Category Archives: Research

Call For Submissions: How are children’s connections to birth families being managed during the COVID-19 lockdown?

03 Friday Apr 2020

Posted by in Research, Researching Reform

≈ Leave a comment

The urgent project hopes to develop guidance to support families and professionals in managing virtual contact when face-to-face contact is restricted, and to use the findings to innovate “long-term solutions”.

The Nuffield Family Justice Observatory, which has commissioned the project, is inviting everyone to offer their experiences of birth family contact during the lockdown.

The research will be conducted by Professor Elsbeth Neil and Ruth Copson from the Centre for Research on Children and Families at the University of East Anglia.

The press release says:

“The research team is looking for families and practitioners to share their experiences of maintaining contact between children and their birth relatives during the crisis. This could be social workers, guardians, contact supervisors, foster carers, adoptive parents, birth relatives or others involved in managing contact.”

You can get in touch with the team using the contact details below:

Ruth Copson: r.copson@uea.ac.uk or by phone/text on 07858 134673.

Beth Neil: e.neil@uea.ac.uk

The Observatory also provides a fact sheet explaining the project further and why it is needed, as well as a very good explanation of your rights as a contributor.

You can access the full press release here. 

NFJO

Important Resource for Child Welfare Professionals

16 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by in Research, Researching Reform

≈ 3 Comments

As the UK child protection system tries to get a handle on the policy changes inside the sector – most notably the need to use care as a method of last resort, rather than the first port of call – a lot of very good resources are being published on how to do this well.

Anyone not familiar with the US’s Child Welfare Information Gateway should explore the site. While it’s true that the US has it own, very similar, problems to our own when it comes to putting children first in child welfare cases, sites like these offer a huge amount of information, a lot of which is progressive, intelligent and child-centric.

Our pick this week from the Child Welfare Information Gateway is the “Helping Children and Youth Maintain Relationships With Birth Families” bulletin, for child welfare professionals.

Screenshot 2020-01-16 at 10.28.15

 

First Report Of Its Kind Offers Insight Into Child Abuse in the UK

14 Tuesday Jan 2020

Posted by in Research, Researching Reform

≈ Leave a comment

The Office for National Statistics in England has published a report on the extent and nature of child abuse in the UK, calling it “ONS’s first attempt to fill an important evidence gap” on the issue.

The report says that one in five adults in England and Wales have experienced at least one form of abuse (emotional, physical, sexual, or witnessing domestic violence) before the age of sixteen, with just under half of those people having experienced more than one type of abuse.

The release contains lots of useful information, including the reminder that there is still no specific offence of child abuse in law, in England and Wales. At the moment, child abuse is fragmented across a variety of offences including modern slavery, human trafficking, female genital mutilation, child sexual exploitation, and witnessing domestic violence or abuse.

The data for this report was collected with the assistance of the Department for Education, the National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC), National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) and the Welsh government.

The release is divided into eight different sections, which we’ve added below:

  1. Main points
  2. What is child abuse?
  3. Things you need to know about this release
  4. What do we know about the prevalence of abuse during childhood?
  5. Child abuse cases that come to the attention of children’s services
  6. Use of child abuse support services
  7. Characteristics of victims of child abuse
  8. Quality and methodology

The summary for the release explains that the picture offered is only a partial one, has many instance of child abuse remain unreported, or are reported some time after the abuse takes place.

The release’s ONS page also offers helpline numbers for anyone who may need support, which we’ve also included here:

You can read the release in full, here. 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Research Highlights Dangerous Levels of Trauma In Care Proceedings Involving Newborns

12 Thursday Dec 2019

Posted by in Family Law Cases, Research, Researching Reform, social services

≈ 5 Comments

Research conducted by the Nuffield Foundation has confirmed that removing children at birth in child protection cases causes families acute and ongoing distress.

The Foundation’s Family Justice Observatory will now develop guidelines to help steer newborns away from care proceedings.

The news comes after the Foundation published reports which showed unprecedented numbers of newborns in England and Wales being taken at birth and placed into care.

While the finding is not groundbreaking – bodies of research have already confirmed that separating mothers and their children leads to a spike in maternal suicides – it is an important first step in showing the government what needs to change in child protection, and why.

Researching Reform was encouraged to see that the Observatory had taken on some of our recommendations in this area, including recording families’ voices and experiences in newborn removal cases, as well as fathers’ experiences, and the need to develop best practice in this area.

