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Building collaboration with child protection and domestic and family violence sectors: trialling a living lab approach
- Authors:
- WENDT Sarah, BASTIAN Carmela, JONES Michelle
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Social Work, 51(2), 2021, pp.692-711.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
Collaboration across child protection and domestic and family violence (DFV) sectors have long been sought despite the competing priorities found in these practice fields. This article describes a research partnership that aimed to explore the competing priorities by focusing on how workers interact across child protection and DFV specialist agencies. Using a Living Lab Approach, enabled twelve focus groups with child protection and DFV social workers (n = 100). Thematic analysis was conducted, and it was found that diverse understandings of DFV created tensions when trying to form collaborations. These tensions were often amplified when other intersecting issues were present in family lives such as drug and alcohol and mental health problems. Understandings of Aboriginal cultural safety, and religious and culture impacts for cultural and linguistically diverse families were unintentionally sidelined. However, practitioners also formed common understandings of opportunities to progress and sustain collaboration across the sectors. The Living Lab Approach facilitated the development of a policy and practice guide for child protection to support future work. This has implications for social work practice because the Living Lab Approach enabled a call for a consistent approach to DFV that should be gender sensitive, trauma informed and culturally safe, and collaboration at practitioner, team and organisational levels. (Edited publisher abstract)
English lessons
- Author:
- COUGHLAN John
- Journal article citation:
- Community Care, 19.3.09, 2009, p.20.
- Publisher:
- Reed Business Information
Highlights the things that work in children's social services in England, including: integrated services, early years focus, the use of evidence-based practice and workforce development.
Child protection and family empowerment: competing rights or accordant goals?
- Author:
- GENTLES-GIBBS Natallie
- Journal article citation:
- Child Care in Practice, 22(4), 2016, pp.386-400.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
Since the advent of the Family Support movement in the 1970s, child welfare systems have been challenged to simultaneously protect children and empower the families they serve. Despite the passage of decades, however, the systems continue to struggle with adequately integrating the pursuit of family empowerment into the fabric of their work. While it is generally agreed that family empowerment is important, child welfare administrators do not seem to agree on whether the system can be dually focused or whether child welfare should maintain its focus as a protective authority. This article addresses the ongoing tension between protection and empowerment and presents data from interviews with 30 child welfare caseworkers and supervisors from three counties in the Mid-Western region of the United States. The interviewees share their understanding of the relationship between child protection and family empowerment. They also discuss key aspects of child welfare organisational culture which indicate why family empowerment may still be a struggle for these systems. The data reveal that comprehensive training is needed within child welfare in order to move the family empowerment agenda forward. (Publisher abstract)
The place of “think family” approaches in child and family social work: messages from a process evaluation of an English pathfinder service
- Authors:
- THOBURN June, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Children and Youth Services Review, 35(2), 2013, pp.228-236.
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
This paper reports findings from a process study of an English multi-disciplinary team working with families with long standing and complex problems. Data are provided on all families referred in the first year. For a one-third sub-sample of 33 cases, process and interim outcome data are analysed from information systematically extracted from case records. These are complemented by qualitative data from interviews with managers and caseworkers and by observation of ‘team around the family’ and professionals' meetings. The paper concludes that the service succeeds in engaging a majority of the referred families who have been hard to reach or hard to change in the past and whose children are either ‘on the edge of care’ or likely to be significantly harmed without the provision of an intensive service. Improvements were made in the life chances of children in 75% of the families. Aspects of the service identified as associated with more positive outcomes are: the allocation of two key workers, one for the child/children and one for the parent; the centrality of relationship-based practice and flexibility of the approach rather than strict adherence to any particular practice model; the fact that the service is firmly embedded within the statutory children's services department, allowing for continuity of relationships with team around the family members when the intensive service ends; and flexibility about case duration and intensity.
Integrated substance abuse and child welfare services for women: a progress review
- Authors:
- MARSH Jeanne C., SMITH Brenda D., BRUNI Maria
- Journal article citation:
- Children and Youth Services Review, 33(3), March 2011, pp.466-472.
