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This article, written with parents as co-authors, has two aims: (1) to provide a critical view of the English child protection system based on parents' views and to locate these views within contemporary child protection studies and (2) to present the transformative value of co-production in the context of child protection studies both as a form of critical scholarship and as a means to influence policy and practice. The current children's social work system in England does not achieve good outcomes for families, and many children and parents frequently experience it as stigmatizing, inhumane, and harmful. The article presents the experience and recommendations for change produced by parents with a broad range of experience with child protection services in England. The Parents, Families and Allies Network worked with five allied organizations in which parents identified the extensive range of problems that the current system presents and ways forward to achieve more supportive, humane, and inclusive practice with families. Seven main themes emerged: a better definition of need and response to need; partnership, participation, and humane practice; improving legal representation and support in legal proceedings; better support in care proceedings; permanence that maintains links; a better response to domestic violence; and the lack of support for disabled children. The article discusses five features of the project that supported meaningful co-production: taking a political stance, choosing clear and feasible aims, incorporating a range of knowledge, the participation of parents with lived experience throughout all phases of the project, and not settling with just knowledge production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This study provides an analysis of the 'investigative turn' in England by comparing two large cohorts of children, one whose fifth birthday was in 2011–12 and the other in 2016–17. It shows a 35% increase in children investigated before their fifth birthday to a rate of one in every 16 children in 2017. Investigations were less likely to lead to a child protection plan and there was a 60% increase in children facing the collateral damage of an unfounded investigation. Where it was deemed necessary to respond to child protection concerns with a plan of action concerns were focussed less on immediate safety and more on the long-term effects of neglect or emotional harm caused by a range of family related problems. The rate of children separated from their parents at the age of five had substantially increased and there were wide variations in adoption and child protection trends between local authorities. The study shows that the chances of a family receiving support or being split up are determined by national and local policies, resources and a growing culture of child rescue responses to family difficulties. Highlights • There was an increase of over 35% in the rate of children adopted or investigated for child protection concerns before the age of five in 2016–17 compared to 2011–12 • There was a 60% increase in rate of children subject of unfounded child protection investigation in 2016–17 compared to 2011–12 • 1 in every 16 children was investigated before the age of 5 and 1 in every 38 children had an unfounded investigation • The rate of five-year-old children separated from parents almost doubled since 2000 when the numbers in care, adoption and special guardianship are combined • Where adoption increased the most there was a larger than average increase in involvement in child protection at all levels [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses a fourteen-year period of Western Australian data from the client information system of the Department for Child Protection and Family Support. Western Australia saw a large increase in the number of children in state care similar to trends across Australia as a whole. The study shows the following trends: changes in response to ‘referrals' with particular increases in the number of findings of neglect and increasing proportions of these followed swiftly by entry to care; changes in patterns of entry to care with more children under one-year-old entering; increased length of stay of children in care; and, the high incidence of Aboriginal children entering and remaining in care. The data demonstrate unequivocally that increased ‘referrals’ are not associated with increased substantiations of harm or ‘acts of commission with dangerous intent’, but that neglect assessed early in the lives of children was the major precipitant for entry to care and particularly so for Aboriginal infants. [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]

This studyofmanagement informationprovidesdataonall reports, investigations andfindings of maltreatment of children inWestern Australia from their birth in 1990 or 1991 until their eighteenth birthday. It provides prevalence rates of children being reported, investigated and found to have beenmaltreated. A study of more recent cohorts shows trends in recent years. A key finding is that over 13 per cent of all children born in 1990 and 1991 were reported before reaching the age of eighteen, although 71 per cent of them were not found to have beenmaltreated. International data suggest this rate of one in eight children being reportedmay be equalled or exceeded in countrieswith anAnglo-American forensic child protection system. Therewas also a disturbing increase in reports of Aboriginals andTorres Strait Islanders in recent cohortswithanestimatethatalmosthalfof thoseborn in 2004 had been reported before their fifth birthday. These findings add further evidence to the need for socialwork to address and severely limit investigative approaches. In this way, social workers will provide support rather than continuing practices involving high rates of surveillance and a focus on parental blame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: There is extensive research demonstrating the negative effects of institutionalisation on infants. Gatekeeping has been widely promoted as a key strategy to combat unnecessary institutionalisation. Its aim is to provide a range of services and a system of decision making based on assessments of children and families to ensure effective targeting of services. This paper provides details of research into the gatekeeping system in Bulgaria for children under three and examples from recent Bulgarian and international practice. It suggests that gatekeeping could benefit from a social development orientation including activities to combat poverty and promote social inclusion through supporting community and family strengths. The paper proposes changes to the orientation of gatekeeping for effective national strategies to combat institutionalisation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article uses a comprehensive database about children in adversity collected over the 16-year period from 1990 to 2005 in the state of Western Australia. The focus of this interrogation is the effect of major changes in responses to information about children brought to the attention of the Western Australian statutory authority in a 10-year period during this 16 years. The initiative for these changes was termed New Directions , and its associated policy and practice changes were aimed at differentiating information expressing concerns about children and families from allegations of child maltreatment. They emphasized the provision of supportive and empowering services to families experiencing difficulties – a form of differential response to children in adversity. The article covers the period leading up to the policy and practice change and the 10 years during which these changes were implemented. It examines some effects of the new policy and comments on whether the changes resulted in missed opportunities to protect children from harm, which in turn, might have led to higher rates of re-reporting. The authors present an overall picture of the nature of the information accepted by the statutory authority and how the interpretation of that information might have affected subsequent outcomes for children. In doing so, it shows that the policy and consequential practice changes associated with a differential response mechanism had long lasting positive effects that, despite dire warnings, did not compromise the protection of the small group of children identified as requiring protective interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]