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Addressing the Disconnects in Child Protection Practice

Addressing the Disconnects in Child Protection Practice

Our latest issue of Child Abuse Review has been published and is freely available online. It is packed with thought-provoking articles that look at some of the disconnects in our thinking and practice around protecting children.

I am particularly inspired by Jo Aldridge’s paper, ‘This is not just about history…’ Jo, herself a survivor of childhood abuse, reflects on the process and progress of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), a long-running public inquiry investigating the extent to which public bodies and other non-state institutions in England and Wales have taken seriously their responsibility to protect children from sexual abuse (https://www.iicsa.org.uk). Her paper provides a pertinent and meaningful critique of the process being undertaken by this inquiry – a critique that has implications for all those involved in responding to and learning from historical child abuse, but also because it has important lessons for all who are involved in safeguarding children in the present.

 

If we are to work effectively with children and young people, we need to listen carefully to those children and young people, and to the adults they grow up to become. The voices of survivors are an essential part of our reflection, learning and improvement.

 

Jo will be speaking at the BASPCAN International Congress in April – along with many other survivors and survivors’ organisations. That, too, promises to be a really worthwhile time of learning, reflection and dialogue. There is still time to register, so do take a look at the website for the full programme and further details.

www.baspcan.org.uk/congress-2018/

 

Our current issue of Child Abuse Review includes papers on reporting child sexual abuse within religious settings, on the Parents under Pressure support programme, and on peer-on-peer abuse and exploitation in the UK and Romania, and a challenging critique by Michael Preston-Shoot of the recent Wood review into children’s safeguarding systems in England. I encourage you to have a browse and to reflect on some of the disconnects these papers highlight.

 

‘…just as safeguarding children involves a practice which is inherently social and relational, full of complexity, uncertainty, dilemmas, tensions and complicated truths, so too is the practice of reviewing cases and understanding how to go on better than before.’

  • Michael Preston-Shoot

 

 

You can access my editorial and all the papers in this issue by clicking on the links below:

 

Child Abuse Review   Volume 27, Issue 1

 

Editorial

Addressing the Disconnects in Child Protection Practice (pages 5–10)

Peter Sidebotham

 

Reviews

What is Really Wrong with Serious Case Reviews? (pages 11–23)

Michael Preston-Shoot

 

‘This is Not Just About History…’ Addressing the Disconnect in Historic (Non-Recent) Child Abuse Investigations (pages 24–29)

Jo Aldridge

 

Original Articles

 

Reporting Child Sexual Abuse within Religious Settings: Challenges and Future Directions (pages 30–41)

Craig A. Harper and Colin Perkins

 

Contextual Risk, Individualised Responses: An Assessment of Safeguarding Responses to Nine Cases of Peer-on-Peer Abuse (pages 42–57)

Carlene Firmin

 

Peer Exploitation: Findings from a Romanian National Representative Sample of Children Living in Long-Term Residential Centres (pages 58–71)

Adrian V. Rus, Ecaterina Stativa, Max E. Butterfield, Jacquelyn S. Pennings, Sheri R. Parris, Gabriel Burcea and Reggies Wenyika

 

Assessing Capacity to Change in High-Risk Pregnant Women: A Pilot Study(pages 72–84)

Paul H. Harnett, Jane Barlow, Chris Coe, Caroline Newbold and Sharon Dawe

 

Training Update

Neglect Toolkit: Guidance for Practitioners by Northamptonshire Safeguarding Children Board, 2016.

Wendy Hill

 

Book Review

 

Tackling Child Neglect: Research, Policy and Evidence-Based Practice Edited by Ruth Gardner

Claire Monk

 

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All you need is love (plus a good evidence base, a healthy dose of scepticism, and patience and perseverance in working with families!)

All you need is love?

Our latest issue of Child Abuse Review, now available online, explores some of the dilemmas in working with violent fathers and their families. Positive affirmation and support is a central part of such work, but is it really all that is needed? Can violent men really change?

In our first paper for this issue Timothy Broady and colleagues report on an evaluation of a men’s domestic violence intervention programme, using a qualitative analysis of interviews with 21 participants (Broady et al., 2017). Perhaps the most striking finding of this research was the universal expression, by these fathers, of love for their children, and how that was ‘motivating them to stop using violence and to develop positive relationships with all family members’. Broady and his colleagues suggest that ‘the frustrations reported at not having contact with their children emerged as a particularly powerful experience that could be harnessed to encourage men to acknowledge the severity of their behaviour and to find alternative ways of relating to family members.’