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
This paper reviews the service system and service delivery context as well as progress that has been made in the development of integrated services for substance abusing parents involved in the child welfare system in the USA. It draws on the empirical literature to highlight improvements in service utilization and outcomes for women when substance abuse and child welfare services are integrated. The literature and strategies reviewed provide useful guidelines for developing components of effective, evidence-based programs for substance-involved women in the child welfare system.
Duty teams a dying breed
- Author:
- LARKMAN Chris
- Journal article citation:
- Community Care, 16.03.06, 2006, pp.34-35.
- Publisher:
- Reed Business Information
This article looks at the functioning of the social services emergency duty teams which have been operating a generic service for more than 30 years. It recommends that action is needed now to evaluate the service in order to realign with the specialist day services.
Health and safety
- Author:
- LUI Steve
- Journal article citation:
- Children Now, 7.09.05, 2005, p.21.
- Publisher:
- Haymarket
Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Trust have developed an integrated care pathway for vulnerable children which means they can ensure child protection is top priority. This article looks at the benefits.
Domestic violence and child protection: towards a collaborative approach across the two service sectors
- Authors:
- ZANNETTINO Lana, McLAREN Helen
- Journal article citation:
- Child and Family Social Work, 19(4), 2014, pp.421-431.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Domestic violence continues to be one of the most significant aspects of child abuse and neglect in Australia. However, the children are not well served by either child protection or domestic violence service sectors, which continue to operate as segregated, tertiary response systems. This paper reports on research that examined bridges and barriers to effective collaboration between child protection and domestic violence services in responding to children affected by domestic violence. The differing conceptions and responses of the workers from each service sector, in relation to children and families affected by domestic violence, is discussed in the light of gaps in service provision in both sectors. In doing so, areas of common ground for more effective collaboration between these service sectors are identified, including the prioritizing of emotional and psychological abuse, supporting and empowering abused mothers, strengthening the mother–child relationship, and supporting children and families across a continuum of service provision, particularly in the medium- to long-term. Understanding each other and finding common ground across the two service sectors is paramount to improving how each responds to children and families affected by domestic violence. (Original abstract)
Transforming a wild world: helping children and families to address neglect in the province of Quebec, Canada
- Author:
- LACHARITE Carl
- Journal article citation:
- Child Abuse Review, 23(4), 2014, pp.286-296.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Neglect is a complex social problem with serious consequences for the fulfilment of the needs of a child by adults in the child's immediate family and social network , not only parents, but other adults who come into contact with the child (including professionals). However, child protection systems have difficulty taking into account the social nature and the relational complexity of this issue. In fact, they have, consequently, a tendency to concentrate on the parents' deficiencies with regard to their responsibility to their children. This article describes the theoretical foundation of an ecosystemic and developmental model that forms the basis for the development of integrated child neglect services in Quebec, Canada. It also describes the components and activities that aim to operationalise this ecosystemic and developmental model of child neglect (Publisher abstract)
Evaluation of the Integrated Family Support Service: second interim report
- Authors:
- THOM Graham, et al
- Publisher:
- Welsh Government Social Research
- Publication year:
- 2013
- Pagination:
- 93
- Place of publication:
- Cardiff
Presents the findings from the second year of the evaluation of the Integrated Family Support Service (IFSS). The IFSS programme is focused on supporting families with complex needs, where a child/children can be at risk as a result of parental substance misuse problems. The work with families is structured around a phase of intensive intervention (Phase 1), which is expected to last four to six weeks and a phase in which professional interventions are provided to ensure the family remains in a positive process of change to meet the objectives of the family plan (Phase 2). Based on individual qualitative interviews and discussion groups and on a quantitative e-survey of time-use and practice, this evaluation covers all three IFSS pioneer areas in Wales and focuses in particular on the development process which each Phase 1 IFSS site has undertaken. The report provides an overview of the main delivery, management and governance arrangements and explores the throughput of IFSS cases, including the different referral routes in use, and the quality and appropriateness of referrals. It considers the main process issues associated with IFSS implementation and sets out an assessment of IFSS outcomes and impacts. A summary of the main findings and lessons from this second year of the evaluation is included, confirming an overall positive assessment of the programme. (Edited publisher abstract)