This critical reflection work is based on a family that l worked with in my first year of
social work practice while based at the Longsight District office of Manchester
Children Services. It will explore practice in relation to risk, legislation and social
work theories. The local authority’s policies and procedures will also be included
within the discussion.
The names of individuals in this essay have been anonymised to protect their identities
in line with the Data Protection Act (2018). I selected the Hems family due to the
presence of thematic risks identified in research commissioned by the Department of
Education, including the analyses of Serious Case Reviews (Brandon et al., 2012). In
the research, it was collated that the risk of child abuse and neglect emanating from a
child’s exposure to domestic violence, parent mental health and substance abuse
issues significantly increased where these factors overlapped.
When l was allocated the Hems family, children services were involved due to low
level neglect and domestic violence between parents. Parents were both born in
England, father, Nico, to Pakistani parents and mother, Lisa to a black West Indian
father and a white British mother. The six children of mixed heritage were aged
between two and ten years. Lisa was pregnant with their seventh child. Parents, Lisa
and Nico, were aged twenty-eight and thirty-two respectively. According to Lisa, in
their eleven-year-old cyclical relationship, they lived together for about a year. Nico
had his own property while Lisa lived with the children in a three bedroomed semidetached house. Nico had alcohol and drug issues, he managed his mental health
using prescribed medication with the support of his mother and father.
According to Abisheva & Assylbekova (2016), managing risk in institutions is about
the application of legislation, policies, and procedures to the tasks of identifying,
assessing and analysing risks with intention to determine the degree of exposure
that the organisations can tolerate. The statutory framework for social worker
involvement in families is underpinned by the Children Act 1989 (CA (1989). The Act
unified multiple pieces of legislation governing child law and services into one with a
firm set of underlying principles. The local authority has a duty to maintain the
welfare of children under Section 17, child/ren in need. Under Section 47, in order to
safeguard children, the local authority must make enquiries concerning significant
harm to minors. After more than a decade of its implementation, research by Algate
and Stattham commissioned by the government was published in 2001. It sought to
set out how the Act was being implemented in practice and whether it was making
the difference that legislators intended it to. The research found three main
difficulties in the implementation of the CA (1989). Firstly, the lack of understanding
of section 17 statutory duties and secondly the use of risk as an eligibility criterion for
“in need” assessments. Last but not least was the financial and service demand
consequences of having a broad definition of child in need (Aldgate & Statham,
2001). In 2019, the review of children’s legislation by The Association of Directors of
Children’s Services (ADCS) lamented the lack of financial support and resources to
achieve the vision as contained in the CA (1989). This led to professional’s
frustrations with the present system not the legal framework. Morris (2005) echoed
these financial challenges saying the definition of “in need” is too broad for local
authorities to respond to as contained in Section 17, thus, to ration access to
services, risk became the eligibility criterion. Agency thresholds vary depending on
the local resources and system demands in managing the risk (Platt & Turney,
2013). Research shows that children with disability are at higher risk of significant
harm. The CA (1989) reflects this fact under section 17 where all children with a
disability are “children in need”. Their social care needs are to be assessed and
supported by the local authority. Other child/ren assessed as “in need” are not
entitled to such support or services. Effectively, all needs assessments undertaken
under the CA (1989) are de facto risk assessments, the risk of significant harm
determines the level of intervention by the local authority and partner agencies.