 

It is not sufficient to put all the responsibility for keeping their children safe on mothers who themselves are victims of the violence and controlling behaviour perpetrated by their partners. If we are going to bring about any meaningful change in families affected by domestic violence, the perpetrators of that violence need to take responsibility for their attitudes and behaviours, and to take genuine steps towards changing not just the violent behaviours themselves, but also the deeper attitudes of power and control which underlie those behaviours.

 

Picking up on these findings, it seems imperative that intervention programmes seek to understand and work with what motivates violent perpetrators to change. If their love for their children can help motivate change, that must surely be a good thing. However, it is essential that practitioners, while showing compassion and a supportive attitude to their clients, are not naïve about the challenges involved. Change does not happen overnight, and the manipulative, controlling attitudes of many perpetrators of domestic violence mean that a degree of scepticism is important, along with patience and perseverance in working with these men.

As with so much of our safeguarding practice, we need to hold on to the hope that children’s lives can be better.  We need to maintain high expectations of parents in their care of their children; provide them with the support that will enable them to meet those high expectations; and keep our focus on the child, so that we are prepared to challenge and act when those expectations are not met.

 

Balancing support and scrutiny

The difficulties in achieving a balance between support and scrutiny are brought into a different perspective in a paper by Louise Caffrey (2017), specifically in the context of volunteers working in supported child contact centres. Caffrey’s research is an excellent example of how systems methodology can help get beneath the surface of individual behaviours to understand the context, values, and organisational systems which may underlie those behaviours. Pertinently, she found that while the volunteers were aware that child safety and protection were everyone’s business, and were knowledgeable about their responsibilities to refer child protection concerns and how to do so, there were other emphases that could ‘stand in tension with their safeguarding commitments’. In particular, she found that workers emphasised a need to provide a welcoming service, to be non-judgemental, and to be neutral. Indeed, practices such as listening in on conversations, recording observations, or finding out about the background case histories, which were felt to jeopardise the aim of creating a welcoming environment, or that could be perceived as biased or judgemental, were actively avoided or viewed negatively by these workers.

 

‘You have to dance, not wrestle’

That was how one midwife described how she approached addressing child protection concerns with vulnerable pregnant women in a study from New South Wales by Louise Everitt, Caroline Homer and Jennifer Fenwick (Everitt et al., 2016). In a qualitative interview study, the authors identified four core themes that reflected some of the complexities of working with women and their unborn babies. Central to all of these was the dilemma caused by a partnership model of care, when potential child protection concerns are identified. The statutory power carried by community services could be seen as daunting by these midwives, and a potential threat to their relationship with their clients. Indeed, what comes across strongly in reading this report, is the emphasis these midwives place on maintaining a relationship with the mothers with whom they are working, and to do everything possible to support these mothers and enable them to take their babies home and care for them safely. One key aspect of this was the emphasis on being open and honest with these mothers, not going behind their backs, but providing them with support to try and change. Once again, this study highlights just how challenging such work can be, requiring perseverance, time and energy to achieve a good outcome.

 

Along with these studies of working with parents, other papers in this issue explore the impact of neglect and abuse on young people’s resilience and psychosocial adaptation, including a paper from Extremadura in Spain reporting on young people placed in residential care because of neglect (Moreno-Manso et al., 2017), and one from Jeff Moore, Christine Thornton and Mary Hughes (2017) reporting on a study with 22 Irish emigrant survivors of institutional abuse. In contrast, Duncan Helm (2017) reports on a thought-provoking ethnographic study of a social work team in Scotland. Helm identified high levels of case knowledge, along with exploration, curiosity and hypothesis generation, without the need to necessarily identify solutions. Practitioners were able to share knowledge and resources that supported critical thinking. However, He also identified an absence of challenging dialogue and dialectic debate. Helm’s findings emphasise the importance of both physical and emotional ‘secure space’ for practitioners, but highlights the need to promote ‘working team cultures which facilitate challenging yet supportive dialogue as an aid to sense-making’.

