In New South Wales, and elsewhere in Australia, there is a
shortage of child protection social workers. Some agencies are experiencing
severe problems.
An interesting argument on this topic is developed by Jeremy
Sammut who argues that “…(t)he real and systemic problem with child protection
in Australia concerns the large number of children who are re-reported because
of unresolved safety concerns”.
Sammut tells us that approximately half of all child
protection reports in New South Wales concern what he calls “…a hard core of
around seven or eight-thousand frequently-reported, highly dysfunctional
families”. He says that “… many of these children have a long history of risk
of harm reports stretching over many years, and end up being damaged by
prolonged exposure to parental abuse and neglect”.
He concludes that too little is being done for these
children who, he says, “… would be better off if they were removed earlier and
permanently, preferably by means of adoption”.
Sammut concludes by saying that a welcome consequence of so
doing would be a reduction in the numbers of child protection referrals,
resulting in less stressed and therefore more effective services.
There is more than a superficial plausibility to this
argument. Many years ago quality gurus, such as Deming and Crosby, told us that
doing it right first time is usually cheaper than doing it wrong and then
putting it right. ‘Rework’, as it is known in operations management, is usually
very costly and there is no reason to suppose that it is any less of a problem
in child protection than in a commercial manufacturing context. Indeed, if a
consequence of not getting it right first time is that children continue to
suffer abuse or neglect, ‘rework’ in child protection is not only a financial
but also a moral evil.
Where I part company from Sammut’s argument is that he
appears to ascribe the cause of the problems to an underlying assumption that
the authorities “… believe in 'family preservation' at nearly all costs”.
Personally I do not know many social workers or child protection managers, or
even policy makers, who believe that ‘family preservation’ is worth a child
suffering abuse and neglect; indeed I do not know any.
My own view is that we lack the relevant knowledge and
resources to deal with this kind of problem. In the first place we do not have
anything like the right kind of research or routine statistics to understand
what is happening; about what kind of ‘hard core’ exists and how to find it.
How many children who receive a child protection service each year are
re-referred suffering re-abuse or re-neglect? What are their characteristics:
how old are they; what are their family circumstances; what systemic and
organisational factors result in their being returned home after an abusive or
neglectful incident?
Secondly we are not developing the right kinds of assessment
tools to use particularly with very young children. If we were to make an
impact on the numbers of children who are re-referred we would need some way of
having much more accurate assessments at the first signs of abuse or neglect and
particularly during the child’s earliest years. Just having different versions
of some standard form – along the lines of the Assessment of Children in Need
approach
– is completely the wrong idea. What we need are ways in which different professionals
from different professions and agencies can work together to create a much
fuller and more accurate assessments of, particularly, very young children
referred for the first time. Possibly some multi-agency expert assessment units
are required, or at the very least the incorporation of psychological and
paediatric expertise into front-line teams.
Finally we need much better community child health services
focused on the early years. For too long in Britain there was a catastrophic
decline in health visiting and, although there are plans in hand to reverse
this trend, the outcomes are still not certain.
Having more well trained health professionals regularly
visiting families at home more often, and monitoring child care and development
especially during the first one or two years of life, seems to me to be
something most people would welcome. It would facilitate much quicker and more
decisive action if concerns of abuse and neglect come to light during the early
years.
