Practical Guide to Child Protection: The Challenges, Pitfalls and Practical Solutions

by Joanna Nicolas

Overview

Identifying the most serious challenges faced in child protection work, this practical guide offers helpful solutions for frontline professionals working with children and adults.

Informed by her many years on the frontline and subsequent experience writing serious case reviews, Joanna Nicolas has identified the most common pitfalls in child protection cases. The book focuses on understanding the impact of neglect, information sharing between professionals, communication with children, working with non-compliance/disguised compliance, and the impact of multiple risk factors. It offers tips for overcoming the challenges of everyday practice, such as home visits, as well as enhancing understanding of the key issues in this complex field. The evidence-informed chapters are packed with case examples and include useful reminders of the underlying principles at play.

This is essential reading for social workers, health care workers, mental health workers, education professionals and related professions, such as housing and probation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781849055864
Publisher:	Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Publication date:	08/21/2015
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Joanna Nicolas has worked in social care for 23 years. She has worked as a residential social worker, a frontline child protection social worker and has been developing and delivering child protection training for her Local Safeguarding Children Board since 2006. She also develops and delivers training in the private and voluntary sector. She now leads on serious case reviews and works as an independent child protection consultant. She is an accredited lead reviewer in the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) Learning Together systems reviews model and has been leading these reviews since 2011, when the Government first piloted the model. Since 2008 Joanna has been a national commentator on issues around social work, child protection and serious case reviews. She is also the author of Conducting The Home Visit In Child Protection.

Table of Contents

Introduction 9

Language used in this book 15

1 The Impact of Neglect 17

Domestic abuse and neglect 22

Parental substance misuse and neglect 27

Mental ill health and neglect 28

Poverty and neglect 30

Obesity in childhood 31

Neglect is a judgement 34

Neglect and adolescents 36

Evidencing neglect 39

What the research tells us 42

Minnesota Longitudinal study of Parents and Children 45

2 Communicating with Children 50

General rules in communicating with children of any age 52

Communicating with preschool children 55

Communicating with children aged 5-11 62

Communicating with children aged 12-17 71

Communicating with a child with a learning disability 79

3 Disguised Compliance, Non-Compliance and Hostility 81

Disguised compliance 81

Non-compliance and hostility 90

4 Multiple Risk Factors 97

Some facts and figures 98

Domestic abuse 98

Substance misuse 107

Mental ill health 113

Why the link between the three? 116

5 Home Visiting 120

Preparing for the visit 121

Getting in the door 122

Other situations you may be faced with 124

Once in the home 127

What to look out for 129

6 Further Areas of Complexities for Professionals 134

Working with children from the black and minority ethnic (BME) community 134

Working with alleged perpetrators from the black and minority ethnic community 136

Communication 138

Female genital mutilation 141

Socioeconomic groups 142

Working with teenagers 143

Child sexual exploitation 146

Children who have children who enter the child protection system 147

Children with disabilities 148

7 Working More Effectively with Families 151

Language 151

Explain 155

Empathy 157

Be realistic 158

Superficial working 161

Communicating and sharing information between professionals 164

Challenge/healthy challenge/enquire 164

What does good working together look like? 165

'Them and us' 167

Index 170

Editorial Reviews

All who have roles and responsibilities in working with children should find this book illuminating and inspiring. It is informed by substantial practical experience and wisdom and confronts and clarifies the challenges in child protection. It is grounded in advice on action whilst also enhancing knowledge and understanding. This is an important text.

Ray Jones

This book goes to the heart of social work practice and stays there throughout. Through the use of a large number of relevant and focused case examples, Joanna Nicolas shows how child protection work can be effective even in the most disturbing and distressing circumstances. This upbeat and strengths-based book is a manual for our times and will help students and practitioners to navigate the messy, uneven and murky terrain of child protection.

Anthony Douglas CBE

Joanna Nicolas opens up for discussion many of the complex dilemmas faced by child protection professionals: the quandaries, ethical minefields, tight spots and the occasional catch-22. She nails her own colours to the mast throughout, and by drawing regularly upon authentic 'real-world' examples Joanna invites practitioners to explore, expose and defend their own personal and professional values when working in the complex emotional area of child protection.

David Shemmings OBE PhD