in this context. Although their brokerage skills, cultural competence, linguistic fluency and specialist knowledge of the Deaf community are highly regarded and valued by some colleagues, there is insufficient recognition of their existence by the majority. Secondly, participants are concerned by the inefficiency and inconsistency of the referral processes and protocols which they consider have adverse effects on assessment outcomes, and consequently the parents involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose In the past 40 years, both health policy and educational policy in England have adopted commitments to reducing socially created inequalities. However, an inequalities perspective has only begun to emerge in relation to child protection, and child welfare services more widely. The purpose of this paper is to chart evidence of these green shoots of a new policy direction which focusses on two aspects: equalising service provision and outcomes for looked after children.Design/methodology/approach The paper provides an analysis of trends in policies as expressed in official documents, research studies and policy statements.Findings The paper outlines the argument for a more comprehensive approach to addressing inequalities in child protection and child welfare services, and concludes by suggesting some implications for policy and practice.Originality/value The paper develops the concept of an inequalities perspective in child protection and outlines key implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This discussion paper explores the state of contemporary child protection and the role of social work in England. Criticisms of the current approach to child protection social work are identified. It is argued here that there is an underlying debate between models of social work, which is reflected in contemporary child protection. An alternative approach to child protection (a public health model) is suggested which may provide a way forward beyond these debates. Child protection social work is contextualised within the wider context of social work in England. The key message of this paper is that contemporary child protection adopts a narrow approach to child welfare and the role of social work. A public health model of child protection provides a more comprehensive understanding of child welfare and links to a broader conception of the role of social work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) is responsible for inspecting services that care for children and young people in England and Wales. This paper presents findings from an independent study of Ofsted inspections into children's social care in England, covering reports under three inspection frameworks during the period 2009 to 2016. The research aimed to identify the main themes of recommendations made in Ofsted reports and to explore similarities and differences between frameworks and between local authorities. The methodological approach was document analysis. A stratified sample of 60 reports was prepared on the basis of inspection framework and local authority characteristics such as local deprivation, Ofsted rating, and urban/rural category. A thematic analysis was conducted of the recommendations in each report, with emerging themes subjected to an iterative process of coding and categorization. The findings identified nine categories of themes, the most common of which were performance management, casework, oversight of practice, and multiagency working. Overall, the recommendations were strongly oriented towards process issues and compliance with standards. Recommendations were found to differ somewhat between inspection frameworks but remained largely consistent between local authorities with different characteristics. The paper concludes by examining the implications of findings for the current regulatory framework in children's social care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically reviews some key government papers that together largely provide the foundation for the relevant child welfare reforms in England and Wales. The context of this review was to evaluate whether these papers and documents made sufficient reference to improving policies and practices for minority ethnic children and families involved in child welfare matters, given the research evidence from the early 1990s suggesting that such families may experience particular disadvantages or discriminations within the UK child welfare system. The research evidence cited draws upon studies that have considered the experiences of different minority ethnic groups from the point of referrals through to long term services, including those children who have been looked after in local authority care and those families that have been subject to care proceedings. This paper concludes that more is needed under the Every Child Matters agenda to both acknowledge and address the specific needs of minority ethnic children and their families, as identified in the range of studies published post Children Act 1989. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While many evidence-based tools and measures exist to support child protection practice, in the United Kingdom, there is little evidence of their routine use in casework. This paper reports on a qualitative study exploring the use of such tools with children and families receiving statutory social care services. Fifteen social workers working in child safeguarding teams in two local authorities in Southeast England agreed to incorporate the use of outcome measures into their casework over a 6-month period. Qualitative data were collected through monthly action learning workshops held separately in each local authority. The results showed how the impact of using the measures was shaped by a combination of institutional factors, practice context and the dynamics of casework. Outcome measures were found to have benefits as well as limitations with respect to partnership working, assessment and decision-making and overall social work practice. Implications are discussed for the prospects of enhancing the use of evidence-based tools in statutory social work with children and families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the concept of trust in relation to social work, child protection and work on domestic abuse. Trust is a complex notion. Borrowing from the arguments of Behnia that trust is the outcome of a process, the paper uses the talk of women who have experienced social work in the context of domestic abuse and child protection to consider the barriers to trust building. The evidence is gathered from three focus groups which formed part of an evaluation of a 'Freedom