Search results for ‘Subject term:"child protection"’ Sort:
Results 1 - 10 of 25
Poverty and decision making in child welfare and protection: deepening the bias-need debate
- Authors:
- BRADT Lieve, et al
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Social Work, 45(7), 2015, pp.2161-2175.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
The influence of socio-economic background factors, such as poverty, on the risk of children to be disproportionately represented and placed in residential care has increasingly been the subject of international research. This article reports on the findings of a research project that focused on the relationship between poverty and child welfare and protection (CWP) interventions in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium). Using logistic regression models (N = 33,423), the authors examined which specific socio-economic risk factors in the total population of children enhances the risk of CWP interventions. The results show that all included socio-economic variables, except one, show an increased risk of CWP interventions. The results also reveal that a rather dominant social, cultural and historically rooted construction of middle-class family life seems to be an important ground for interventions. Based on these findings, it is argued that the current debate on bias might mask implicit assumptions within CWP decision making. (Publisher abstract)
Protecting children: messages from Europe
- Authors:
- HETHERINGTON Rachel, et al
- Publisher:
- Russell House
- Publication year:
- 1997
- Pagination:
- 211p.,bibliog.
- Place of publication:
- Lyme Regis
Comparative study based on action research into child protection services in eight European countries. Countries looked at are: Belgium (Flemish and Francophone communities); France; Germany; Italy, the Netherlands; England, and Scotland. Goes on to draw themes and comparisons from the outlines, including: understanding difference; children as objects or subjects; the social work task in context; and the child, the family, the state and the social worker.
The Belgian Flemish child protection system: confidentiality, voluntarism and coercion
- Authors:
- LUCKOCK Barry, VOLGER Richard, KEATING Heather
- Journal article citation:
- Child and Family Law Quarterly, 9(2), 1997, pp.101-113.
- Publisher:
- Jordan Publishing
Discusses how debates over the child protection system in the UK have been enlivened by comparative analysis of continental procedure. In particular, enthusiastic claims have been made about the approaches adopted in both France and Belgium. Both systems, so it is claimed, avoid the legalism and the punitive attitudes of the English and Welsh system, thus making child protection more effective for children and families and less antagonistic and demoralising for child care professionals. Describes a comparative pilot study of the role of judicial decision making in France, in the Flemish Community in Belgium, and in England.
Framing the 'child at risk' in social work reports: truth-telling or storytelling?
- Authors:
- ROETS Griet, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Social Work, 17(4), 2017, pp.453-469.
- Publisher:
- Sage
In the field of child welfare and protection, the notion of the ‘child at risk’ implies a central ground and legitimation for intervention yet is extremely ambiguous, since it can be constructed in radically different ways in practice. This construction process might involve challenges to professional assessment and intervention, since dealing with this complex notion is about more than tools, (risk) management and protocols. This article focuses on the practice of writing reports as an exemplary practice in which social workers exercise their power while assessing and constructing the child as ‘at risk’. Two approaches of social workers in interpreting the complexity of situations where children are potentially at risk are considered: truth-telling and storytelling. The authors report on a qualitative study conducted with 152 social work students to explore how the students construct reports. The analysis identifies three major issues in the construction of the ‘child at risk’ when social work students approach report writing as an open-ended and reflexive practice of storytelling: recognisability, comprehensibility and stigmatisation. The normative judgement processes in social work are complex, determined by the analysis of situations in which the child may potentially be constructed as being at risk. Dealing with this complexity therefore requires reflexivity of social workers regarding their perceptions and interpretations at stake in practice. We argue that normative judgement in risk assessment should be an essential area for exploration in social work education. (Edited publisher abstract)
A third way: a European perspective on the child protection/family support debate; report of a workshop on 18th/19th January 1996 convened by the NSPCC and Brunel University College Social Work Department
- Authors:
- COOPER Andrew, HETHERINGTON Rachael, KATZ Ilan
- Publisher:
- National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
- Publication year:
- 1997
- Pagination:
- 47p.
- Place of publication:
- London
Report of a conference on child protection services attended by practitioners from the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and Germany. Aims to increase awareness of European models of practice, which tend to be centred around the family as a whole, and do not separate child protection from family support and juvenile justice, and to debate issues around the balance between care and control.