The research combines a literature review and a review of case law, and offers five key messages:

  1. Short time frames for assessments before the birth prevent parents from being able to make any necessary changes and improvements, placing them in an impossible position
  2. Trust, honesty and openness are vital for ensuring that families don’t feel stigmatised and judged, and enabling truly supportive relationships between families and child welfare professionals
  3. Separating a child from his or her mother, father and extended family members is deeply traumatic and should be done only in the most urgent of cases and in the most supportive and sophisticated way possible
  4. Child protection professionals need much better training in this area
  5. A lack of understanding from a family perspective needs to be addressed through research and establishing best practice guidelines

Further Reading:

Screenshot 2019-12-12 at 09.41.52.png

 

Coalition Asks Government To Place Children At The Heart of Politics

07 Thursday Nov 2019

Posted by in child welfare, Research, Researching Reform

≈ 4 Comments

A coalition of more than 70 child welfare organisations and experts are calling on the government to transform children’s lives in the UK with a series of pledges they hope ministers will address during the general election.

The 30 pledges include ensuring children in care are not dislocated unnecessarily from their families, removing the ‘reasonable chastisement’ common law defence so that children have the same protection from assault as adults and incorporating the Convention on the Rights of the Child into UK law.

The document, which is entitled Together For Children, is comprehensive and touches on issues faced by vulnerable children, care leavers, young offenders and families struggling with poverty and homelessness.

It is an excellent set of pledges.

The announcement was made yesterday on coalition member Article 39’s website.

In the press release, Carolyne Willow, Director of children’s rights charity Article 39, said:

“Children have no vote but what’s promised and delivered through this general election will have a massive impact on their lives, happiness and future. We want to see children and their rights at the heart of manifestos – not the odd mention here and there but a systematic strategy for making our country among the best in the world for children’s rights. Five years can make or break a childhood, so the weeks ahead really matter.”

Kathy Evans, Chief Executive of Children England, also added a statement:

“Over the thirty years since we signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child, government policy affecting children has been increasingly fragmented, and departments have struggled to co-operate on a shared, holistic vision for children’s wellbeing. These pledges set out a thorough framework that all departments can use to ensure children are at the heart of policy-making.”

Coalition members include Children England, Children’s Rights Alliance for England, the National Youth Advocacy Service and the Association of Lawyers for Children.

Individual coalition members include Ian Dickson, Chair of the Conference for Care Experienced People (retired) and children’s rights campaigner, Dr Maggie Atkinson, Children’s Commissioner for England 2010-2015, Brid Featherstone, Professor of Social Work, University of Huddersfield and Dr Julia Brophy, Independent Research Consultant and Principal Investigator – Family Justice.

You can see the election pledges here. 

Screenshot 2019-11-07 at 09.26.36

Research Finds Covert Facebook Use Rife Among Family Social Workers

25 Friday Oct 2019

Posted by in Family Law, Research, Researching Reform

≈ 5 Comments

A new study looking at the way social workers in England use social media to observe parents and children has concluded that covert surveillance is rife among social workers engaging with families.

The study, which was published in September, by academics at the University of Birmingham, England and the University of Auckland in New Zealand, also noted that the proper use of social media within a social work context was largely unknown due in part to confusion around what kinds of investigative powers were available for child welfare professionals.

But a piece by The Times in March confirmed that some British social workers were breaking the law by covertly surveying and accessing private information about service users through platforms like Facebook. The Times referenced a government-funded study also produced by the University of Birmingham which found social workers had used fake profiles to “friend” parents in cases where their posts were not publicly viewable, which is in direct violation of the law. Social workers even watched parents’ relationships and behaviours online to monitor domestic violence and substance abuse.

A research paper from 2017 noted similar patterns among American social workers, with over half of those polled saying it was permissible to search for a client on Facebook.

The new research suggests that social workers using Facebook are set into three categories: those who actively use the platform to spy on families, those adamantly opposed to the practice (through either an inability to use social media or a moral standpoint citing user privacy) and social workers reluctantly drawn into usage by service managers sharing content with them.

The report calls for more clarity on social media use by family professionals, but this call is not the first.

This site originally made the call in 2017, which prompted the President of the Family Division at the time to issue guidelines. Those guidelines were produced by social work regulation body, the Health & Care Professions Council.

However, the published guidance for social workers was limited in scope and did not offer a robust breakdown of the law and what social workers could and could not do in relation to social media searches.

An earlier piece of guidance was issued in 2012 by the British Association of Social Workers, which was also too limited in scope and content.

