Beyond Belief….Safeguarding
children
Nasima Patel, NSPCC with input from
Perdeep Gill
npatel@nspcc.org.uk
[perdeepgill@blueyonder.co.uk]
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npatel/nspcc with input from pgill
Beyond Belief….Safeguarding
children
From child welfare to children in
need to child protection to looked
after children and young adults
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npatel/nspcc with input from pgill
Purpose
• To present the challenges from practice
and systems perspective.
• To touch on the guidance/steer.
• To explore the impact of social care not
having a mainstream expert enough
response when dealing with families
along religion culture and ethnicity.
• Discursive and a developing view
• To raise the disproportionaly debate.
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npatel/nspcc with input from pgill
The Gaps: Religion/culture is it protective
neutral or collusive in child abuse• There is a lack of substantive research over at
least the last 10 years that examines different
forms of abuse in the context of ethnicity/
culture/religion.
• Powerful discourse in UK literature which focuses
on social and economic inequalities,
empowerment, advocacy, anti discrimination and
cultural and ethnic sensitivity. So, predominate
focus is on external barriers than an
ecological examination of what if anything
increases risk or acts as protective factors
within BME families.
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npatel/nspcc with input from pgill
Religion/culture is it protective or collusive in child
abuse- it is all about perception
Case 1 – 14 yr old female-Muslim- not at home, drinking,
hard drugs, sexual exploited. Background of serious dv,
arson and temp accommodation,
CS response: go home to yr mum and no further action
after she failed to engage with a male muslim worker!
Judgemental and punitive- quotes
NSPCC response- she has experienced significant harm
and it is her Muslim identity that is preventing a suitable
response. Profs could not see pass her being a muslim
girl who will fare badly in the LAC system, who will lose
her Islam, family etc.
Outcome- LAC and now a care leaver with intermittent
contact with family but has retained her Islamic identity
and culture as a positive independent feature of her life.
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npatel/nspcc with input from pgill
Risk and Causation
• YP – transgressing family boundaries and valueswas at risk.
• Family wanted her to go to Pakistan and raised a
marriage as an option against her wishes.
• Involvement of the imam to talk about the causes
of yp’s behaviour and how their parenting could
make her safe. Islam used by all as a positive:
• ‘Children are entrusted to parents- do not belong
to parents. Parents’ should not break this trust.’
• Finding strengths in religious belief was unifying.
• Timing of intervention was critical.
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npatel/nspcc with input from pgill
Quote – Ward and Patel 2006
Questions need to be asked as to whether fears of intrusion
into cultures that are different from the dominant culture
hinder effective intervention at an appropriate stage. There
are many issues for consideration here. First, a dominant view,
embodied in official policy, is that a child is better off within her
own family. In communities where family support is considered
strong, assumptions could be made that there is wider family
support in place to deal with problems than actually exists.
Secondly, intra-cultural issues can present difficulties, for
example, the issue of izzat (honour) within the Bangladeshi
community (Cottew and Oyefeso, 2005) keeps socially
unacceptable behaviour, such as drug use or sexual activity,
hidden within the bounds of the family. This means it can be very
difficult to penetrate into the arenas where problems are located.
It is extremely important that ways of constructive working are
developed in order that c/yp get the service they need.
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npatel/nspcc with input from pgill
The Challenges for the cp system
and faith communities
•
•
•
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Volume of work- supply low and demand is high.
The static nature of assessments
The loss of reflective practice.
The procedural nature of social work.
• State ignores, minimises or has a knee jerk
reaction to child abuse that is seen to be
linked to belief/culture
• Faith communities need to explicitly
position the protection of children within
the context of spirituality.
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npatel/nspcc with input from pgill
Key practice questions
• Does this family’s worldview (inc religion/belief)
strengthen or harm this child?
• Is it a neutral /irrelevant factor?
• How can the family’s faith assist to protect this child if
not before, then now and into the future? Can it offer
solutions beyond the usual?
• How does the child experience/understand the
family’s faith?
• How is the child’s view regarded by the family
• How does my worldview impact on what I think or do
in relation to this child and family?
• How can I integrate this in my assessment that helps
paint a fuller picture of the family?