 

Love, challenge, patience and perseverance

Despite John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s assertion, in 1967, that ‘all you need is love’, the research reported in this issue of Child Abuse Review suggest that this is not the whole picture. ‘Love’, expressed in these papers as affection, empathy, compassion and support, for parents, children and young people, and colleagues, is a crucial component of safeguarding practice. Love of their children may indeed be a strong motivator for violent fathers, or vulnerable mothers, but expressions of love, by themselves, do not guarantee a child’s safety, and need to be accompanied by genuine and sustained changes in attitudes and behaviours that clearly promote the child’s needs. For practitioners, empathy and support towards the parents with whom they are working need to be balanced with professional curiosity and challenge, and attitudes of patience and perseverance in working with these families.

For those affected by abuse or neglect, compassion and understanding is clearly needed from those to whom they turn for support; that compassion and understanding needs to be grounded in empowering approaches of sharing control and helping the individual to build resilience.

 

 

Child Abuse Review Issue 26:5

Table of Contents

All You Need is Love (Plus a Good Evidence Base, a Healthy Dose of Scepticism, and Patience and Perseverance in Working with Families!) (pages 323–327)

Peter Sidebotham

 
‘I Miss My Little One A Lot’: How Father Love Motivates Change in Men Who Have Used Violence (pages 328–338)

Timothy R. Broady, Rebecca Gray, Irene Gaffney and Pamela Lewis

 
The Importance of Perceived Organisational Goals: A Systems Thinking Approach to Understanding Child Safeguarding in the Context of Domestic Abuse (pages 339–350)

Louise Caffrey

 
Working with Vulnerable Pregnant Women Who Are At Risk of Having their Babies Removed by the Child Protection Agency in New South Wales, Australia (pages 351–363)

Louise Everitt, Caroline Homer and Jennifer Fenwick

 

Psychosocial Adaptation of Young Victims of Physical Neglect (pages 364–374)

Juan Manuel Moreno-Manso, Mª Elena García-Baamonde, Eloísa Guerrero-Barona, Macarena Blázquez-Alonso, José Manuel Pozueco-Romero and Mª José Godoy-Merin

 

On the Road to Resilience: The Help-Seeking Experiences of Irish Emigrant Survivors of Institutional Abuse (pages 375–387)

Jeff Moore, Christine Thornton and Mary Hughes

 
Can I Have A Word? Social Worker Interaction and Sense-Making (pages 388–398)

Duncan Helm

 

 

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Safeguarding children across the globe

Child maltreatment is a reality that affects children throughout the world – in all cultures and across all continents. How different countries respond to this varies. From countries adopting a strong and often punitive protection focus, to more supportive models of working in partnership with parents, through to areas where corruption, indifference or a lack of infrastructure can compromise efforts to safeguard children, the complexities of responding to this need are huge.

‘the type of model adopted within a country can have a significant impact upon the response subsequently made to children with safeguarding needs’

 

Our latest special issue of Child Abuse Review presents a series of papers which demonstrate how different models of child protection have been developed and implemented in different countries and consider the implications for the treatment and protection of children. It provides examples of cross-national learning and examines the policymaking context behind child protection models and where such learning has not always had positive outcomes for children. Accounts of child protection practice within Africa, Taiwan, Finland, Norway, the UK, the USA, Suriname, Sweden and China are presented.

In an accompanying editorial, our guest editors, Louise Brown, Jie Lei and Marianne Strydom explore some of these issues and highlight the research presented in this issue. They argue the case for areas that are developing child protection systems to draw on learning from elsewhere, but to temper this with more locally-based practical responses developed in partnership with local communities.

How effectively we are able to safeguard and protect children depends not only on the systems and structures we have in place to respond to child abuse and neglect, but also on the underlying cultural values affecting how we perceive children and families. Two papers in this special issue – from Suriname and from Finland and Sweden – present very different cultural contexts and make for interesting reflection.