There is a need for an organisation like the The Nuffield Family Justice Observatory to produce a definitive guide setting out human rights and legal privacy boundaries, as well as proper ethical processes for any social worker thinking about accessing service users’ social media content.

Further Information:

Find Us On Facebook

Children in Care Want to see More “Love, Respect and Recognition” – Conference

04 Friday Oct 2019

Posted by in event, Research, Researching Reform

≈ 6 Comments

The first ever conference dedicated specially to children who have experienced the care system has published its report on the event, and it is a must-read for anyone working with children.

The Care Experienced Conference, which is chaired by Ian Dickson, a retired social worker and former Ofsted inspector who grew up in care and now advocates for children’s rights, took place in April and offered 20 workshops touching on a broad range of subjects nominated by care experienced people.

There were 141 care experienced people at the conference ranging from 14 to 82 years old, and attendees came from all walks of life.

The conference also featured outstanding artwork by individuals who have been in care, and many of the pieces are deeply moving. You can see the artwork here.

The conference group has published two documents, one being a summary report on the event and the other being a research report.

We have not had the chance to read the research report yet, but we will as soon as we get the chance. The summary offers quotes about experiences inside the care system shared by people of all ages, and while the sentiments are well known to most of us who have been campaigning to raise awareness around these issues it is wonderful that there is now a conference to represent children inside the system.

Some of the quotes will also be loaded with meaning for some. For example, this one:

“Bin bags.”

This refers to the way in which children’s belongings are ‘packed up’ when they are sent to a placement. They have to carry their possessions around in a plastic bin liner.

The summary also offers a list of the top ten messages delivered at the conference:

CEC1

Unsurprisingly, the biggest takeaways from the conference were that children in care needed to feel loved, and that the system had failed entirely to provide the nurturing children need.

One of the other important aspects about this summary report is that it includes the names of the core working group for the conference, and the many individuals and organisations who supported the event.

While Researching Reform doesn’t know everyone on those lists, the names we did recognise were all professionals we would call “the good guys” inside the sector, including Ian Dickson, who we have known for some time through the social media platform Twitter.

They are men and women who champion children and believe in pure social work, which places the needs of every child above any other aspect inside the system. These are individuals worth following.

Useful links:

Conference Home Page

Summary Report

Research Report

You can catch Ian on Twitter @IDickson258.

Screenshot 2019-10-04 at 09.20.25

New Study Says Specialised Treatments For Sexual and Domestic Violence Work

22 Thursday Aug 2019

Posted by in Case Study, Research, Researching Reform

≈ Leave a comment

In the first study of its kind, psychologists from the UK and Canada examined previous research and offenders’ cases to try to discover whether psychology-based treatments were responsible for reductions in sexual and domestic violence.

The study found that some programmes for sexual and domestic violence offenders led to significant reductions in reoffending.

The report also concluded that the best results were achieved through ongoing engagement with a qualified psychologist and that the clearest results were associated with sexual offence programs.

The clinical psychology review, which was published in Science Direct on June 29 and produced by the University of Kent in England and the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, looked at 70 studies which included information on over 55,000 individuals.

The report explains how researchers broke down the results of their findings:

“Three specialized treatments were examined: sexual offense, domestic violence, and general violence programs.

Across all programs, offense specific recidivism was 13.4% for treated individuals and 19.4% for untreated comparisons over an average follow up of 66.1 months.

Relative reductions in offense specific recidivism were 32.6% for sexual offense programs, 36.0% for domestic violence programs, and 24.3% for general violence programs.

All programs were also associated with significant reductions in non-offense specific recidivism.”

While the results for domestic violence programmes were much less clear, the report makes an interesting finding on what may actually work in this context.

The report suggests that the most effective treatments for domestic violence may be feminism-focused education programmes, rather than psychology based treatments.

This is what the paper had to say about its findings:

“Due to relatively small k for the domestic violence programs, establishing more definitive program predictors of decreased recidivism and, hence, improved treatment success was more difficult.

However, a set of key predictors did emerge: treatment rated as lower quality; treatments using the Duluth approach; and treatments that were provided at a single institution (vs. multiple institutions).

Initially it was unclear why treatments rated as less evidence-based exhibited more effectiveness. A close examination of program content, however, showed that they tended to be Duluth or purely psychoeducational programs.

This suggests that it is the provision of educational information—that may or may not be rooted in feminism—that is important for reducing domestic violence, rather than complex psychotherapeutic manipulations designed according to “best practice” (Edleson & Syers, 1991).

This may explain why Duluth and psychoeducational approaches produced superior recidivism reductions relative to CBT (cf. Babcock et al., 2004).