The Confidential Doctor Centre - a new approach to child protection work
- Author:
- MARNETT Catherine
- Journal article citation:
- Adoption and Fostering, 16(4), 1992, pp.23-28.
- Publisher:
- Sage
Describes the work of the Confidential Doctor Service ('Kind in Nood') at the University Hospital for Children in Brussels, which offers a non-punitive, therapeutic response to child abuse and neglect.
A different way of working
- Author:
- NEATE Polly
- Journal article citation:
- Community Care, 10.10.91, 1991, pp.15-17.
- Publisher:
- Reed Business Information
The Belgian system of child protection differs from the British system by concentrating more on treatment of victims under the overall guidance of a medical doctor; with anonymity of abusers guaranteed.
Temporal and moral orders of social work intervention: the accomplishment of relationship work in a case of physical abuse
- Authors:
- DENNIS Alex, LEIGH Jadwiga
- Journal article citation:
- Qualitative Social Work, 20(5), 2021, pp.1239-1259.
- Publisher:
- Sage
This paper explores the employment of communication, engagement and relationship-based practice skills by a Flemish social worker working with a parent who was alleged to have assaulted his child. We deploy insights gained from ethnomethodology to analyse extracts from an ethnographic observation. We show how a respectful approach can be developed between two parties who seek to find meaning from the chain of events they are presented with. In doing so, we establish how practice can be conducted differently depending on the context in which professionals and families find themselves. We argue that social workers’ identities revolve around being competent members of their professional community by working within the recommended guidelines and keeping children safe. However, this does not mean that organisational rules determine the activities that take place. Instead, we show how social workers can use their experience and skills to develop effective working relationships and still achieve their intended outcomes without blaming or shaming parents. (Edited publisher abstract)
Electronic Information Systems: in search of responsive social work
- Authors:
- DEVLIEGHERE Jochen, ROOSE Rudi
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Social Work, 18(6), 2018, pp.650-665.
- Publisher:
- Sage
Summary: The informational context in which social work has been operating over the past decade has gained much more significance. In this context, Electronic Information Systems are often implemented with the aim of being responsive to the needs of children and families. However, research has critically identified some major concerns with using Electronic Information Systems in ways that tend to reduce social work to a technical practice. As a result, practitioners and managers are using their discretion to shape and bend regulations precisely in order to achieve responsive social work practice. In this paper, the authors aim is to capture the meaning of these strategies for the development of responsive social work. To do so, the authors interviewed social practitioners working with Electronic Information Systems on a daily basis. Findings: The authors results show how practitioners develop a diversity of strategies to recreate the relational aspect of social work, thereby challenging the hypothesis that this was curtailed by the use of Electronic Information Systems. Applications: By fleshing out the meaning of the strategies practitioners use in their daily practice, we aim to contribute to the contemporary debate about the use of these strategies in social work practice. At the same time, it is also important to understand the meaning of these strategies in relation to the development of responsive social work as this development cannot be reduced to a mere relational practice where principles of justice, equality and solidarity are not equally considered. (Edited publisher abstract)
Creating transparency through electronic information systems: opportunities and pitfalls
- Authors:
- DEVLIEGHERE Jochen, BRADT Lieve, ROOSE Rudi
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Social Work, 48(3), 2018, pp.734-750.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
Over the past few decades, governments all over Europe have drawn upon a diversity of Electronic Information Systems (EISs). One of the aims of these EISs is the creation of a transparent Child Welfare and Protection (CWP) system. In that context, Gillingham and Graham (2016) argue that the implementation of EISs in social work has made the daily work of practitioners visible in ways that social workers in the 1970s and 1980s would have find unimaginable. However, this has not gone unchallenged as research reveals that practitioners develop strategies which can also undermine the aim of transparency. This paper aims to capture the tension between this aim and the reality of social work practice in using EISs. We undertook semi-structured interviews with seventeen social practitioners and uncovered a complex struggle in which practitioners showed how EISs are capable of both increasing and hindering the creation of transparency. We therefore argue that the problem does not lie so much in the implementation or design of EISs, but in the idea that transparency can be increased by EISs. (Edited publisher abstract)