 

‘This special issue brings to our attention issues relating to the different models of child protection that have been adopted by different countries and the complexity in the process of adapting models to fit different cultural contexts. It questions the usefulness and validity of attempts to impose international standards, and how different models can result in different responses to children’

 

You can access the editorial for free, along with the full table of contents, earlier issues and early view papers on the Child Abuse Review website:

 

Child Abuse Review Special Issue 26:4 Table of Contents

Comparing International Approaches to Safeguarding Children: Global Lesson Learning (pages 247–251)

Louise Brown, Jie Lei and Marianne Strydom

 

The Practical Sense of Protection: A Discussion Paper on the Reporting of Child Abuse in Africa and whether International Standards Actually Help Keep Children Safe (pages 252–262)

Karen Walker-Simpson

 

Policy Assemblage in Taiwan’s Child Protection Reforms: Policy Mixture, Policy Regime Change and Shifting Policy Challenges (pages 263–274)

Yei-Whei Lin

 

Perceptions of Corporal Punishment among Creole and Maroon Professionals and Community Members in Suriname (pages 275–288)

Inger W. van der Kooij, Josta Nieuwendam, Gerben Moerman, Frits Boer, Ramón J. L. Lindauer, Jaipaul L. Roopnarine and Tobi L. G. Graafsma

 

Parents’ Self-Reported Use of Corporal Punishment and Other Humiliating Upbringing Practices in Finland and Sweden – A Comparative Study (pages 289–304)

Noora Ellonen, Steven Lucas, Ylva Tindberg and Staffan Janson

 

A Cross-Country Comparison of Child Welfare Systems and Workers’ Responses to Children Appearing to be at Risk or in Need of Help (pages 305–319)

Jill Berrick, Jonathan Dickens, Tarja Pösö and Marit Skivenes

 

 

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Making an Impact: Child Abuse Review

2016 Journal Impact Factors

The 2016 journal Impact Factor results were released on Wednesday and we were really pleased to find that the Impact Factor for Child Abuse Review has increased from 0.941 to 1.543. This is fantastic news and it exceeds our strategic goal which was 1.2 by 2017.

2016 impact factors
The journal now ranks 19/43 in Family Studies and 9/42 in Social Work.

We are really proud of the progress we have been able to make with the journal. Ultimately, that comes down to the quality of the papers that are submitted, the hard work of the editorial and publishing teams, and the support of all our readers, reviewers, editorial board, and Diane our tireless manager.

 

Inspiring Research

Looking back over the past couple of years, we have been able to publish some extremely important research which is clearly having an impact, not just on journal metrics, but on policy and practice in the UK and around the world. Highlights for me have been

However there are so many more of relevance to academics and practitioners alike. Many of our papers are freely available online through our virtual issues, so do take a look at the journal website and be inspired!

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Working with the Victims and Perpetrators of Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation

Working with the victims and perpetrators of child sexual abuse and exploitation: The latest issue of Child Abuse Review

Working with the victims and perpetrators of child sexual abuse and exploitation is one of the most challenging fields of child protection practice. The nature of some of these cases is such that it challenges our beliefs in the inherent goodness of our fellow human beings and can leave us, as practitioners, feeling emotionally drained and bruised. In the words of a participant in one of the research studies reported in this issue of Child Abuse Review, ‘It’s horrible stuff that you are hearing day in and day out’ (Ahern et al., 2017, p. 133).

These cases are often complex and their investigation can be protracted. There is a difficult balance to be achieved between the forensic requirements of robust evidence gathering, the therapeutic aspects of caring for the victims, and the public interests of ensuring justice, rehabilitating offenders and preventing reoffending.

So how can we best support professionals working in this complex field? What tools and techniques are available to them and how best can they use these?

The papers in this issue of Child Abuse Review address some of these topics.

 

Understanding offenders’ belief systems

In an accompanying editorial, I explore some of these questions, starting with a discussion paper by Jamie Walton and colleagues looking at the properties of the Sex with Children Scale. This led me to deepen my own understanding in relation to the Implicit Theories hypothesis as an attempt to understand the underlying belief systems of perpetrators of child sexual abuse.

Ward and colleagues postulated that such offenders may hold one or more ‘implicit theories’ about themselves, other people and their surrounding environments, and it is these inherent belief systems which allow them to sexually abuse children. They proposed five implicit theories that child sexual offenders may hold: children as sexual beings; the nature of harm; the world as dangerous; entitlement; and uncontrollability (Ward and Keenan, 1999).

