Overcoming barriers to child-centred - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Overcoming barriers to child-centred practice

Vivienne Barnes21.3.18Slide2

Insider/outsider viewSlide3

1 Background to child-centred practiceChild-centred practice: the contextPerspectives on children and childhoodChildren’s rights and child-centred practiceII Developing skills in child-centred practice Communicating with and developing relationships with children and young people

Empowerment, participation and advocacy skills Breaking down the barriers? III Specific fields of child-centred practice   Child protection and safeguarding Children and young people who are looked afterSlide4

Child centred practice – a cliché?Assessment FrameworkChild at the centre(DfE, 2015)Munro Review of Child Protection

‘A child-centred system’(Munro, 2011) Slide5

Why do we need to be reminded ?Failures in protecting children, especially babies and young children, from abuse and neglect.Direct complaints by children and young people looked after in foster and residential care that their voices are not heard. Slide6

Child protection: Findings from Serious Case Reviews Professionals

:Did not see children

frequently

enough, or ask

about their views and feelings.

Did not listen to adults

who tried to speak on

the children’s behalf, and

who had important information

Were prevented by parents

and

carers

from seeing and listening

to children.

Focused too much on the needs of parents, especially on vulnerable parents, and overlooked the implications for childrenDid not interpret their findings well enough to protect the child. (Ofsted, 2010; Sidebotham, 2016)

SRC>Slide7

Children and young people looked after in foster and residential care say they want :To be listened toTo be involved in decisions about their livesTo be treated with respectPeople who careContinuity – of placements, social workers, education(Butler and Williamson, 1994; Barnes, 2012; Pert el al, 2017)Slide8

Still not listened to............?‘I just want someone to listen and understand what I want to happen’ (Butler and Williamson, 1994) ‘They [social workers]don't listen to children's views - don't listen to what we want. They just jump in at things like a bull at a gate.’ (Barnes, 2012) ‘What’s the point [of attending review meetings]? Nothing ever changes so there is no point’

(Pert et al., 2017)Slide9

Progress?Children and young people attending case conferencesNew media resources for consulting children and young people, and consultation forumsTeams around the child, Signs of SafetyIndependent Reviewing Officers and advocatesSlide10

What is Child-centred practice, anyway?DEFINED THROUGH RIGHTS AND UNCRC?‘The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) provides a child-centred framework within which services to children are located.’ (Munro, 2011) Child-centred practice related to the different strands of children’s rights in the UNCRC, - of provision, protection and participation. (

Rasmusson et al., 2010)DEFINED THROUGH BEST INTERESTS? ‘There is no general agreement of what a child-centred approach is, but the basic principle involves engaging with children and their families, understanding and providing services that reflect their individual needs and taking into account their wishes and feelings, but remaining aware that

they may not yet fully understand the risks involved in their choices’

(

Goodyer

, 2011)Slide11

CritiquesA person-centred or child-centred approach in social work is misplaced since social workers are not helping their service users to ‘self actualise’ (as in client-centred therapy) but are using relationships instrumentally in e.g. assessments of risk (Murphy et al., 2013)

So called ‘child-centred approaches’ do not go far enough in taking account of the inequalities in power between social work professionals and children. We need to be ‘child- directed’ (Fern, 2014)Slide12

Towards a Definition.....Ascertaining children’s wishes and feelings by communicating appropriately in terms of age, language, ethnicity and ability;Maximising their participation in discussions about their welfare; Including them in decision making

;Taking account of their strengths and their unique knowledge of their own situation;Making sure that any judgements about what is in a child’s best interests and any perceived limitations of risk should not be allowed to dominate completely and hinder professionals from taking account of children’s agency;

Facilitating the

access to independent advice or advocacy

, especially where a social worker’s or agency’s views conflict with those of a child.

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Barriers to child centred practice? ORGANISATIONAL

Resources Resource driven services, Pressures of time, Workloads, Locum workers (No Good Options, 2017) Austerity What in British social policy is referred to as the imposition of ‘higher eligibility criteria’ in social care is a polite way of saying that basic services that people require for a decent existence and to which they have been entitled for decades will no longer be available and that they will have to get by, somehow, without support

.

(Ferguson and

Lavalette

, 2013)Slide14

Barriers to child centred practice? Bureaucracy

Social worker told to ‘do less visits to families and do more paperwork’ (Gibson, 2016)‘Just there doing a job’ (Barnes, 2012)Managerialism

Monitoring, evaluation and control

(Hughes and Wearing, 2013)

Affected by ‘blame culture’

(Jones, 2014)Slide15

Barriers to child centred practice?Decisions Rigid procedures?Resource - led?

