Editorial: Children's services remain colour-blind
Ravi Chandiramani
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Findings of a study about engaging black and minority ethnic (BME) parents in children's services have been published by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (see p4). Given government policy's emphasis on positive parenting and on connecting with hard-to-reach communities, it contains important messages for professionals who work with the young and their families.
The study is based on a review of recent literature on the issue as well as an examination of 10 case study settings. Foremost among the findings is a worry about services failing to recognise diversity within minority ethnic groups. The label "BME" is found to be unhelpful where service providers regard all minorities as being a single group and thus "colour-blind" to differences.
The study does identify a number of areas of effective practice with regard to BME parents. Dedicated resources such as a parental engagement officer might be beyond the financial meansof some providers. But other measures include recruiting more representatively from local communities to quash negative perceptionsamong some parents and a "them and us" view of services.
The report also identifies some challenges. First, engaging with fathers was found to be more challenging in all the case studies than engaging with mothers, partly because cultural attitudes within BME communities quite often characterise raising children as a predominantly female activity. Second, new communities including refugees and asylum seekers have a limited understanding of public services, lack confidence in accessing them, have limited support networks and face severe language barriers. The challenge here is to recruit staff from these communities to bridge that gap and avert their children from falling by the wayside.
Third, the study finds a lack of measuring effectiveness of efforts to engage with minority ethnic parents. Effective methods that were cited by practitioners in the study were "soft" issues such as respecting different cultural backgrounds. The study also acknowledges a need for developing best practice in engaging minority ethnic parents inrural areas.
The DCSF's report lacks any groundbreaking insights. But it does serve as a vital warning to practitioners in that the interests of vast constituencies of children risk being bypassed unless parental engagement is taken seriously.