Relocation, Relocation, Relocation: Home and School-Moves for Children Affected by Extra-Familial Risks During Adolescence

• Report title Relocation, Relocation, Relocation: Home and School-Moves for Children Affected by Extra-Familial Risks During Adolescence
• Author Carlene Firmin, Children’s Geographies (March 2019)

Despite policy advances, various aspects of Contextual Safeguarding and the implications of the approach for child protection systems requires further consideration; one such example being the use of relocations. Specifcally, should social workers be intervening with young people – moving them away from harmful contexts – or increasing safety in harmful contexts and allowing young people to remain within them?

Study and data overview

How is relocation used when young people experience extra-familial risks – and does it adequately safeguard their welfare? To explore this question data has been drawn from two studies: the first involved reviews of 19 cases of peer-on-peer abuse over four phases – cases involved a range of abusive experiences including peer-or-community-based murder, group and sole-perpetrated rape, online sexual abuse, non-fatal physical assaults and weapon enabled conflict. In total, 216 young people featured across the 19 cases – 30 who were identified as the primary complainants/victims in the cases, and 29 who were subject to some form of relocation, some of whom were witnesses and suspects as well as complainants.

The second study, conducted in two phases, involved a mixed method audit of multi-agency responses to peer-on-peer abuse in 14 local authority areas.

Findings

Across the two studies, it was possible to identify evidence of 144 relocations. A range of relocation methods were used including moving whole families, taking children into state care as well as moving children across schools. In 12 instances local authorities secured a court order to place a young person into a secure children’s home on welfare grounds for three to six months. All relocations into care occurred following a voluntary agreement between parents and the local authority. There was also some evidence of families initiating relocations independently of statutory intervention.

Following relocations, it was often the relational or psychological safety of a young person that undermined interventions – and led young people to either return to areas they had left or forge new, unsafe relationships in the areas they had been placed.

Physical, relational and psychological safety

Across both studies, the primary purpose of relocation was either to secure the physical safety of a young person or to disrupt the risk that young person posed to the physical safety of someone else.

Practitioners requested the relocation of young people who had been: sexually exploited by peers in their schools and local communities, as well as by adults; seriously injured by peers in the context of serious youth violence, gang-affiliation and criminal exploitation, or; witnesses in such scenarios and were either providing evidence for the prosecution and/or had intervened during the incident (or in the aftermath). Both the police and social workers argued that without relocation they couldn’t be confident the young person in question would not come to severe or even fatal harm.

There was little evidence that relational safety motivated decision-making. Furthermore, the negative impact that relocations could have on young people’s relational safety was given minimal consideration – if at all. Yet, when relocations occurred young people’s relationships were often severed.

This dynamic was exemplified in three ways. First, when young people were abused within their schools, peer groups, or in community contexts they often did not experience comparable risks within their home/family context. Second, risk was rarely a feature of all the relationships that a young person had – some had safe, as well as risky, peer relationships. Third, young people struggled to achieve relational safety in areas where they had been placed. When they moved schools they also had to form new friendships – and many young people who moved as a result of victimisation in a previous school were bullied in their new schools.

The psychological welfare of young people was connected to both their physical and relational safety, as well as it being a point of consideration in its own right. Professionals across 36 observations and 14 cases talked about the psychological impact of abuse – as well as young people’s fears of further harm. To this extent, professionals acknowledged the risks posed to the psychological welfare of young people as secondary justification for relocation: risk posed to a young person’s psychological welfare (secondary) from the physical risk (primary) posed by the abuse was the lens through which this dimension of safety was considered.

Relocations themselves compromised the emotional wellbeing of young people: some communicated that by having to move they were being blamed, or held partially responsible, for the risks that they faced.

Implications for practice

In cases of familial abuse social workers may use many interventions other than relocation to try to create safety while preserving the family unit and thereby create physical safety and relational safety and safeguard psychological welfare.

There are comparably few interventions used for extra-familial risk and social workers are not trained/equipped to identify opportunities for intervening in peer, school or neighbourhood contexts as part of child protection practice. In the absence of contextual interventions, relocation is one tool that can disrupt relationships between “risky” public spaces and a young person’s welfare.

However, while relocation may provide some opportunity to secure a young person’s physical safety it also poses a risk to their relational and psychological safety. Compromising these latter dimensions of safety can also undermine a young person’s physical safety. The multi-dimensional nature of safety is neither considered explicitly in the practice of relocation nor is it catered for – despite mention in statutory regulation.

The findings presented in this paper suggest that further thought is required about the place, purpose and use of relocation as a mechanism for safeguarding young people.

Read more in CYP Now’s Contextual Safeguarding Special Report