Programme'. The findings highlight issues with trust building that start with the context of living with abuse and work outwards to considerations of professional power, social work systems and wider inequality, suggesting an ecological approach to the trust-building process. The key argument is that social workers will struggle to gain trust within a system that sees domestic abuse as a hurdle that mothers must overcome, rather than a trauma through which they should be supported. The experiences of the women in this research, however, do show that trust and respect for voluntary service are achievable and that practice which builds alliances with the voluntary sector and service users could develop more trusting relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Social Work is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines the discretionary reasoning of the judiciary in three jurisdictions, England, Germany and Norway, in cases deciding whether a newborn child is safe with her parents or intervention is necessary. Our analysis focuses on one specific dimension of decision makers' exercise of discretion, namely, if and how the strengths and weaknesses of the mother are considered. The data material consists of all decisions concerning care orders of newborns from one large city in Germany from 2015 to 2017 (n = 27) and 2016 in Norway (n = 76) and all publicly available newborn removal decisions in England for 2015–2017 (n = 14). The findings reveal a high number of risk factors in the cases and less focus on risk‐reducing factors. The situation of the newborn is considered to be harmful, as most cases result in a care order. Judicial discretion differs by how much information, and what types of factors, are included in the justification for the decision. A learning point for decision makers and policymakers would be to actively undertake a balancing act between risk‐increasing and risk‐reducing factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on data from a qualitative case study of child protection social work in one local authority. Ethnographic methods were used and constructionist grounded theory employed to collect and analyse 329 pages of historical documents about the local authority child protection service, 246.5 hours of observations of social work practice and 19 interviews of social workers and their team managers. By interpreting the experiences of the social workers through the conceptual debates about the changes in the field of social administration, the social workers could be seen to want to perform a traditional form of social work but were required to perform a contemporary form of social administration. The aims and purposes of this form of practice could be considered to be distinct from those of social work as understood by the social workers, and as such, the social workers experienced the practice environment as constraining and often felt disillusioned. This paper conceptualizes these forms of practice, contributing to the debates about what practice is and how we are to analyse and categorize it for the purposes of influencing the institutions that create and maintain contemporary practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose How might the profession of child protection social work be “future proofed”, i.e. remain intact and of value beyond its present existence? The paper aims to discuss this issue.Design/methodology/approach This is a discussion/“think piece” paper, in which the author argues that foregrounding the art and science of helping relationships is a way forward. Recognising and promoting the centrality of helping relationships is the direction in which the author believes (or is it hopes?) social work should head, because “more of the same” is not, in the author’s view, possible to sustain for much longer. Treading the well-worn but pot-holed path of box-ticking, endless risk assessment and perfunctory statutory visiting is likely to lead to continuing problems retaining social workers and, for those who do stay, increased burnout, compassion fatigue and secondary trauma, each of which interrupts or delays the development of working alliances with family members.Findings Growing reliance on thresholds and checklists to assess risk has served to increase referrals. As a result, social workers spend much of their time on triaging and filtering rather than working with the children and families that most need help and protection. Further, it is not what is in the practitioner’s toolkit that matters: rather, it is a defined set of personal skills and qualities that tips the balance to achieve lasting change. Thus, in order to “future proof” social work, we would do well to deepen our understanding of how helping relationships can lead to lasting change. Supporting social workers in this work is not just the responsibility of individual practitioners and their professional bodies, action also needs to be taken at governmental and managerial levels.Originality/value This is a discussion/“think piece”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the changes in child protection policy and practice in England over the last 30 years, in particular to critically analyse the nature and impact of the “refocusing” initiative of the mid-1990s.Design/methodology/approach Policy analysis.Findings While the period from the mid-1990s until 2008 can be seen to show how policy and practice attempted to build on a number of the central principles of the “refocusing” initiative, the period since 2008 has been very different. Following the huge social reaction to the death of Peter Connelly, policy and practice moved in directions quite contra to the “refocusing” initiative’s aims and aspirations such that we can identify a refocusing of “refocusing”. Such developments were given a major impetus with the election of the Coalition government in 2010 and have been reinforced further following the election of the Conservative government in May 2015.Originality/value The paper places the changes in child protection policy and practice in England in their political and economic contexts and makes explicit how the changes impact on the role and responsibilities of professionals, particularly social workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a Freedom of Information request with data from 75 per cent of all English children's services departments covering over half a million children, this paper shows that 22.5 per cent of children born in the 2009-10 financial year were referred to children's social care before their fifth birthday. Three-quarters of them were at some point assessed, almost two-thirds found to be in need and a quarter