Social work with children and families: from child welfare to child protection

2002 ◽  
pp. 162-181
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Children And Families

scholarly journals RESILIENCE IN CHILD WELFARE: A SOCIAL WORK PERSPECTIVE

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dermot J. Hurley ◽  
Lisa Martin ◽  
Rhonda Hallberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Front Line ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Child Protection Workers

This study explores the concept of resilience as it is applied in child welfare practice from the perspective of front line child protection workers (CPWs). Specifically it examines how CPWs understand the concept of resilience and how they see themselves nurturing resilience in children and families. The paper also explores how working with resilient clients helps foster resilience in CPWs through a process of vicarious or shared resilience. This study is part of a larger three-site study conducted in Canada, Ireland, and Argentina examining the concept of resilience within specific socio-cultural contexts of child protection practice.

scholarly journals Adverse Childhood Experiences: Beyond Signs of Safety; Reimagining the Organisation and Practice of Social Work with Children and Families

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (8) ◽  
pp. 2042-2058 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trevor Spratt ◽  
John Devaney ◽  
John Frederick
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Childhood Experiences ◽  
Professional Groups ◽  
Systemic Analysis ◽  
Safety Programme ◽  
Signs Of Safety ◽  
Adverse Childhood

Abstract While an adverse childhood experience (ACE)-informed approach to child protection and welfare has become influential in USA, it has had markedly less influence in UK, this despite growth in adoption of ACE research as a basis for understanding population needs and aligning service delivery amongst policymakers and other professional groups. In this article, we note the development of ACE research and draw out implications for social work with children and families. We argue that current organisational and practice preoccupations, drawing on the example of the Signs of Safety programme, together with antipathy to ACEs in some quarters of the social work academy, have the effect of reifying a short-term and occluded view of the developing child’s needs so as to obstruct the systemic analysis and changes necessary to ensure that the child welfare system is redesigned to meet such needs. This suggests that post-Kempe era child welfare services are no longer conceptually or systemically adequate to protect children beyond immediate safety outcomes and consequently we need to reimagine their future.

Ethical decision-making in internet research – Investigating protest groups against Child Welfare Services on Facebook

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-317
Author(s):  
Edda Stang
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Ethical Decision ◽  
Ethical Decision Making ◽  
Internet Research ◽  
Child Welfare Services ◽  
Welfare Services ◽  
Insight Into

At a time when both extensive international and national protest and criticisms are directed toward the Norwegian Child Welfare Services, it is of great interest to researchers to gain insight into the viewpoints presented in protest groups on social media. The paper aims to give insight into the ethical judgement involved in research on digital communities where it is difficult to decide whether certain material is public or not. In addition, the paper reflects on the social consequences of understanding some participants as vulnerable versus understanding them as citizens, in a social work/child protection context on social media. A considerable amount of literature focuses on ethical questions in Internet research. There is also literature on the ethical considerations connected to resistance and protest groups on social media. There is, however, less existing research about the ethical decision-making within the field of social work, child protection and client protests on the Internet. This paper analyses certain experiences from a qualitative research project regarding Facebook groups protesting Child Welfare Services in Norway. The paper concludes that in some social media research contexts, as the one presented here, taking extra care to anonymize participants in publications is sufficient to secure privacy, and covert collection of data is possible without jeopardizing ethical guidelines. Further, by developing practical ethical judgement, we can – in some social work contexts – avoid putting people into categories like “vulnerable” and instead approach the participants in public Facebook groups as citizens with socio-political opinions.

scholarly journals Building the Social Work Workforce: Saving Lives and Families

2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharine Briar-Lawson
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Workforce Development ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Development Agenda ◽  
Improved Outcomes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Workforce Needs

This article depicts a journey over the decades to address some of the needs of children and families in the child welfare system. Recounting a few key milestones and challenges in the past 40 years, it is argued that workforce development is one key to improved outcomes for abused and neglected children and their families. Major events and several turning points are chronicled. Emerging workforce needs in aging are also cited as lessons learned from child welfare have implications for building a gero savvy social work workforce. Funding streams involving IV-E and Medicaid are discussed. It is argued that workforce development can be a life and death issue for some of these most vulnerable populations. Thus, the workforce development agenda must be at the forefront of the social work profession for the 21st century. Key funding streams are needed to foster investments in building and sustaining the social work workforce.

scholarly journals Storytelling among child welfare social workers: Constructing professional role and resilience through team talk

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 968-986
Author(s):  
Laura L Cook
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Professional Role ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Vulnerable Children ◽  
Child Welfare Social Workers ◽  
Public Scrutiny ◽  
Cautionary Tales

Child welfare social work is emotive and demanding work, requiring highly skilled and resilient practitioners. In a context of austerity, increased public scrutiny and accountability, defensive practice has been identified as a feature of professional practice. However, little is known about the processes through which social workers develop resilience or come to adopt a defensive stance in managing the demands of their work. This article focuses on professional storytelling among child welfare social workers. It examines how social workers construct their professional role through team talk and the implications of this for our understanding of professional resilience and defensiveness. Drawing on an in-depth narrative analysis of focus groups with social work teams, eight story types are identified in social workers’ talk about their work: emotional container stories, solidarity stories, professional epiphanies, professional affirmation stories, partnership stories, parables of persistence, tales of courageous practice and cautionary tales. Each story type foregrounds a particular aspect of child welfare practice, containing a moral about social work with vulnerable children and families. The article concludes with the implications of these stories for our understanding of both resilience and the pull towards defensiveness in child welfare social work.