 

Responding to the child victims of sexual abuse

Two papers in this issue consider the child victims of sexual abuse and how we can assess, support and respond to their needs, including an evaluation of joint investigative interview training in Scotland, and a comparison of the information obtained from young people in a direct research interview with that available as a result of the child protection assessment.

A number of important conclusions can be drawn from this research: first, that we owe it to children and young people to include their voices in research about and for them; second, that much useful data can be obtained through the careful and ethical use of routinely collected information, such as case assessments; and third, that routinely collected information cannot replace the depth and breadth of data obtained through well-designed qualitative or quantitative research projects. In seeking to promote evidence-informed research, therefore, we need to explore both avenues and to do so in a way that respects and empowers children and young people.

 

Supporting practitioners working with child sexual exploitation

Working with child sexual abuse and exploitation is challenging to the practitioners in this field. Their responses are explored in research by Elizabeth Ahern and colleagues.

One of the striking findings of this research was the tendency for practitioners to report withholding their own emotional responses during the interviews for the sake of the young people. However, as the authors point out, many young people want practitioners to be human and interact with them. Such emotional distancing could have a negative impact both on the young people themselves and their ability or willingness to engage with the interview, and also on the wellbeing of the professionals involved.

 

You can read the full editorial online for free at the journal website:

Editorial: Working with the victims and perpetrators of child sexual abuse and exploitation

 

Child Abuse Review, Issue 26:2

Table of Contents

Editorial

Working with the Victims and Perpetrators of Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (pages 85–90)

Peter Sidebotham

 

Original Articles

A Brief Discussion About Measuring Child Molester Cognition With the Sex With Children Scale (pages 91–102)

Jamie Walton, Simon Duff and Shihning Chou

A Retrospective Analysis of Children’s Assessment Reports: What Helps Children Tell? (pages 103–115)

Rosaleen McElvaney and Maebh Culhane

An Open and Shut Case of Closed Questions: An Exploration of Joint Investigative Interview Training in Scotland (pages 116–129)Susanne Goetzold

Wellbeing of Professionals Working with Suspected Victims of Child Sexual Exploitation (pages 130–140)Elizabeth C. Ahern, Leslie H. Sadler, Michael E. Lamb and Gianna M. Gariglietti

Methodological Moderators in Prevalence Studies on Child Maltreatment: Review of a Series of Meta-Analyses (pages 141–157)Mariëlle J. L. Prevoo, Marije Stoltenborgh, Lenneke R. A. Alink, Marian J. Bakermans-Kranenburg and Marinus H. van IJzendoorn

 

Book Reviews

Recognition of Child Abuse for the Mandated Reporter by A. P. Giardino, L. Shaw, P. M. Speck and E. R. Giardino, GW Medical Publishing, St Louis, Missouri, 4th Revised Edition, 2015. 402 pp. ISBN 978-1-878060-53-2 (Pbk), £58.95 (page 158)William Meredith

Contemporary Family Justice: Policy and Practice in Complex Child Protection Decisions by Kim Holt, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London, 2016. 168pp. ISBN 978-1-84905-626-7 (Pbk), £17.99 (page 159)

Katy Burch

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Kneeling on Mung Beans

 

Imagine a world where each child has the right to live in a happy family that is full of hope, where children can play in clean playgrounds, where no child is beaten or hit with a piece of wood, belt or hanger, or is cursed, pinched, slapped, or made to kneel on mung beans.

That was the dream of a non-violent and non-discriminatory family and community expressed by a group of street youth in Manila (1).

Such a dream is something we strive for in our work to combat child maltreatment worldwide. It is not something that will be easily achieved, but we need to do all we can to promote it through education, family support and early intervention, services for abused children, legislation, and research. It is fitting, therefore, that our final issue in the 25th anniversary volume of Child Abuse Review, now available online, should focus on research from different countries, bringing a global perspective on different aspects of safeguarding children.

 

The research being reported by Daniel Wartenweiler and Roseann Mansukhani in this issue is a powerful example of what can be achieved through participatory work with young people in a resource-poor setting. The 11 young people who took part in the research reported often quite disturbing examples of both physical and verbal abuse within the guise of discipline. The young people reported feelings of rejection, anger and resentment, rifts in the parent-child relationship, and defiant behaviours as a result. However, their participation in the research project truly empowered them and enabled them to effect change in their relationships and their community.

onesimo bulilit drama‘From the safety of their storytelling, [the young people] had made the transition to the bigger world, and from being hidden and disempowered, they had become actors on social transformation. Because they had been empowered themselves, they now wanted other children to become empowered too.’