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npatel/nspcc with input from pgill
The Children Act 1989
• Local Authorities will in any decision-making ‘give
due consideration …to the child’s religious
persuasion, racial origin, and cultural and
linguistic background’
• The Assessment framework includes ethnicity as
a factor to consider and there is detailed
guidance on assessing black children in need and
care but has been critiqued as seeing ethnicity
as a peripheral issue and religion as a bolt on
to ethnicity e.g. Victoria Climbie enquiry
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npatel/nspcc with input from pgill
Working Together 2010
• Children from all cultures are subject to abuse and
harm… in order to make informed professional
judgements about a child’s needs and parents
capacity…..it is important that professionals are
sensitive to differing family patterns and lifestyles
and to child rearing patterns that vary across
different racial, ethnic and cultural groups. At the
same time they must be clear that child abuse
cannot be condoned for religious or cultural
reasons.
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npatel/nspcc with input from pgill
What does this look and feel like?
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•
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From a service planning perspective?
From a workforce perspective?
From a service user perspective?
From a professional practice
perspective?
• From a legal mandate to protect
children?
• From the child’s perspective?
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npatel/nspcc with input from pgill
Complicated but progressive
• An overall good value base in social work/care around
individuals, respect and dignity though may clash with
collectivist notions of responsibility.
• Some good policies and good decisions/casework
that has proved beneficial for children and families.
• The acceptance/mainstreaming of ‘new’ abuse
patterns such as fgm, forced marriage, gang violence.
• Good creative partnerships often with little resource
involving faith groups.
• Good police work – e.g. Met police had to address
child abuse across communities, trafficking and are
experts.
• An emergence of a broader faith/multi-dimensional
framework.
• A refocus on competence and practice.
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npatel/nspcc with input from pgill
On the other hand….
• The pedantic application of policies which make no sense to
the family, community or child.
• Children being left in situations of harm as these families are
seen as different, good or difficult.
• Over reliance on behalf of local authorities on small groups,
faith orgs. to deliver complex work perpetuating the divide
between the two sectors and assuming small funding delivers
huge outputs and outcomes for our children. It doesn’t.
• A lack of equality in this partnership plus other factors has
meant social work tools, frameworks remain rooted in
regulations and procedures.
• Cultural competence is still not mainstream that is skilled
exploratory reflective practice is not the norm.
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npatel/nspcc with input from pgill
A minimisation of child abuse?
• A shift for some (b) me children from being treated from a
safeguarding perspective to a community model which sees the
family as the only alternative for these children whilst statutory
services remain unable to engage and change those families that
need to be engaged with and changed.
• A lack of expertise within statutory re. the safeguarding needs of
children from specific communities.
• An avoidance to tackle religious or cultural matters
• A lack of shared understanding of what is acceptable parenting in
all communities.
• A tendency to treat the second or third generation as the first.
• Not enough skill to assess if this family will protect the child.
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npatel/nspcc with input from pgill
Disproportionality: Owen and Statham
2009 study findings
• Mixed ethnic children are over represented in child in
need/child protection registration/LAC categories cf to
the pop.
• Asian children are under represented in above
categories cf to pop.
• Black children are over represented.
Study took into account local demography as well as
national and concluded that the study raises questions….
about social work perception, ….the families…but
further study is required….
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npatel/nspcc with input from pgill
Why could there be
disproportionality?
• Some communities have less child abuse- others
have more?
• Some communities are better at tackling child abuse
and supporting the victims, dealing with the
perpetrators?
• That under reporting by victims, their families and
professionals because of a fear of ‘betraying’ the
community, a disbelief in child abuse combined with
the possibility of a poor response combined with high
thresholds combined with general secrecy of child
abuse and a fear of making things worse makes
interventions quite random and partial.
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npatel/nspcc with input from pgill
Areas for consideration
• Parenting styles and establishing what support
is needed by whom and how.
• Perception/discourse on what is abuse.
• The challenge in managing cases involving
diverse belief systems.
• Support/interventions that have faith as
strengthening factors.
• Building capacity and capability.
• Main streaming cultural competence.
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npatel/nspcc with input from pgill
The future for belief and professional
practice
• It is here to stay and we need to integrate it into how we work
and communicate. We need to engage in discussions about
religion and spirituality with families. We need to listen what
this means for individuals and how it motivates them
• It can be part of the contents of child protection practice that
has gone missing over the last generation- the depth.
• It needs to relate to the child at the heart of the practice as a
key individual with agency.
• Those who believe and those who don’t need to find ways in
their ideologies to accommodate the terrible harm that is
done by adults to themselves, to each other and to their
children and take a stance.
• The system and its staff needs to be reflective, responsive,
creative but offer a baseline of acceptable parenting.
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npatel/nspcc with input from pgill