In children services, all partners involved with a child should work together to prevent
significant harm to the child. This is emphasised in the statutory guidance Working
Together to Safeguard Children, updated in July 2018 to reflect changes brought
about by the Children and Social Work Act 2017. It sets out how individuals and
organisations should work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children
and young people. The Hems children were placed on the Child Protection (CP)
register and as the allocated social worker, statutory guidance specifies my role of
leading the core group of professionals. This includes arranging meetings, chairing
them, distributing minutes, and developing the outline plan into a full Child Protection
plan. The Initial Child Protection Conference (ICPC) was on 21 December. With Lisa
due to go into maternity hospital, it became necessary to have the first core group
meeting the next day to comply with statutory requirements; to have the first core
group meeting within ten days of the children being placed on the CP register. I
chaired the core group meeting the next day. Professionals involved with the family
had distinct remit, for mother or father, a total of nine agencies including myself. Nico
had professionals from probation, mental health and from the alcohol and drug
support organisation, Change Grow Live (CGL). The number of professionals
involved presented challenges as it could lengthen the meetings, lack of attendance
by professionals working with Nico, the risk factor and cause drifting from the agenda
of child safeguarding. So, in the first core group meeting, l weighed the benefits of
separate core group meetings for Nico and Lisa. In addition to the challenges of the
high number of professionals, separate meetings would create an empowering
environment for mother to be able to speak out and have a secret safety plan for the
children. Separate meetings enable the perpetrator to be held accountable by
professionals he is aware of and are working with him.
Theories contribute to the overall understanding of human situations, including
environmental and psychological factors. In this regard, social workers use their
knowledge from various disciplines to better understand the complex interplay of
multitude of life factors to help individuals, families, and marginalised groups (Bland
et al., 2021). Human experiences are limitless, resulting in a lack of consensus as to
which theory is best suited for a particular context, multiple theories can be used for
same context (Davies, 2013). Each theory and model can be viewed as part of a
toolkit which a social worker can refer to and utilise in their everyday practice.
The Social Learning Theory (SLT) attributes human behaviour to the interaction that
occurs between an individual and their environment. Developed by psychologist
Albert Bandura, he postulated that individuals pick up behaviours by observing and
imitating the people around them. Further, people actively and mentally process
other people's behaviours before imitating them based on the reward the person
receives for the behaviour. The individual may mimic the actions of any significant
adult/s in their lifetime from childhood to present. Therefore, social workers can
investigate an individual’s childhood to understand if any of their actions are learned
behaviour and what intervention is necessary if any and how best to intervene. This
theory is relevant when working with alcoholics and perpetrators of domestic
violence to understand their actions and choices. In addition to policies and service
availability, social norms and peer influence affect the behaviour of Nico. He was a
social drinker, usually when watching football on television. This is an accepted
social norm for relaxing and having a good time. However, when Nico is drunk, he
visits Lisa at her house starting arguments between them which the children witness.
SLT scholars suggest that Nico is trapped in alcohol addiction after being lured into
the behaviour of substance abuse by observing the social drinking behaviour of
those around him. To counter this, social learning theorist propose that Nico can be
helped by spending time around those who have managed to recover from the
addiction. By having role models in sobriety, Nico can learn how to handle the new
life and avoid relapsing. He also gets to see the benefits of living the sober life, which
further inspires him to embrace sobriety. Academics continue, addictions can cause
low self-efficacy and a lack of belief that the individual can overcome the addiction. A
positive role model provides a foundation to increase self-belief and the person can
challenge themself, “if they can do it, then so can I.”
Nevertheless, critics of SLT point to the emphasis on environment and less on
individual accountability, one’s ability to handle and process new information. It
overlooks the individual's accountability and places individual behaviours and actions
on society’s shoulder. When it comes to, sobriety and domestic violence, SLT
assumes that individuals can have an “enlightenment” moment and decide
themselves to change their behaviour. In practice, it is more challenging for Nico to
overcome his addictions and change his behaviours, even with the support of
recovered role models and support agencies like CGL. One of the identified
weaknesses of Evidence Based Practice (EBP) is its transferability to diverse
populations (Rubin & Parrish, 2007). Given Nico’s ethnicity, practitioners play a
crucial role in assessing the portability and cultural relevance of addiction related
EBPs to him. Interestingly, the perspective adopted by the social worker and the
local authority influences how the problem is defined, what type of assessment is
undertaken, the methods and social work tools employed, specifically, how the risk is
assessed and its management. Skinner et al. (2020) challenges the evidence base
of the ‘toxic trio’, the basis of selecting the Hems family for this critical reflection.