 

 

 

As part of the research project, the young people themselves decided to produce a short video, communicating what they wanted to say about corporal punishment, and to show the video to parents from their community. An abbreviated version of the video with English subtitles is available online (https://youtu.be/dP5nFhj_9O4) and is well worth watching.

 

Most impressive, however, were the reported changes following the parents’ meeting, with most participants reporting changes in parental discipline and parent-child relationships, summed up in the experience of one young person who had previously reported that:

‘Sometimes […] she [mother] shamed me in front of my friends and she took my clothes off in front of many people. Sometimes she tied me to a pedicab with a chain. Sometimes she beat me and she banged my head on the steel bars.’

Following the project, this young person reported that she had returned to live with her mother, and that their relationship had improved:

‘I am not scared anymore because I know my mother is now listening to my problems and to my feelings’

 

As well as Wartenweiler and Mansukhani’s inspiring work from the Philippines, this issue of Child Abuse Review also features research from Kenya, Nigeria, Ukraine, Romania, Lithuania and the USA.

Olusesan Ayodeji Makinde’s paper on infant trafficking and baby factories in Nigeria makes disturbing reading, but brings to light a crucial issue and presents a challenge to the international community in relation to infant trafficking for adoption and exploitation.

There are some equally challenging issues in relation to institutional care and international adoption flagged up in papers by Lavinia Barone and her colleagues, and by Shihning Chou and Kevin Browne.

 

You can read my editorial (free open access) and see the other papers (BASPCAN members and subscription only – sorry) by clicking on the links below. I hope you will take the time to read these, and that you, like me, will be both challenged and inspired.

 

Child Abuse Review Volume 25, Issue 6

Table of Contents

Editorial

Peter Sidebotham Kneeling on Mung Beans (pages 405–409)

 

Original Papers

Daniel Wartenweiler and Roseann Mansukhani Participatory Action Research with Filipino Street Youth: Their Voice and Action against Corporal Punishment (pages 410–423)

Toby Candler, Hannah Gannon and John Wachira Child Protection in a Low-Resource Setting: Experiences From Paediatric Professionals in Kenya (pages 424–432)

Olusesan Ayodeji Makinde Infant Trafficking and Baby Factories: A New Tale of Child Abuse in Nigeria (pages 433–443)

Shihning Chou and Kevin D. Browne The Relationship over Time between International Adoption and Institutional Care in Romania and Lithuania (pages 444–453)

Lavinia Barone, Antonio Dellagiulia and Francesca Lionetti When the Primary Caregiver is Missing: Investigating Proximal and Distal Variables Involved in Institutionalised Children’s Adjustment (pages 454–468)

Marina Lalayants and Jonathan D. Prince Child Neglect and Onset of Substance Use Disorders among Child Welfare-Involved Adolescents (pages 469–478)

 

Training Update

Female Genital Mutilation Programme (e-FGM): E-Learning to Improve Awareness and Understanding of FGM by e-Learning for Healthcare.

 

Book Reviews

Comparative Study of Child Soldiering on Myanmar-China Border: Evolution, Challenges and Countermeasures by K. Chen, Springer Science and Business Media, Singapore, 2014.

Redressing Institutional Abuse of Children by Kathleen Daly, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2014.  

 

 

 

  1. Wartenweiler D, Mansukhani R. Participatory Action Research with Filipino Street Youth: Their Voice and Action against Corporal Punishment. Child Abuse Review. 2016;25(6):n/a-n/a.

 

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Safeguarding Child Development

In our 2009-11 biennial review of Serious Case Reviews, Marian Brandon and I highlighted the crucial importance of an understanding of child development to effective safeguarding of children. This is not a new perspective however, and the relevance of such understanding spans a range of areas, including:

  • recognition of the influence of development on vulnerability towards abuse
  • recognition of developmental delay as a possible indicator of abuse or neglect
  • the influence of children’s development on our interpretation of the signs and symptoms of abuse
  • the long-term impact of abuse and neglect on children’s development and how we may intervene to improve developmental outcomes, and
  • the particular vulnerability of disabled children.

