Teachers lack skills to spot child neglect

Findings from the fifth round of the Local Authority Research Consortium project found that teachers and other school staff are well placed to "gain families’ trust, co-ordinate support and signpost them to other agencies for help" when there are concerns about a child being neglected.

However, their ability to do this is being undermined by a lack of shared understanding about what constitutes neglect. “Identifying a child experiencing neglect was often described as a ‘grey area’,” the report states.

A lack of timely and appropriate information-sharing practices between schools and children’s services was also highlighted, with the Common Assessment Framework still not being used to identify a child’s needs in some areas.

The research, which carried out interviews with 105 teachers, support staff, special educational needs co-ordinators and education welfare officers working across nine local authorities, also found evidence of a reluctance among some teachers to see child protection as core to their job.

It states: “Some head teachers and teachers feel that they are being asked to assume the role of social workers or family support workers but acknowledge the importance of working with others to provide the best help for children and families.”

The study, led by the National Foundation for Educational Research, recommends school staff be given training to help them assess risk and offer support to children and families where neglect is an issue.

It also called for better co-ordination of family assessments, with more school staff and those from other children’s agencies being involved, so that staff and services with a specialist interest in child protection work are not overstretched. In addition, staff should be given the opportunity to develop skills to engage families, it says.