Despite the limited evidence base, ‘toxic trio’ became ubiquitous in safeguarding
practice, a shortcut for identifying risk and embedded in assessment processes,
national data collection and the family justice system. Skinner et al. (2020) advocate
for a policy and practice shift away from simplistic attributions of parental risk,
towards recognition of contextual factors in safeguarding such as the Hems family’s
disadvantaged socioeconomic status, low education level, mixed ethnicity, and the
children’s ages. In child safeguarding, managing risk is rooted in legislation, statutory
and practice guidance. This helps to manage social worker anxiety; practitioners are
provided with various practice models and support to understand the families they
are working with. Isokuortti et al., (2020) highlights the increase in efforts to improve
child protection outcomes by applying social work practice models rooted in a certain
theory and practice approach.
In 2017, the local authority embarked on an institutional shift, to become more
domestic abuse informed, enabling practitioners to have greater confidence in
challenging the perpetrator and holding them to account by using the Safe and
Together model. The model is a perpetrator pattern based, child centred, survivor
strengths approach to working with domestic violence (Bocioaga, 2019). It
encourages agencies to partner with Lisa to keep the children safe and hold Nico
accountable for his violence and coercive control which is outlined as a parenting
choice. Intervening with the Nico is expected to reduce the risk of harm to the
children (Humphreys et al., 2018). Lisa experienced domestic abuse perpetrated by
Nico in her own tenancy accommodation where she lived with the children. As one of
my first cases, it helped my development in practice and during trainings as it was
representative of the typical coexisting social “ills” in families that social services is
involved with. With the continuous learning culture in the organisation, I used the
Hems family for case discussion at an ASYE group supervision for the Safe and
Together model. During my ASYE training, l attended a Safe and Together course
where l took the opportunity to discuss the Hems family as a case example. In
preparation for the ICPC, l was actioned by my manager and the ICPC chairperson
to attend a Safe and Together clinic with the consultant. I found the learning
opportunities very productive, coming from a diverse group of newly qualified social
workers. These opportunities helped me to continually review my practice and get
different suggestions from other practitioners on partnering with Lisa to safeguard
the children. Upon reflection, my practice biases and subtle assumptions of domestic
abuse and families changed as l worked with parents in a different way than before.
For personal development, during team supervision with my manager, we discussed
anti-oppressive practice and diversity issues. I made use of the social graces model
to reflect on various elements of the family and my emotions and actions (Totsuka,
2014). I used this framework because it helps to understand aspects of identity
and how they unconsciously shape my practice and can be evident in my reasoning,
therefore assessment, analysis and risk management. In practice, this model can
help me to identify opportunities which could be empowering to the family.
The model can help me identify practice opportunities to empower parents,
conversely l can underpin present divisions based on diversity attributes. Burke
(2013) says it is important for social workers to break down political, economic and
culture structures which strengthen social divisions as oppression is less about the
lack of justice and more about these structures denying individuals and groups their
humanity. Watson (2017) points out to gender inequality as the main factor for
domestic abuse, this inequality can take various forms at household level like
income, care expectations, physical strength or education level. Critics of the antioppressive value of social work highlight its moral and political idealism resulting in
its appropriation by people in the social justice movement. Ironically, social justice is
a core value of social work (BASW, 2021). The value of anti-oppressive practice is in
encouraging social workers’ awareness of power dynamics, politics, and oppressive
solution relations, whilst promoting accountability between professionals and in the
organisation.
The first core group meeting was held during the children’s school break and was
held online. Having the meeting online enabled mother to supervise her children
without requesting for childcare support. I facilitated dad with a laptop and private
room to hold the meeting as he did not have access to technology at his home.
During the meeting, I encouraged professionals to use simplified language so that
parents could understand better as they are not aware of professional terms. Using
simplified language or an interpreter where necessary breaks down communication
barriers, empowering parents to engage better with the process. The impact of
language is also exemplified when professionals describe domestic violence with
umbrella terms that can be highly subjective and do not differentiate perpetrator and
victim. The power imbalance is not clear in umbrella terms like “argument” versus
“shout, hit, kick” which identify who and what action. Canopy terms do not reflect the
nature of domestic abuse and absolves any sense of accountability for perpetrators.