formally investigated. These findings show the full extent of children's involvement in children's social care before the age of five. One in every nine children born in 2009-10 was suspected by social workers of being abused and this high level of involvement is only justifiable if it is demonstrably reducing harm and promoting well-being of children-- an outcome which is contested. Early Help's introduction was associated with high proportions of children being referred and assessed and rapidly increasing numbers of investigations, thus questioning its ability to prevent entry to the child protection system. The paper calls for a change from the current emphasis on individualised and investigative approaches to child protection in order to provide an effective and humane response to children, the majority of whom live in families affected by high levels of deprivation and poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Social Work is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper reports on an empirical study of child protection services in a local authority where rates of investigations and interventions rose to unprecedented levels during the course of a single year. The aim of the research was to explore explanations for this rise in demand among the providers of children's social care in the area. Using an interpretative qualitative design, a series of focus groups and interviews were carried out with practitioners and managers (n = 25) from statutory services and Early Help. The findings identified a combination of long‐term and short‐term drivers of demand. Long‐term factors emphasized the impact of rising levels of deprivation combined with cuts to community‐based services for children and young people. Short‐term factors ranged from a more proactive approach to child neglect to more effective multi‐agency partnerships and joint decision making. The interaction between these factors was found to be accentuating an underlying shift to "late intervention" across the sector. The findings are contextualized in relation to contemporary debates about the crisis of demand for children's social care and the complex relationship between prevention and protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When children are killed or seriously harmed from abuse or neglect, there is pressure to 'learn the lessons' to prevent similar events. England has a long-established system of locally-based multi-agency reviews for this, but the recurrence of tragedies and repetitive findings raise questions about its effectiveness. Reflecting and building on our research into reviews completed between 2017 and 2021, we analyse the complexity that routine criticisms of inter-agency working disguise, and argue that reviews are shaped by their multiple, competing functions. The stated purpose is to improve practice. Within this are other overt but ambiguous goals: establishing what happened, accountability, reassurance and commemoration. Then there are covert functions: to dissipate public outrage, deflect attention from underlying causes, and distort understandings of the work by making it seem straightforward. Reviews would benefit from paying more attention to the dynamics of frontline practice and the local actions to implement the lessons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Family Therapy is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose: Signs of Safety (SoS) is a strengths-based approach to child protection casework that has been widely adopted in countries across the world. The purpose of this paper is to report on a study that aimed to synthesise the many evaluations of SoS that have been conducted to assess their strengths and limitations. The intention is to identify the aspects which should be explored further and those that remain unexamined to inform future evaluations. Design/methodology/approach: The study collated and then examined many of the evaluations that are in the public domain as well as some of those that were conducted within agencies and have not been made publicly available. Findings: At the present time (early 2019), the evidence base for SoS is limited. Independent, robust research needs to be undertaken over time to build on the studies that have been conducted. New research must be designed to fill gaps and be capable of producing the evidence required and it must address its own limitations. Originality/value: This study is the most comprehensive contemporary review of the evaluations of SoS that have been conducted to the best of the authors' knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on doctoral research carried out in the UK into the experience of complexity in child protection work. The study explored what complexity meant for practitioners, and examined its significance for interprofessional working. A qualitative, case-based approach was adopted, drawing on the experiences of 17 practitioners working on two separate child protection cases. Participants were from a range of agencies, including children's social care, education, youth offending and child/adolescent mental health. Two rounds of semi-structured interviews were carried out over a period of four months. Interview transcripts were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis, a research methodology derived from qualitative psychology. The findings revealed complexity to be a multifaceted phenomenon, driven by the dynamics of cause and effect in open social systems. Practitioners' perception of unpredictability and volatility in these cases fed into various aspects of collaborative work: the experience of relationships, the process of assessment, efforts at intervention and concerns about risk. The paper concludes by exploring some implications for policy and practice in terms of how interprofessional networks are set up to manage the needs of vulnerable children and families. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Key Practitioner Messages Complexity makes it hard for practitioners to understand cause and effect, predict outcomes and control the course of events., To manage complexity, the team around the child may need to operate as a strategic unit rather than a collection of tactical interventions., When complex cases become 'stuck', professional networks may need additional support and consultation from specialist agencies., 'Complexity makes it hard for practitioners to understand cause and effect, predict outcomes and control the course of events' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how social workers can communicate effectively using an interpreter. It examines how child and family practitioners describe their experiences of working with interpreters and uses audio recordings of home visits to analyse how the challenges they describe manifest in practice. The analysis is based on audio recordings of nineteen interpreter-mediated meetings between workers and families, and two focus groups with practitioners. Recordings were categorised using quantitative coding, and data were analysed thematically. Although workers find using an interpreter challenging, in practice, skilled practitioners are able to work effectively providing they adopt an assertive approach. This is characterised by clarifying misunderstandings, involving the client in ‘chit-chat’ to build rapport and, where clients have differing levels of language proficiency, conducting the conversation entirely in the native language. The study demonstrates the centrality of social worker skills in managing interpreter-mediated sessions and improving practice for non-native-speaking families. This has implications for social work practice internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe the development of an evidence-based training intervention on domestic violence and child safeguarding for general practice teams. We aimed - in the context of a pilot study - to improve knowledge, skills, attitudes and self-efficacy of general practice clinicians caring for families affected by domestic violence. Our evidence sources included: a systematic review of training interventions aiming to improve professional responses to children affected by domestic violence; content mapping of relevant current training in England; qualitative assessment of general practice professionals' responses to domestic violence in families; and a two-stage consensus process with a multi-professional stakeholder group. Data were collected between January and December 2013. This paper reports key research findings and their implications for practice and policy; describes how the research findings informed the training development and outlines the principal features of the training intervention. We found lack of cohesion and co-ordination in the approach to domestic violence and child safeguarding. General practice clinicians have insufficient understanding of multi-agency work, a limited competence in gauging thresholds for child protection referral to children's services and little understanding of outcomes for children. While prioritising children's safety, they are more inclined to engage directly with abusive parents than with affected children. Our research reveals uncertainty and confusion surrounding the recording of domestic violence cases in families' medical records. These findings informed the design of the RESPONDS training, which was developed in 2014 to encourage general practice clinicians to overcome barriers and engage more extensively with adults experiencing abuse, as well as responding directly to the needs of children. We conclude that general practice clinicians need more support in managing the complexity of this area of practice. We need to integrate and further evaluate responses to the needs of children exposed to domestic violence into general practice-based domestic violence training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Child protection systems monitoring is key to ensuring children's wellbeing. In England, monitoring is rooted in onsite inspection, culminating in judgements ranging from 'outstanding' to 'inadequate'. But inspection may carry unintended consequences where child protection systems are weak. One potential consequence is increased child welfare intervention rates. In this longitudinal ecological study of local authorities in England, we used Poisson mixed-effects regression models to assess whether child welfare intervention rates are higher in an inspection year, whether this is driven by inspection judgement, and whether more deprived areas experience different rates for a given inspection judgement. We investigated the impact of inspection on care entry, Child Protection Plan-initiation, and child-in-need status. We found that inspection was associated with a rise in rates across the spectrum of interventions. Worse judgements yielded higher rates. Inspection may also exacerbate existing inequalities. Unlike less deprived areas, more deprived areas judged inadequate did not experience an increase in the less intrusive 'child-in-need' interventions. Our findings suggest that a narrow focus on social work practice is unlikely to address weaknesses in the child protection system. Child protection systems monitoring should be guided by a holistic model of systems improvement, encompassing the socioeconomic determinants of quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper discusses findings from an evaluation of an advocacy scheme for parents whose children were subject to child protection proceedings including a pilot project where co-operation between parents and professionals was an issue. Encouraging findings of parents' experiences of being heard, being able to listen, and, in some cases, to act on concerns about their children's welfare are outlined. Three case studies offer accounts of practices that are gendered and occur against a backdrop of ethnic disadvantage. The paper suggests that current debates about reform need to recognize the need to support parents to manage intimidating systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper describes a project undertaken by family centre staff, drawing on the ideas of the Marlborough Family Service in using multi-family groups as part of their parenting assessments. Child protection assessments are complex and have a far reaching effect on the lives of vulnerable children; practitioners can carry the burden of assessing parents' capacities to meet their children's needs without adequate supervision or support. Our project was developed following the implementation of a new policy, the Public Law Outline, requiring parenting assessments to be completed within a 40-week time frame. We were concerned that this would not afford the opportunity to develop a sufficient relationship with families to provide a thorough assessment. The paper describes the incorporation of multi-family days into the parenting assessments and the effect of this work on clients and practitioners. This paper is a practice paper, rather than a formal evaluation, and describes a project in which family centre workers sought to provide a model of assessment based on working as part of a team, managing uncertainty and valuing the opportunity to develop a relationship with clients in order to make an assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 40 years child protection systems in all Advanced Western Societies have been subject to high profile criticisms and regular major reviews. In many respects the Munro Review of Child Protection (2011) in England, is very different to those which have gone before. This paper summarises the main findings and recommendations of The Review and locates it in its immediate policy and practice contexts. The paper also begins to identify some of its possible gaps and challenges and argues that the success of The Review is likely to depend on cultural, political and economic factors well beyond its influence and outlines what these are. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the indicative link between disorganised attachment and child maltreatment in the context of child protection social work in England. Attachment researchers are showing an increasing interest in the concept of disorganised attachment but there is also a growing interest as to how child protection social workers can more reliably detect child maltreatment by developing their knowledge of disorganised attachment. This paper sets out to examine what is known about the link between disorganised attachment and child maltreatment and considers how the legal concept of ‘significant harm’ fits with this link. Reference is made to the Assessment of Disorganised Attachment and Maltreatment (ADAM) project, set up with the aim of educating child protection social workers in the use of disorganised attachment as an especially useful method of assessing whether a child is at risk of significant harm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically reflects on policy developments and debates in England in relation to child protection and safeguarding over the past twenty years. It argues that the period from the early 1990s to late 2008 saw policy change in significant ways. The state developed a much broader focus of concern about what constituted risk to children and what the role of professionals should be in relation to this; increasingly, the emphasis was upon ‘safeguarding’ rather than ‘child protection’. However, the period since late 2008 has not only seen the focus shift more centrally to child protection, but there has been a renewed official priority given to social work. These developments have been given an added impetus with the election of the Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition government in May 2010. The paper concludes by considering the current state and possible future directions for child protection and safeguarding in England and the role of social work in this. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper describes an innovative systems methodology for evaluating child protection social work practice and improving organisational learning. It draws on learning in other high-risk areas where the importance of understanding performance in context has been recognised. Using a case study for illustration, the methodology is presented. This evaluative approach engages management, staff, service users and other stakeholders in assessing the factors that influence practice and outcomes. The data collection tools developed included surveys to reach staff, multi-agency professionals and service users, together with in-depth interviews to get a deep understanding of causal factors and their interactions. Data included organisational cultural factors that influence the effectiveness of decision making, improve patterns of interaction with families and other professionals, remove constraints on practice, help prioritisation and improve consistency of care. The paper discusses some of the practical implications of applying the instruments, such as avoiding bias and dealing with unresponsiveness. It also supports the gathering of feedback from vulnerable service users. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Laming Report into the death of Victoria Climbie reiterated the long-standing critique of inadequate communication and coordination amongst the key professions and agencies. It led directly to the Green Paper, Every Child Matters in 2003 and the subsequent Children Act 2004. Amongst other things the Act proposes the establishment of a database on every child, which would be accessible to a range of practitioners – a measure that has been hotly contested. This article examines the reasons for this contestation and explores the extent to which a compromise might be judged to have dislodged a key policy objective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent legal and policy changes, including the introduction of the Human Rights Act, provide the context for the new child welfare and protection policies proposed for England. These proposals are discussed from a legal perspective in relation to early and coordinated intervention, sharing information between agencies and with children and families, partnership with children, information management, and structural and legal change. Consideration is also given to issues overlooked by the Green Paper, such as immigration and asylum, youth justice and the whole family justice system. The discussion concludes by arguing for the need for integrating cultural and structural change and for leadership (and investment of resources) across government to achieve such goals. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes ‘comprehensive neighbourhood mapping’ as a schema for gathering and interpreting information within a given geographical area which is informed by imaginative thinking about the safety of children and young people from sexual crime. It would build upon current forms of profiling by local authorities, health authorities and central Government. CNM would actively involve local people, in partnership with agencies, in ‘mapping’ danger points and support points. Eight components are discussed, including environmental issues, locations of sex offenders, sites where teenagers meet and share information, supportive individuals and organizations. Some issues for pilot projects are discussed, including the need to set up planning and implementation groups and to integrate CNM into wider child protection and community safety strategies. CNM is grounded in an ecological perspective which sees partnership approaches as essential and believes an overarching view of neighbourhood needs, based on detailed local information and understanding of how different forms of harm interconnect, is crucial in developing child protection strategies. At times of acute official anxiety about community ‘lynch-mob’ reactions to known paedophiles, CNM aims to build communities which instead are informed and thoughtful about child protection. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper describes an evaluation carried out by South Bank University of the work of the Family Welfare Association’s (FWA’s) Family Support Services (FSSs) in Tower Hamlets, London. Tower Hamlets is a multi-racial area in east London that, according to the 1991 census, has high levels of poverty, overcrowding and unemployment. Increasing poverty and social exclusion, which further entrench inequalities in health, are reported by sources such as government, health and social services and research as requiring innovative local responses to meet pressing welfare needs. The evaluation reported here examined three projects: Family Support, Building Bridges and Quality Protects – these are referred to collectively as FSSs. The evaluation shows that FSSs are innovative services that demonstrate effective ways of working with vulnerable families affected by experiences of racism, bullying, mental health difficulties, domestic violence or child abuse. In common with other successful initiatives in the UK and abroad, FSSs are aimed to be non-stigmatising, non-intrusive and responsive to the ethnicity, views and specific needs of families. This paper focuses on the participatory work of FSSs with families to illustrate effective methods of quality support, detail outcomes, and draw lessons for policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper draws on research into child welfare services in France, Germany and England which compares the subjective experience of mothers who have been in contact with family support and child protection agencies in the three countries. The mothers' stories suggest that successful help-achieving strategies differ according to the nature of the child welfare regime, and that behaviour which is effective in getting a good response in one country may work less well elsewhere. The stories of two mothers in each of the countries have been chosen to demonstrate how the structures of different social welfare regimes affect the efforts of welfare users to get the help they need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the interlocking roles of ethnicity and deprivation in producing inequities in the proportion of children who are subject to state child protection interventions. In contrast to the USA, ethnic inequities have had little attention in research or policy in the UK and across Europe, and administrative data are limited and methodologically weak. A study of over 10 per cent of all children on child protection plans or who were looked after in out-of-home care in England in March 2012 is reported. Children from ethnic minority categories were much more likely than 'White' children to be living in disadvantaged areas and this has to be taken into account when examining intervention rates. Controlling for deprivation and examining small subgroups of the broad ethnic categories radically alters the simple understanding that 'Black' children are overrepresented compared to White amongst children in out-of-home care, while 'Asian' children are under-represented. While this study could not explain these patterns, it reinforces the importance of both socio-economic circumstances and ethnicity for understanding inequities in intervention rates. The evidence underlines the powerful moral and economic case for action to reduce inequities in powerful state interventions in family life, not only in England, but internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Written records belie the complexity of social work practice. And yet, keeping good records is a key function for social workers in England (and elsewhere). Written records provide a future reference point for children, especially those in public care. They are foundational for the inspection of children's services. They provide practitioners and managers with an opportunity to record their thinking and decisions. They add to result from and cause much of the bureaucratic maze that practitioners have to navigate. As part of a wider study of child and family social work practice, this paper describes an analysis of more than 200 written records of supervision. These records primarily contain narrative descriptions of activity, often leading to a set of actions for the social worker to complete - what they should do next. Records of why these actions are necessary and how the social worker might undertake them are usually absent, as are records of analytical thinking or the child's views. This suggests that written records of supervision are not principally created in order to inform an understanding of the social work decision-making process; rather, they are created to demonstrate management oversight of practice and the accountability of the practitioner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on an international comparative study of social work decision making in cases that are on the edge of care order proceedings, involving child protection workers from Finland, Norway, England and the USA (California). It focuses on workers' responses in an online questionnaire to questions about the use of independent experts to inform their decisions about whether or not to take a case to court. All the countries try to avoid taking cases to court if possible, but the ways they do this vary considerably. The findings show the different meanings and implications that the request for an independent assessment has in the different systems. Workers' views reflect the roles and tasks that independent experts have in the different countries; and these in turn reflect their distinctive child protection systems and wider child welfare approaches. The paper offers a starting point for reflection about one's own system, and suggests that the well-known distinction between family support and child protection models should not be seen as a simple binary categorisation, but rather as a complex, contingent and contested continuum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This recruitment of international social workers (ISWs) in England has been primarily aimed at 'plugging the gaps' in the child protection services. This paper reports on one aspect of a qualitative research project investigating the post-arrival integration, professional practice and development of 'international social workers', namely those trained and qualified outside of the UK working in London and the Home Counties. Findings demonstrate that, as well as being a challenging professional and work experience, this form of labour mobility is a profound life event for most ISWs and, as with human migration in other fields and countries, entails a complex social, emotional and cultural transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]