These are all themes that have been explored within Child Abuse Review over the years. 25th anniversary issue 1 cover

We have now published a new virtual issue which picks up on some of the themes through a selection of some of the most important papers on the theme, particularly from recent years.

The virtual issue with a full editorial and seven papers is freely available for download from the Child Abuse Review Website

Virtual Issue on Child Development and Safeguarding

Contents

Why Have We Made Neglect So Complicated? Taking a Fresh Look at Noticing and Helping the Neglected Child
(Volume 24, Issue 2, 2015)
Brigid Daniel

Health, Developmental and Support Needs of Vulnerable Children – Comparing Children in Foster Care and Children in Need
(Volume 23, Issue 6, 2014)
Shanti Raman and Sharmishta Sahu

Out-of-Home Care versus In-home Care for Children Who Have Been Maltreated: A Systematic Review of Health and Wellbeing Outcomes
(Volume 25, Issue 4, 2016)
Miriam J. Maclean, Scott Sims, Melissa O’Donnell and Ruth Gilbert

Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect and Improvements in Child Development
(Volume 18, Issue 1, 2009)
Mogens Nygaard Christoffersen and Diane DePanfilis

Child Abuse, Child Protection and Disabled Children: A Review of Recent Research
(Volume 21, Issue 1, 2012)
Kirsten Stalker and Katherine McArthur

The Connections between Disability and Child Abuse: A Review of the Research Evidence
(Volume 1, Issue 3, 1992)
Liz Kelly

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Evidence-informed Practice, Practice-informed Research

This Friday, 18th November, we are celebrating 25 years of the journal Child Abuse Review with a special anniversary conference in Birmingham.

To mark the occasion, we have launched a virtual issue of Child Abuse Review which is freely available to download from the journal website:

Child Abuse Review

Evidence-informed Practice, Practice-informed Research

In this virtual issue we have pulled together a selection of papers from across the 25 years of the journal’s publication within the four conference themes of neglect, child sexual exploitation, domestic violence, and research into practice. We include papers by each of our four keynote speakers, as well as papers by several of the other free-paper authors who are speaking at the conference.

Over the 25 years of the journal, we have seen an increasing emphasis on evidence-informed practice: ‘the application of appropriate evidence, combined with the experience of the practitioner and their responsiveness to the current context’ (Sidebotham, 2013). Equally important is the emphasis on research being informed by and relevant to practice.

 

Neglect

Neglect is one of the most prevalent and most challenging forms of child maltreatment. Our keynote speaker, Marian Brandon, is well known for her work on Serious Case Reviews, and has given a lot of thought to the role of neglect in child fatality and serious injury (Brandon, Bailey, Belderson, & Larsson, 2014). She points out that while neglect is rarely the direct cause of a child maltreatment fatality, it is a contributory factor in a much larger proportion of cases, and we need a more nuanced understanding of the different forms of neglect and their potential impact on the child. Given all that we know about the prevalence and impact of neglect, it is perhaps surprising that this topic is relatively under-represented in published research. One of our other conference speakers, Katherine Kloppen, undertook a systematic review of prevalence studies of child maltreatment in Nordic countries and found only one study reporting on the prevalence of neglect (Kloppen, Mæhle, Kvello, Haugland, & Breivik, 2015). Within Child Abuse Review, we have been able to publish a number of original research articles focusing specifically on neglect, including our 2014 special issue, from which we would particularly highlight the papers by Elaine Farmer, another conference speaker: (Farmer & Lutman, 2014).

 

Child Sexual Exploitation

Child sexual exploitation (CSE) has come to prominence more recently, although it is clearly not a new phenomenon, as was pointed out by Nina Biehal, another conference speaker, in her 1999 paper on the risks associated with going missing from substitute care (Biehal & Wade, 1999) and in a highly cited review of CSE by Elaine Chase and June Statham (Chase & Statham, 2005). Our conference keynote speaker on this theme, Jenny Pearce, has been a leading advocate for appropriate responses to dealing with the issues raised by sexual exploitation, as highlighted in an early discussion paper (J. Pearce, 2006) and a more recent review of how Safeguarding Children Boards work to protect children from sexual exploitation (J. J. Pearce, 2014).