Attitudes to children and young peoplePaternalist / ‘developmentalist’– children as ‘incompetent’, ‘immature’Protectionist – children as ‘vulnerable’Barriers to good relationships

‘

Tasks, Trust, Threats, Theories, Training, Tools and Time’

(Winter, 2011)Slide16

Taking steps?Changing the culture Times of meetings child friendly meetings and officesMaking and spending time Social workers in child protection teams spent 70-90% of their time on administration (Gibson, 2016)Challenging the organisational ethos

Changing systems – putting children at the centre (Gibson and O’Donovan, 2014) Professional/ group action?Slide17

Taking steps? Child-centred supervision Photo of child What type of relationship do you have with the child/ young person?To what extent does the child/ young person trust you?

In what ways have you provided information to the child/ young person?In what ways have you encouraged the child/young person to be involved in decision making? (McPherson and Macnamara

, 2016)Slide18

Taking steps?Building on progressCommunicationAdvocacy and participationSocial pedagogyAwareness of oppressive social attitudes to children – children as ‘social actors’?Slide19

Some Dilemmas of Child Centred PracticeRisk and rights e.g. young people and access to mediaDomestic abuse victims and their childrenSharing information with other professionals and confidentiality - losing trust of young peopleVery young children – how to include themChild Sexual Exploitation – working with young people who don’t engageSlide20

Example: Balancing rights and risksSani - 13 year old in foster care

Was rejected by her family because of her relationship with a15 year old boyHer father found naked images of her on her mobile phone that she had sent to her boyfriend

The

police

became

involved

and

interviewed

the boyfriend

Sani

is not

allowed to see him or communicate with him at all, and she is not allowed to have her mobile phone

.

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https://www.macmillanihe.com/page/detail/?SF1=barcode&ST1=9781137606419

Email k.v.barnes@sgul.kingston.ac.ukSlide22

ReferencesBarnes, V. (2012) Social Work and Advocacy with Young People: Rights and Care in Practice, British Journal of Social Work, 42 (7): 1275-1292.Butler, I. and Williamson, I. (1994) Children Speak: Children, Trauma and Social Work. London: Longman/ NSPCC.Department for Education (2015b)

Working Together to Safeguard Children. London: DfE.Ferguson, I. and Lavalette, M. (2013) Crisis, Austerity and the Future(s) of Social Work in the UK. 

Critical and Radical Social Work

, 1(1): 95-110. 

Fern, E. (2014) Child-Directed Social Work Practice: Findings from an Action Research Study Conducted in Iceland,

British Journal of Social Work,

44 (5): 1110-1128.

Gibson, M. (2016) Social Worker or Social Administrator? Findings From a Qualitative Case Study of a Child Protection Social Work Team, 

Child and Family Social Work

, doi:10.1111/cfs.12335.

Goodyer

, A. (2011)

Child-Centred Foster Care: A Rights-Based Model for Practice

. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Hughes, M. and Wearing, M. (2013) Organisations and Management in Social Work, 2nd edition. London: Sage.Jones, R. (2014) The Story of Baby P. Setting the Record Straight. Bristol: Policy Press.Slide23

ReferencesMcPherson, L. and MacNamara, N. (2016) Supervising Child Protection Practice: What Works? An Evidence Informed Approach. London: Springer.Munro, E. (2011)

The Munro Review of Child Protection: Final Report: A Child-Centred Approach. London: The Stationery Office. Ofsted (2010) The Voice of the Child: Learning Lessons from Serious Case Reviews. A Thematic Report of Ofsted’s Evaluation of Serious Case Reviews from 1 April to 30 September.Pert, H., Diaz, C. and Thomas, N. (2017) Children’s Participation in LAC Reviews: A Study in One English Local Authority,

Child and Family Social Work,

22 (S2): 1-10.

Rasmusson

, B.,

Hyvönen

, U.,

Nygren

, L. and

Khoo

, E. (2010) Child-Centred Social Work Practice -Three Unique Meanings in the Context of Looking after Children and the Assessment Framework in Australia, Canada and Sweden,

Children and Youth Services Review

, 32(3): 452-459.

Sidebotham, P., Brandon, M., Bailey, S., Belderson, P., Dodsworth, J., Garstang, J., Harrison, E., Retzer, A. and Sorensen, P. (2016) Pathways to Harm, Pathways to Protection: A Triennial Analysis of Serious Case Reviews 2011 to 2014 Final Report. London: Department for Education.Winter, K. (2011) Building Relationships and Communicating with Young Children: A Practical Guide for Social Workers. Abingdon: Routledge.