However, readers should note these suggestions cautiously since they are just that and are based on relatively small ks.

Finally, the superior outcomes associated with treatments administered at a single site suggests that treatments are most effective when administration is tightly focused.”

The study also highlights an important point, which is that the data does not confirm a direct correlation between the programmes and reductions in re-offending. What it offers is the suggestion that these programmes may be able to help with reducing sexual and domestic violence.

You can read the study in full here. 

SDL

Have Your Say: The Impact of Children’s Services

15 Thursday Aug 2019

Posted by in Research, Researching Reform

≈ 3 Comments

The Children’s Society has created a survey to collect people’s experiences of local services supporting children and families and they want to hear from parents and kids.

The charity has been campaigning for more investment into local children’s services, and as we know many of you feel very strongly about these services, we would like to encourage you to offer constructive feedback on what would make this kind of support actually useful.

Rant if you need to, but give this organisation something to work with if you can.

We’ve added the survey in full in the gallery below so you can see the questions beforehand.

The Children’s Society says:

“Children’s services cover a very broad range of services and support, everything from children’s centres to fostering and adoption – and many of you will have an experience to share. It doesn’t matter if it was positive or negative, last week or 5 years ago – we want to hear it all.

Maybe you’ve got some insight into how cuts have impacted services in your area, or just something to say about the local youth club. We’ll use your words to paint a picture of why properly funded, well-delivered children’s services are so vital.”

You can take the survey here. Good luck. 

Please note: Some options in the survey questions are not visible as we could not fit them all into the screenshot. 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

Survey for Parents and Relatives With Experience of the Scottish Care System

12 Monday Aug 2019

Posted by in Research, Researching Reform

≈ 2 Comments

A survey has been launched by Scotland’s Independent Care Review, which aims to get in-depth information on the care system from parents and other family members. 

The Scottish government’s review of its care system which began in 2017 is now into its third stage and looking for feedback from parents and relatives of children who are or have been in care.

The survey asks the following questions:

  1. Were you included in decisions being made about your child?

2. Did you receive reports and invitations voluntarily to meetings at least 7 days in advance?

3. Were you given an opportunity to share your views before and during key meetings?

4. Did you feel treated with respect and dignity by social workers and other professionals involved in the child protection case?

5. Did the child protection investigation lead to financial hardship?

6. Has the child protection investigation affected your ability to work or future career options?

On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being not at all, 10 being completely) how much did you feel you could trust the social worker working with your family?

Any further comments regarding your experiences?

For instance did the child protection investigation affect your feelings of self-worth?
Did the investigation affect your health?
Is there enough support for parents during such investigations?
What could be different?

Removal and Return

  1. Have your children been removed from your care?

2. How long has or was your child in care?

3. Were your children placed with a family member?

4. Have your children been separated from each other?

5. Were you given clear reasons for removal?

6. Please tick any of these official reasons for removal that were given (8 options are listed including abuse, risk of harm, poverty, poor engagement with social workers, medical reasons and violence).

7. Has your child been returned to your care?

8. Was there any support following the removal of your child?

9. Was there any support following the return of your child?

10. Has your child been adopted?

11. If your child was adopted do you have contact and if so what form does this take?

How well are social work services assisting contact between children and their families?

1. Do you have/ did you have contact with your ‘looked after child’?

 2. How frequent is/was this?

 3. Is/was contact meeting the needs of your child?

 4. Are/were contact facilities suitable for you and your child, e.g. premises, catering, travel to and from?

 5. Is/was your contact supervised?

 6. Did your contact change over time? Increase or decrease?

 7. Was contact cancelled regularly by the local authority or regularly disrupted?

8. Do you have ‘indirect contact’, that is not face-to-face? 

9. Does your child have contact with any siblings from whom they are separated?

 Any further comments regarding your experiences of contact? What would you change? What would you keep, or want more of?

Access to support during care proceedings 

1. Have you had legal advice and support?

2. Did you have legal advice and representation pre- removal proceedings (court)?

 3. Did you have legal advice and representation after removal proceedings (court) commenced? 

4. Do you feel you had adequate and effective legal support?

5. Have you had an independent supporter or advocate for you?

 6. Were they helpful?

7. Would you have benefited from such support earlier?

Any further comments regarding your experiences of support during care proceedings, or lack of it?

The next section is an invitation to tell us more if you wish.

Is there anything that we have forgotten or extra that you would like to tell us about your contact with social services?

You can complete the survey here. 

SCR