 

Domestic Violence

Our awareness of the impact of domestic violence on children has similarly grown over the years, and it is now much more clearly recognised as always being harmful to children. Part of this has involved the recognition that children are harmed even if they are not directly involved in the violence, and that the ongoing context of coercive control may be as damaging to children (if not more so) as any physical incidents. In a landmark paper published earlier this year, Emma Katz explores these issues and considers how we as practitioners can respond more appropriately (Katz, 2016). Preventing and responding to domestic violence presents huge challenges to practitioners, particularly where children are involved. In a systematic review available online through our Early View function, William Turner and colleagues searched for evidence on the effectiveness of interventions to improve the response of professionals (Turner et al., 2015). They found good evidence of training interventions improving knowledge, attitudes and clinical competence, but less evidence around system level interventions. One of the biggest challenges in this area is how to work with fathers, and this is an issue which Stephanie Holt, our keynote conference speaker, has specifically explored in her research (Holt, 2015).

 

Research into Practice

Our fourth topic of research into practice is addressed by one of the former editors of Child Abuse Review, Kevin Browne. Kevin has been a leading advocate for child protection services, particularly in Eastern Europe, and his paper comparing institutional care and international adoption between Romania and Lithuania is published online through Early View (Chou & Browne, 2016). Translating research into practice isn’t always easy and the paper by Helen Buckley and colleagues exploring the factors that may influence practitioner uptake of research is well worth reading (Buckley, Tonmyr, Lewig, & Jack, 2013). They highlight particular ways in which practitioners can both access and use research evidence to inform their practice, and get involved in further study and research, thus promoting the full circle of evidence-informed practice and practice-informed research.

 

You can access all the papers from the 25th anniversary virtual issue by clicking on the link below:

Child Abuse Review 25th anniversary virtual issue

 

Content of the Child Abuse Review 25th Anniversary Virtual Issue

Neglect

The Role of Neglect in Child Fatality and Serious Injury
(Volume 23, Issue 4, 2014)
Marian Brandon, Sue Bailey, Pippa Belderson and Birgit Larsson

Prevalence of Intrafamilial Child Maltreatment in the Nordic countries: A Review
(Volume 24, Issue 1, 2015)
Kathrine Kloppen, Magne Mæhle, Øyvind Kvello, Siren Haugland and Kyrre Breivik

Working Effectively with Neglected Children and Their Families – What Needs To Change?
(Volume 23, Issue 4, 2014)
Elaine Farmer and Eleanor Lutman


Child Sexual Exploitation

Taking a Chance? The Risks Associated with Going Missing from Substitute Care
(Volume 8, Issue 6, 1999)
Nina Biehal and Jim Wade

Commercial and sexual exploitation of children and young people in the UK—a review
(Volume 14, Issue 1, 2005)
Elaine Chase and June Statham

Who needs to be involved in safeguarding sexually exploited young people?
(Volume 15, Issue 5, 2006)
Jenny Pearce

‘What’s Going On’ to Safeguard Children and Young People from Child Sexual Exploitation: A Review of Local Safeguarding Children Boards’ Work to Protect Children from Sexual Exploitation
(Volume 23, Issue 3, 2014)
Jenny J. Pearce


Domestic Violence

Beyond the Physical Incident Model: How Children Living with Domestic Violence are Harmed By and Resist Regimes of Coercive Control
(Volume 25, Issue 1, 2016)
Emma Katz

Interventions to Improve the Response of Professionals to Children Exposed to Domestic Violence and Abuse: A Systematic Review
Early View: First Published 29 June 2015
William Turner, Jonathan Broad, Jessica Drinkwater, Adam Firth, Marianne Hester, Nicky Stanley, Eszter Szilassy and Gene Feder

Post-separation Fathering and Domestic Abuse: Challenges and Contradictions
(Volume 24, Issue 3, 2015)
Stephanie Holt


Research into Practice

The Relationship over Time between International Adoption and Institutional Care in Romania and Lithuania
Early View: First Published 14 July 2015
Shihning Chou and Kevin D. Browne

Factors Influencing the Uptake of Research Evidence in Child Welfare: A Synthesis of Findings from Australia, Canada and Ireland
(Volume 23, Issue 1, 2014)
Helen Buckley, Lil Tonmyr, Kerry Lewig and Susan Jack