No Further Action: Contextualising Social Care Decisions for Children Victimised in Extra-Familial Settings
Derren Hayes
Tuesday, January 5, 2021
This paper presents findings from one component of a study to understand and advance child protection responses to youth violence and exploitation (YVE).
- Report title No Further Action: Contextualising Social Care Decisions for Children Victimised in Extra-Familial Settings
- Authors Carlene Firmin, Jenny Lloyd, Youth Justice (2019)
The paper focuses on the decision-making processes of social workers regarding the level of support or further investigation needed for young people experiencing extra-familial risk – whether these cases are progressed towards a statutory child protection investigation and plan or receive a “no further action” (NFA) decision in the form of step-down from statutory services. Understanding this is critical to advancing local responses and tracking impact.
Child protection responses to extra-familial risks
Despite recent additions to statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children (2017) suggesting social workers have a role to safeguard children in extra-familial contexts, there are limited policy or practice frameworks that support this shift.
Children’s services in England have seen their budgets reduced by 50 per cent since 2010, resulting in cuts to preventive services such as youth provision and school-based programmes, and there has been a rise in first-time referrals for adolescents into social care presenting more complex needs.
In theory, while cases of YVE might reach a threshold for statutory intervention in terms of the significance of harm, they will not necessarily do so on the grounds of parental involvement or responsibility. Young people who experience YVE will often be involved in, or instigate, the harm of young people as well as being harmed themselves – whereas child protection is primarily intended to respond to young people solely as “victims”.
Artificial divides between “victims” and “perpetrators” have been embedded within the design and commissioning of services, and professional perceptions of how a child in need of their support should present. The extent that these two potential limitations within child protection systems are borne out in social workers’ decisions is under-examined. Studies into social care assessment and decision-making have primarily focused on the trajectory of cases through the system from the point of referral – in relation to percentages that ultimately result in child protection plans.
Social work engagement with thresholds of harm analysed through a contextual lens, the role played by the young person in encountering those risks and parental ability to control extra-familial risks also require more investigation.
Methodology
The study aimed to understand the decision-making process taken by social care professionals for cases of children experiencing YVE. The findings are drawn from data held by one children’s social care department in England between April and October 2017. The research team was provided with data that included all cases referred to children’s social care that, following initial screening, were assessed using a child and family assessment to identify if they met a threshold for further social care involvement. This original data set provided a summary of the decisions taken for each case.
In total, 841 cases received an assessment spanning 66 different “contact and referral” categories (the category defining the primary concern at referral).
Findings
Drawn together, qualitative and quantitative findings reveal that despite experiencing significant harm most of the young people and families in the data set were not progressed for further social care support. Rather, decisions applied a legislative and practice framework that viewed risk, and protection, through the lens of family – and in this regard, a nuanced account of whether parental control, support and/or concern (or a lack thereof) was attributable to the extra-familial risks young people faced.
Type and severity of harm
When grouped based on the primary concerns for referral – some young people were exposed to multiple forms of harm – the 43 cases that appeared linked to YVE were found in 11 primary concern themes. Case record evidence suggested that in 40 of these cases young people had reached a threshold of experiencing/facing significant harm, with young people experiencing potentially life-threatening injuries, threatened in their schools and neighbourhoods and targeted and exploited by adults and peers. In the remaining three cases, evidence suggested a child was in need of support but did not evidence significant harm.
The majority of the 40 significant harm referrals involved young people as the victims or instigators of physical violence; particularly knife possession and stabbings, with a smaller number experiencing other forms of violence that resulted in physical injuries.
Parental capacity
To explore the consideration given to parental capacity/responsibility/involvement when making progression decisions, cases were first coded to explore whether:
- Parental control/care was evidenced as contributing to the harm in question and
- The harm was associated to the family/home environment, peer group, school or neighbourhood context.
In four cases in the sample, the harm in question occurred in, or was associated to, the home/family. On three occasions, however, this involved people external to the family creating harm within the family home setting. In the remaining one case, a father was present and involved in the stabbing of another child. It was only in this case that the harm which occurred appeared directly associated to actions taken by parents.
In the remaining 42 cases, there was no evidence that harm was attributable to parental care or control. In 28 cases, harm occurred within a neighbourhood context, eight with peers and three in schools. To this extent, therefore, case notes suggested that risk was not directly attributable to parent behaviour or the nature of home environments in 42 of the 43 cases.
The paper poses the question: why did eight progress and how did actions taken by parents differ in these cases to the 35 that did not progress? In the eight progressed cases, assessors’ referenced concerns about the ability of parents to control the behaviour of young people as justification for further action – even if attribution was not demonstrated. Parental inability to control children was related to a range of factors including experiences of domestic abuse, poor relationships with statutory services and an inability to set boundaries.
Implications for practice
In its concluding discussion, the paper asks the question whether it is social workers’ role to prevent and intervene in cases of abuse of children – or to work with families? If the former is true, this suggests that the legal framework or its interpretation requires expansion so that social workers can progress cases where significant harm is not attributable to parents. If the latter is true, it suggests a significant service gap for responding to cases of extra-familial harm such as serious youth violence and criminal exploitation, bringing under scrutiny not the decision of social workers but the reach of social work systems and their ability to address all forms of abuse faced by young people.
Read more in CYP Now’s Contextual Safeguarding Special Report