In his Founder’s lecture at the 2015 BASPCAN congress in Edinburgh, Professor Nigel Parton argued that we are undergoing a shift in the culture of child protection in this country (Parton, 2016). He highlighted how the Children Act 1989 and subsequent Working Together guidance was rooted in a number of high profile cases, and primarily related to physical and sexual abuse within the family:
‘The Children Act 1989 was thus centrally concerned with trying to establish a new set of balances between the state and the family in the care and protection of children. I argued (Parton, 1992) that the idea of child protection at that time, in the early 1990s, was essentially concerned with both the protection of children from ‘significant harm’ in the family and also the protection of the family from
unwarrantable and inappropriate state interventions. Crucially the focus of law, policy and practice was how we could best address the abuse of children within the family and the primary concerns were physical and sexual abuse.’ (Parton, 2016, p.10)
While the necessity of balancing support and scrutiny remains, and perhaps in many ways has become even more critical, many other aspects of our child protection culture have shifted. Professor Parton identified four particularly significant developments:
An increasing focus on the full range of the life-course from pre-birth to young adulthood, particularly as the dangers of child neglect in the early months of life and its impact on the brain and child development have received considerable attention;
The recognition that young people themselves, as well as adults, can perpetrate abuse;
The growth of new dangers including those related to the internet and a range of forms of social media and, most recently, the dangers of ‘radicalisation’;
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The identification of new forms of abuse which include female genital mutilation, forced marriage and child sexual exploitation. (Parton, 2016, p.11)
Some of these developments have been identified in this triennial review, in particular issues around child sexual exploitation and wider aspects of adolescent vulnerability. However, the first of his points highlights an important issue which was identified in our review and potentially has quite far-reaching implications for our culture of child
protection, suggesting the need for a shift in emphasis from incident-based or episodic models of care to a more ongoing culture of long-term and continuous support and protection.
8.4.1 Moving from episodic to long-term models of support and
intervention
The interaction of child vulnerability with parent/carer risk identified in the ‘pathways to harm’ model in Chapter 1 is not a linear process which results in single episodes of harm to the child; rather it represents an ongoing, fluctuating and at times cyclical interplay of vulnerability and risk within which a child may suffer multiple and ongoing harms, even without any specific, serious incident. For many of the cases we examined, it was clear that the final serious or fatal harm represented just one episode in that child’s life, by which time it was too late for professionals to intervene to prevent the harm. A child protection system based on responding to identifiable incidents can end up with
professionals working on a ‘firefighting’ basis rather than considering longer term impacts of risk and vulnerability, as in the following case in which the police responded to specific incidents of domestic abuse, but did not address wider issues of ongoing concern:
“Most incidents were dealt with in isolation and the cumulative effect of domestic abuse was not sufficiently recognised by any of the involved agencies. The interventions which did take place appeared to do nothing to cease the pattern of alcohol abuse and domestic abuse continuing.”
In cases such as these, the nuances of long-term vulnerability and risk are incompatible with an episodic approach. They instead require coordinated and holistic planning and intervention, particularly when dealing with underlying emotional abuse and neglect:
“There was no recognition of the chronic nature of the emotional abuse and
neglect experienced by the children and the need for an ongoing well-coordinated multi agency plan. Chronic neglect does not generally respond to short term
approaches and requires medium to long term work to achieve the best outcomes. The challenge for multi-agency partnerships is how best to deliver this help and engage with often hard to reach families.”
The use of chronologies and systematic review of the history and development of a case can facilitate recognition of the accumulation of concerns. In the following case, in which
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a young child was killed in a violent assault by the mother’s partner, this was identified as an opportunity which might have made a difference to the outcome:
“However, other identified improvements, such as a reduction in anti-social behaviour and inappropriate visitors, could not be assumed to be long term given [the partner’s] previous history. Children’s Services have recognised that this case … suffered from a lack of a chronology. Had there been a systematic review of history relating to both children, the development of a pattern of predominantly low level concerns should have been visible and a more cautious assessment adopted towards [the partner’s] ability to maintain improvements.”
Long-term planning
With many underlying parental risks, including substance misuse and domestic abuse, the nature of these issues are such that the risks extend over long periods of time and cannot be confined to specific, identifiable incidents. When dealing with such issues, there is a need to move away from incident-based models of intervention to consider the ongoing lived experience of the child and parent, how resilience can be promoted, and what ongoing support and monitoring is required.
Thinking within these terms allows professionals to view safeguarding events
cumulatively and permits a view of a case from which a long-standing issues can be ascertained. This also facilitates a measure of improvement, where the impact of interventions can be considered and sustained. In the following two cases a more proactive approach was identified, illustrating how acknowledging the long-standing nature of an issue permits work that encompasses monitoring, review, and revision, and provides a context for escalation at appropriate times, not just relying on individual incidents of harm:
“The social worker emailed the Drug Agency worker requesting regular updates on [the father’s] engagement with the service and results of drug screens. The social worker attached details about the Public Law Outline process and a copy of the partnership agreement made with the parents. This ensured that the Drug Agency worker was aware of the plans for monitoring the family situation and their part in it.”
“The learning mentor outlined concerns about the children being poorly dressed and having poor hygiene and recorded that the social worker said the case was going to be “stepped up as the parents are not improving” and that there would probably be a Child Protection Plan due to long-term neglect.”
Such an approach does not lend itself to well-defined episodes of care, nor to the constraints of our current child protection systems. There have been welcome moves over recent years to improve the rigour of child protection plans, and to ensure that cases are not left to drift for months or years with no tangible improvement in the lives of the