An overview of the Scottish multidisciplinary child protection review.

Following the murder of a young child by her stepfather a ministerial review of child protection across Scotland was established. It was carried out by a multidisciplinary team of representatives from education, health-nursing, health-medical, police, social work and the Reporter to the Children's Hearing. The review comprised a number of subprojects and included a direct audit of the practice of all the key agencies. The views of the general public, parents, children and professionals were obtained via a set of consultation subprojects. The audit of practice was built around a set of individual, in-depth case studies. The cases were drawn from the spectrum of child care and protection cases by sampling from cases known to health visitors, education departments, the police and social work departments. The audit considered compliance with guidance, but the key focus was on outcomes for children. The findings indicated that although there were many examples of good practice with children, a significant number of children were left unprotected or their needs were not met. The issues were not unique to Scotland and are discussed under four key areas. The paper sets out the extent of chronic need amongst the child population that the audit revealed, looks at the messages from consultation about issues of accessing help for children or by children directly, and describes some shortcomings of the current system. Finally the paper analyses the ways that the different agencies interact and sets out a model for how the system can provide a protective network for children who are in need of protection and support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]