Working for Children on the Child Protection Register

An Inter-Agency Practice Guide

Martin C. Calder, Jan Horwath

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138370173
• eBook ISBN: 9780429766138
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Marriage & Family Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

First published in 1999, this innovative book explores in detail the essential components of working with families whose children are on the Child Protection Register. It provides a comprehensive guide to professionals, highlighting and addressing the gaps and ambiguities in central government guidance. The chapters, written by academics and leading professionals in the field, offer multi-disciplinary perspectives on models of assessment, core group practice, child protection plans and working in partnership with children and families. Practical guidance is offered to those who participate in post-registration practice and to those who participate in post-registration practice and to those who supervise or train professionals working in this area.

This volume is of particular relevance to practitioners, students, managers and trainers in social work, health, education, probation and voluntary settings. It provides a unique collection of case examples, checklists and exercises enabling the reader to develop their own practice or use the material as a framework for promoting inter-agency practice within the supervision nor training context.

1
The background and current context of post-registration practice

Jan Horwath and Martin C. Colder

In this chapter consideration is given to the following:

• the historical development of child protection practice over the last 25 years;
• the current framework for post-registration practice;
• research findings: the implications for practice development;
• issues and tensions faced by managers and practitioners working within the current child protection system; and
• a conceptual framework for developing post-registration practice at a local level.

Introduction

Anyone currently working in the area of child protection needs no reminding of the emotional stresses and strains of this kind of work. The very nature of the task, which involves intervening in situations where a child may have been abused, is complex and can be distressing. However, the situation is exacerbated by a lack of guidance, which can result in a lack of clarity regarding the task and the roles and responsibilities of the different professionals. In addition, a climate of continual change is a fact of life for all those working in social care settings. Changes are occurring at a local level in terms of reorganisation regarding arrangements for the commissioning and delivery of services. A change in philosophy is also taking place at both a national and local level as those working in the area of child protection are being asked to refocus - balancing the needs of children who have been abused with children in need. It is against this backcloth that professionals are working with children and families where the children have been suffering, or there is concern that they are likely to suffer, significant harm and the children’s names have consequently been placed on the child protection register.

In this chapter we consider the impact of the national and local frameworks for post-registration practice on the way in which professionals work together to protect children on the register. We identify ways in which practice could be improved and offer a conceptual framework enabling ACPCs to develop a response that meets local needs and addresses local problems.

The evolution of working together in child protection

To begin to understand current post-registration practice frameworks it is necessary to consider ways in which child protection practice has evolved. Although government circulars dating back to 1945 encouraged more inter-agency collaboration in cases of child abuse, the first actual guidance in England and Wales, on inter-agency post-registration practice, emerged in 1974 (DHSS, 1974), when the current child protection system was established in embryonic form. At this juncture, the emphasis remained on the recognition, diagnosis and initial management of cases. However, the guidance stated that professionals at the initial conference should formulate a future plan for each child placed on the child protection register as being at risk of abuse. A subsequent DHSS circular (DHSS, 1980) extended the earlier guidance, broadening the criteria for registration and thus entry into the child protection system. It emphasised the need for professionals to monitor and review the plan of intervention for the family. The circular offered no guidance as to how the monitoring of the effectiveness of the plan should be achieved. However, it was clearly seen as a task for professionals, as parents were not allowed to attend either the initial or the review conference.

By the late 1970s, several child deaths linked to neglect and physical injury were brought to public and professional attention. A government review into these deaths (DHSS, 1982) highlighted a worrying combination of failings in the inter-agency system: information scattered between a number of agencies, meaning that information remained uncollated, a lack of clarity of respective roles and responsibilities and a lack of focus in terms of case planning. One of the recommendations of the review was the notion of a ‘small group’ which should be responsible for the formulation and implementation of a plan of action to protect a child from further abuse. It was intended that the plan should be based on an assessment of the needs of the child. The notion of a ‘core group’ to promote interdisciplinary practice was beginning to emerge.

In response to the identified failings of the existing system, the government issued a draft guide on arrangements for inter-agency cooperation (DHSS, 1986). Whilst this maintained a principal focus on the reporting and initial management of child abuse cases, it did give some consideration to the post-registration phase, clarifying the purpose of the child protection register: ‘providing a record of all children who are currently the subject of an inter-agency protection plan and to ensure that the plans are formally reviewed at least every six months’ (ibid.: 20). The guide distinguished between short-term plans (devised for the immediate protection of the child based on information from the investigation and tabled at a conference) and longer-term protection plans (based on an assessment of need that should be undertaken while the short-term plan was being implemented). The processing of the longer-term plans was the responsibility of the core group of professionals who were expected to work together to implement and review the plan (ibid.: 16). The core group remit was extended beyond a professional forum to, ‘meet as a group with the parents from time to time in the course of their work with the family’ (ibid.: 19).