For core group meetings, the local authority has adopted a task centred approach to
formulate the Child protection plan. The tasks are initiated at the ICPC with a view to
make children safer by managing risks identified within and outside of the family.
Task-centred practice is designed to help families and practitioners collaborate on
specific, measurable, and achievable goals. The progress on the tasks is reviewed in
the Core group meetings with family involved. When used collaboratively, task
centred approach is versatile and can be used in diverse settings and
circumstances. The approach is “value-led, evidence-based and practical”
(Edmondson, 2020, p. 271). According to Edmondson (2020), the task-centred
approach seeks to empower families with coping strategies so that they can make
use of them to solve future problems and foster increased independence with less
reliance on professionals for motivation or monitoring. When the various tasks
initiated at ICPC are completed within timescales, the family can look forward to
being stepped down to child in need level, in recognition of the reduced risk. If no
progress is made with parents and family to manage the risk of significant harm to
children, the local authority will seek to escalate to pre-proceedings level.
However, the task centred approach does have its limitations observed in child
protection practice. Firstly, it assumes the rationality of parents and their willingness
to engage with social workers or other professionals (Nash et al., 2005). This in
practice might not be the case with Nico not willing or prepared to change his
behaviour. A lack of insight into the harm caused to children by them witnessing
domestic violence results in adults continuing the behaviour and not engaging
collaboratively with professionals. Secondly, the child protection tasks require
appropriate level of agency support to implemented successfully (Doel and
Marsh,2017). Families lessen their completion of task, for example with medical
appointments, which are necessary for the health and wellbeing of the child and
focus on the social worker related tasks. Lastly, Trevithick et al., (2004) question the
relevance of counselling theory in social work. Concepts such as empathy can be
difficult in child protection where inherently tension exists between professionals and
parents. Likewise, the coercive nature of child protection does not afford parents with
wilful collaborative participation in implementing the tasks on the CP plan. Indeed, for
parents, working collaboratively with professionals in child protection can seem
unrealistic. It is often their only choice, leading to regular tense situations with
professionals (Devine, 2015). The power imbalance between social worker and
parents is evident, the presence of a children social worker on the doorstep is
threatening to any parent. Mainstream media, amplifies these power imbalances
when reporting on unfortunate child welfare issues or deaths especially if Children
services had contact with the family. In such cases social workers are damned if they
do, damned if they don’t (McMahon, 2018). Statutory visits and multiagency
meetings in regulated timeframes can often feel intrusive and time consuming for
parents, especially for families with a disabled child/ren who only want to access
funding from the local authority. These meetings and visits can often feel intrusive to
families who want to get on with the task of caring for their children. McMahon (2018)
opens the discussion on the ambiguities of child safeguarding whilst dealing with the
societal expectation and legislative guidance of non-intrusion in family life
(Department of Education, 2021). Non-intrusion in family life is entrenched in courts
where the guiding principle is “No order” unless otherwise necessary to safeguard
the children from significant harm. Therefore, the coercive nature of child
safeguarding limits the true applicability of collaborative working as compared to
other areas of social work like mental health and addiction support, were more clear
partnership and service user empowerment can be attained to a certain degree. On
the other hand, it is important to note that all the theories, models and approaches
must recognise Lisa and Nico as active risk managers in their children’s life’s and the
most effective risk management paperwork is inclusive of their contribution and they
must retain originals (Bates & Lymbery, 2011).
This essay examined risk management in the context of child protection using a case
example of a family I worked with in my first year in Children services. It critically
scrutinised how professionals work with families and make decisions to avoid,
reduce or mitigate potential and or significant harm to children in accordance with
legislation, statutory guidelines, organisational policies, and procedures. Some
theories, models and practice approaches were examined and the Social Graces
model was used to recognise the diversity needs of families and how practitioners
can find opportunities to empower them.
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