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Safeguarding children: a comparison of England's data with that of Australia, Norway and the United States |
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London: Great Britain. Department for Education, 2012. 88p. |
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Abstract: |
In recent years increasing attention has been given to the value of cross-national research and analysis to illuminate strengths and weaknesses in child welfare systems. Routinely collected administrative datasets on children in contact with children’s social care services offer a convenient source of data to assist in exploring similarities and differences in responses to abuse and neglect and how these have changed over time. This study was commissioned with the aim of drawing together existing aggregate administrative data on safeguarding children and child protection and exploring the availability and comparability of these data as a tool. Five countries were selected for the study: England, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and the U.S. The findings highlight that variations in the data collected, recording practices, definitions of abuse and neglect, thresholds for formal intervention by children’s social care services and subsequent systems and processes to respond to these concerns make drawing meaningful comparisons challenging. However, the analysis did highlight an upward trend in referrals, assessments and in the out of home care population in England, Australia and Norway, even though reforms have been implemented to promote early intervention and prevention. In contrast, in the U.S there has been a decline in the number of cases of substantiated abuse and in the number of children in out of home care. Reasons for this include an increase in the use of ‘voluntary’ or informal kinship care which diverts children from the formal child welfare system. |
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book; |
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Topics: |
child abuse; child protection; comparative studies; databases; looked after children; statistical methods; |
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www.scie-socialcareonline.org.uk/profile.asp?guid=d8f05574-110e-4e8c-8e74-b6dadea96898 |
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