Exploring the array of influence on the construction of child neglect

Editor's Notes

1. Adopting a social constructionist approach, as the theoretical framework, emphasises the view that reality is made up of objective conditions and subjective meanings (Berger & Luckmann, 1967). Social reality is seen as the product of interactive processes during which the social actors negotiate the meanings for actions and situations, their knowledge is therefore mutually constructed and influenced by an array of features. Reality, culture and personal identities are constructed through interaction and discourses within and amongst social communities. The idea of there being a single social reality is rejected and instead there are understood to be multiple and changing realities (Blaikie, 2000). There is no independent way of knowing about the truth of any of these multiple and changing realities, but they are likely to be real to the actors that produced them.
2. Child protection categories, which are allocated during child protection case conferences, are a consequence of complex institutional processes, involving a number of inter-related features (Parton, et al, 1997; Platt, 2006a; Buckley, 2003; Scourfield, 2000).
3. The cases had met or were understood to have met the child protection threshold for categorisation which is ‘significant harm’ Appears straight forward use of categorisation criteria but in practice the end of a complex process involving a range of child welfare professionals Not all families where there is substance misuse, DV and Abuse and mental health issues are categorised as neglect For example not all families where thereis substance misuse, DV and Abuse and mental health issues are categoriseda s neglect.
4. The Working Together definition of neglect (HM Government, 2010), is an operational definition that guides child welfare professional practice regarding safeguarding and child protection and is used to identify cases of neglect where there is a need for protection and compulsory intervention in family life. Including the term persistent was spoken about in the interviews as meaning a single event unlikely to be seen as neglect and raised the issue regarding how long to keep trying to intervene with a family before making a referral Health and education professionals talked about doing everything within their scope and making sure everything was in place before they made a referral as if not knew it would be referred back to them to try x or y as suggested by the first response team What meaning or significance is given to various features? Subjective- what is understood by adequate food? Clothing ? shelter? adequate supervision? Relative- what is adequate for one child may not be adequate for another Contrasted with a broader definition which focuses on children needs May occur during pregnancy- difficult to measure?
5. Ecological model- four levels (Bronfenbrenner, 1979); Transactional-ecological model (Cicchetti and Valentino, 2005) Individual Family Wider community Society
6. How professional characterised parents influenced how they interacted with them.....
7. The identify of he mother was never in question whereas the identity of the father was sometimes unclear and/or contested
8. Parental actions- substance misuse in pregnancy Omissions- due to being unaware? Unable due to circumstances? Prevented by others- influence of own relationships with partner and /or other adults
9. Children’s behaviour understood and interpreted in different ways: Whether or not child was achieving their milestones Whether behaviour deviated from expected norm or unstated norm Their behaviour was seen as resulting from harmful experiences Child’s behaviour (? Negative) seen as the consequence of a parenting deficit
10. Levels of neglect and threshold issues FRT: “ this case can be managed from a school and family support point of view” “...the children are not being neglected to a level that we need to be involved” Education:
11. Neglect is the commonest child protection category allocated but health and education child welfare professionals say that the threshold for referral to children’s social care services if problematic and acts as a barrier Is this to related to the definition? Which is ever widening to include more areas of child welfare Organisational and structural issues which restricts access to resources Developing alternative strategies to address issues identified The delay or difficulties in accessing child protection interventions meant that children continued to be exposed to conditions, which have been identified by some child welfare professionals, as having a harmful impact on the child’s well-being.