Decision-Making and Judgment in Child Welfare and Protection

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
Professional Judgment ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Critical Gap ◽  
Pain And Suffering ◽  
Training And Research

Professionals working in child welfare and child protection are making decisions with crucial implications for children and families on a daily basis. The types of judgements and decisions they make vary and include decisions such as whether a child is at risk of significant harm by parents, whether to remove a child from home or to reunify a child with parents after some time in care. These decisions are intended to help achieve the best interests of the child. Unfortunately, they can sometimes also doom children and families unnecessarily to many years of pain and suffering. Surprisingly, despite the central role of judgments and decision making in professional practice and its deep impact on children and families, child welfare and protection training and research programs have paid little attention to this crucial aspect of practice. Furthermore, although extensive knowledge about professional judgment and decision making has been accumulated in relevant areas, such as medicine, business administration, and economics, little has been done to help transfer and translate this knowledge to the child welfare and protection areas. This book represents our aspiration to fill this critical gap in the child welfare and protection research agenda, while providing an up-to-date resource for practitioners and policy makers. It is our purpose to provide the reader with the ideas, methods and tools to improve their understanding of how context and decision-maker behaviors affect child welfare and protection decision making, and how such knowledge might lead to improvements in decision-making.

scholarly journals From Snapshots of Practice to a Movie: Researching Long-Term Social Work and Child Protection by Getting as Close as Possible to Practice and Organisational Life

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (6) ◽  
pp. 1706-1723
Author(s):  
Harry Ferguson ◽  
Jadwiga Leigh ◽  
Tarsem Singh Cooner ◽  
Liz Beddoe ◽  
Tom Disney ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Work Teams ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Longitudinal Approach ◽  
Staff Supervision

Abstract Research into social work and child protection has begun to observe practice to find out what social workers actually do, however, no such ethnographic research has been done into long-term practice. This article outlines and analyses the methods used in a study of long-term social work and child protection practice. Researchers spent fifteen months embedded in two social work departments observing organisational practices, culture and staff supervision. We also regularly observed social worker’s encounters with children and families in a sample of thirty cases for up to a year, doing up to twenty-one observations of practice in the same cases. Family members were also interviewed up to 3 times during that time. This article argues that a methodology that gets as close as possible to practitioners and managers as they are doing the work and that takes a longitudinal approach can provide deep insights into what social work practice is, how helpful relationships with service users are established and sustained over time, or not, and the influence of organisations. The challenges and ethical dilemmas involved in doing long-term research that gets so close to social work teams, casework and service users for up to a year are considered.

scholarly journals Atmospheres of mistrust and suspicion: Theorising on conflict and affective practice in a child protection social work agency

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 212-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jadwiga Leigh
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Negative Affect ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Coercive Power ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Relational Dynamics ◽  
Atmospheric Factors

Organisational conflict is normally recognised as a disruptive activity which interrupts relational dynamics and productivity. However, this paper will argue that in addition, if conflict is not resolved carefully, it can trigger negative affect which will in turn unsettle and destabilise a whole workforce. Based on the findings from an organisational ethnography, the author examines how conflict emerged in a child protection social work agency by theorizing on the concept of affective practice. In doing so, the author makes the argument that although affect emerges in interaction it can be exacerbated by the unintentional pursuit of problematic strategies. Examining affective practice in such a way enables studies to bring into play the atmospheric factors which impacted on those who were present at that moment so that readers can understand how people were moved, attracted to or pained by certain social interactions. This is important when trying to comprehend how coercive power approaches in social work prevent care objectives from being met. The paper will conclude by suggesting that when practitioners are preoccupied with trying to survive in the workplace they will find it difficult to meet the needs of the children and families they are working with.

The future of child protection may not be in local government

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 138-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Rice
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
Structured Analysis

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to offer a view about the future of children’s social work from the perspective of a frontline practitioner. Design/methodology/approach Reflections of a frontline practitioner are based on his experience of practising social work with children and families. Findings The professional task of assessment and intervention in order to protect the nation’s children from significant harm is probably one of the most complex in modern society. However, a focus on gathering too much information and the need for certainty can be detrimental to analysis and judgement. Further, the most complex and challenging part of the social work task, namely, direct work in the family home, is rarely subject to formally structured analysis or feedback. There is insufficient analysis of good practice, and the organisational conditions that will promote and sustain it, but there are alternative models, including outside local government and including from other countries, that appear promising. Originality/value The study offers the perspective of a frontline children and families social worker on issues facing the profession.

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