The guidance regarding the child protection review was also made more specific. A Social Services Inspectorate report had expressed concerns about the vague and imprecise goals set by reviews (SSI, 1986). This was addressed in the guidance, which stated that a task for the review was to evaluate critically plans tabled by the core group, rather than uncritically endorsing them. Members of the review were also expected to make recommendations about alternative options regarding the focus of work with the child and family.

Under the 1980 guidance, the criteria for registration were broadened to include sexual abuse, resulting in an increase in the number of children placed on the child protection register and a subsequent increase in post-registration work. However, events in Cleveland concerning the management of cases of child sexual abuse resulted in the draft guidance (DHSS, 1986) remaining in its draft form for two years, waiting for the recommendations of the Cleveland Inquiry (Butler-Sloss, 1988). This inquiry was established to explore the management of allegations of sexual abuse, the invasion of family privacy, the lack of consultation with parents and different (polarised) professional perspectives (Calder, 1995). It also had to consider why there was so much emphasis on immediate protective strategies at the expense of current and planned interventions. Working Together (DHSS, 1988a), influenced by the recommendations of the Cleveland Inquiry, was finally issued and represented a significant shift in thinking about family involvement at all stages of the child protection process, with parents being included in part of the conference and in core groups. Even where parents were excluded from, or chose not to attend, meetings there was an expectation that they would receive written confirmation of the inter-agency action plan, setting out the reasons for the plan, the services to be provided for the family and the professional and family expectations of each other. Acting on the increase in isolated practice as reflected in child abuse enquiries, this guidance strongly reinforced the principle that child protection was the responsibility of all the agencies, and simultaneous guidance was issued to schools (DoE, 1988), doctors (DHSS, 1988b), and senior nurses, health visitors and midwives (DHSS, 1988c). This signified a move from emphasis on systems to emphasis on professional roles and responsibilities.

The 1988 guidance acknowledged that no child’s name should be added to the child protection register simply because the criteria were met. There was a second threshold to cross: that there was a demonstrable need for an inter-agency child protection plan. This was an important development as it acknowledged the need to gatekeep, or actively restrict, the increasing numbers of registered cases. The initial conference, having deemed registration appropriate, now delegated the responsibility for conducting the assessment and formulating the child protection plan to the core group. Although the thrust of the guidance was to advocate collective responsibility, this was offset by a clear acknowledgement that social services (through the keyworker) were responsible for coordinating the contributions of all the agencies to the identified work. The guidance changed the positioning of short- and long-term plans within the system in order to accommodate the findings of a ‘comprehensive social, medical and developmental assessment’ in the equation. The core group was expected to translate the recommendations of the initial conference into a short-term written child protection plan whose remit extended to the commissioning of assessments. Upon completion of these pieces of work, the core group resubmitted its findings to the child protection review which was responsible for formulating the ‘longer-term’ plan and then for reviewing it at significant points in its implementation. The review was being established as the forum where plans were critically evaluated to measure whether the objectives of the plan were being achieved and to reformulate them if necessary.

In response to the increase in multidisciplinary assessments that professionals were expected to undertake, the government issued a guide for social workers undertaking a comprehensive assessment for children on the child protection register (DoH, 1988). The guide, known as the ‘Orange Book’, was influenced by a range of different models of assessment, including the observation and assessment methods used by residential social workers (Katz, 1997). The guide sets out 167 questions organised around several key areas, not to establish whether a child has been abused but to ‘understand the child’s and family’s situation more fully in order to provide a sound basis for decisions about future actions’ (DoH, 1988: 21).

Although the guidance provided a new structural framework for post-registration child protection practice, it failed to provide any guidance on the way the tasks within this phase should be completed. However, the guiding principles for inter-agency collaboration in post-registration practice, established in 1986, have remained in force to the present day.

Working together under the Children Act 1989: the current framework for post-registration practice

The Children Act 1989 was introduced onto the statute books on 14 October 1991, accompanied by guidance designed to act as a means of providing more detail about specific areas of child care practice. The guidance most relevant to post-registration child protection practice was Working Together under the Children Act (DoH, 1991). This guidance provides the current framework for child protection practice in England and Wales. It describes the ways in which agencies should work together throughout the child protection process. Unfortunately, as with earlier guidance, much of the emphasis is on the role of professionals identifying and investigating potential cases of child abuse and neglect under section 47 of The Children Act 1989. The guidance does, however, outline the structure, process and content of post-registration practice, as shown in Figure 1.1. The child protection process is described below, with emphasis on the post-registration phase.

The chil...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on the contributors
• Introduction
• 1 The background and current context of post-registration practice
• 2 Policies and procedures: developing a framework for working together
• 3 Assessment and planning
• 4 The role of the keyworker
• 5 Groupwork processes and the impact on working together in core groups
• 6 Core groups and partnership: three models and a case study
• 7 Towards anti-oppressive practice with ethnic minority groups
• 8 Core groups: a catalyst for change?
• 9 The role of the social services first-line manager
• 10 The roles and responsibilities of health service personnel
• 11 Helping teachers to help children
• 12 Inter-agency training for post-registration practice
• General index
• Index of authors cited