UK
Policy requiring risk assessment at low threshold means some parents feel fear rather than reassurance, researcher argues
A huge increase in the number of children being referred to social services has caused “catastrophic” trauma for tens of thousands of families without any corresponding increase in the number of child abuse cases detected, the author of a study has said.
According to statistical analysis by the University of the West of England, child protection referrals have risen by 297% since the Children Act came into force 23 years ago, and assessments by social services have risen by 359%. The proportion of cases in which abuse was identified has plummeted from 24% to just under 8%.
“We are now at a situation where up to 5% of all families are now referred for assessment every year,” said Dr Lauren Devine, principal investigator of the Economic and Social Research Council-funded study. “The vast majority of those do not injure or seriously harm their children, but government policy requiring risk assessment at quite a low threshold means that rather than feeling supported by social services, some families now feel fear.”
As the number of applications to take children into care hits a record high, Devine argues that the system is overwhelming caseworkers and putting the most serious cases of abuse at risk of being missed. At the same time, many families who have done nothing wrong are being traumatised by intrusive investigations. “Research shows that if you put parents on the floor with stress, you’re not going to improve their parenting,” she said.
There is no way to separate out a simple request for services for a struggling family from an assessment of whether a child is at risk of abuse, Devine said. “These now go hand in hand – and you’re then investigated and risk-assessed on all aspects of your family life.” Social workers say their caseload now exceeds what children’s services can reasonably manage.
The question of the best way to protect children has come into particular focus since the death of Peter Connelly, known as Baby P, in 2007. But Devine’s findings challenge more than two decades of government policy and social work practice on how to prevent children from being abused and sometimes killed.
Under the current system, social workers assessing a family are required to gather forensic evidence that may be presented in court. But that process comes with no accompanying criminal justice framework of statutory rights to protect individuals suspected of abuse. At the same time, social workers are supposed to point families towards services that are often impossible to access as local authority funding continues to be slashed.
Not everyone agrees that the rise in referrals is evidence of a problem. According to the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS), the increase may well demonstrate more awareness of the harm caused by child abuse, and a greater willingness by professionals to share concerns earlier than they did in the 1990s, rather than waiting for a crisis to hit. “That would be a really good thing,” said the ADCS president, Dave Hill. “We don’t want to only be intervening when families are really in trouble.”
However, Devine argues that a result is that parents increasingly feel suspicion and distrust when they hear a social worker knocking on the door, rather than any reassurance that they will be helped. And she adds: “They are right to be concerned at the dual nature of social services’ intervention in family life. The Children Act 1989 made a clear separation between consensual and non-consensual intervention. Over the past two decades, that has been eroded.”
Devine suggests that separating the state’s welfare role and investigatory and policing function could lead to clearer, faster identification of child abuse. In a forthcoming book, The Limits of State Power and Private Rights, Devine suggests that although some more confident parents are able to cope with the experience of an unwanted child protection referral, for others the experience can be “catastrophic” and leave them utterly devastated.
“These parents do not recover,” she said. “They remain terrified of any official contact, and become unable to answer the door or telephone. They do everything in their power to protect their children from the state. They cut off social contact and leave jobs and homes to remove themselves from the stigma. Their confidence and sense of identity is damaged.
“The most extreme I have come across is where parents kill or attempt to kill their children and themselves following notification of social work contact as they are so terrified they see this as the lesser of two evils.”
The NSPCC’s head of helplines, John Cameron, said the UK’s child protection system was sophisticated and successful at identifying children at risk, but he acknowledged this came at a cost. “Ideally we’d want appropriate investment in support for families who need it after unfounded [allegations of] abuse, to get their lives back on track, but the real world is that local authorities have limited resources,” he said.
Louise Tickle
15 April 2016
