Scoping Paper For Revised 98 Guidance
Introduction
Protecting Children: A Shared Responsibility was published in 1998 and since then there have been a number of significant policy, research and practice developments, including “It’s everyone’s job to make sure I’m all right”, the Child Protection Reform programme, HMIe Inspections, CPC Committee Guidance, GIRFEC and Getting Our Priorities Right.
In the past 11 years, the landscape of child protection has changed dramatically; increasing awareness about the potential harm to children caused by child trafficking, internet grooming, sexual exploitation, etc. Equally, our understanding of the potential negative impact on children from parental characteristics such as alcohol and drug-misuse, domestic violence and mental health problems, has risen enormously. By default, as our perception of child protection evolves, so to does our understanding of the contribution various services and staff groups have to make.
To reflect this changed landscape, the revised guidance will need to considerably increase its scope, including not only a number of special circumstances not currently in the 98 guidance, but also the intended target audience of the guidance. Greater emphasis needs to be placed on the role of adult services, the voluntary sector and the general public to reflect the developments in child protection over the past decade.
It should be noted that whilst a range of special circumstances have been included here, it is not the intention for the national guidance to provide detailed guidelines on areas of practice/policy that are contained elsewhere; but rather, where appropriate, signpost to relevant policies or provide a framework of standards that local policies will need to consider.
it should be acknowledged that a range of options considered in this paper have been identified from the work undertaken by Sharon Vincent in “Inter-agency Guidance in Relation to Child Protection: A UK Comparison”, as well as the consultation exercise undertaken with CPCs.
This paper sets out the potential range of areas that need to be addressed and the possible issues to be covered.
Suggested Content / Current Activity / PlannedActivity / No
Activity
- Introduction and context setting
-Different sections for different staff groups?
-Lessons from SCRs/public enquires
-Links with GIRFEC and early years framework /
/
Current Activity / Planned
Activity / No
Activity
- Underlying principles
-Child protection within the context of GIRFEC principles,
-Ethos of shared responsibilities and collaborative practice
-Anti-discriminatory practice /
/
- Legislation
Vulnerable Witnesses (Scotland) Act 2004
Management of Offenders (Scotland) Act 2005
Protection of Children and Prevention of Sex Offences (Scotland) 2005 – mobiles and cyber-bullying
PVG Act
Children’s Hearing Reform / /
- Responsibility for child protection
-Roles and responsibilities of different agencies/ services/general public /
- Links with adults services and other planning mechanisms
- Children’s services planning
Transition planning eg YP leaving care, LAAC, etc /
- Involvement of children and young people
-key processes
-Do want to introduce a right of appeal? / / /
Current Activity / Planned
Activity / No
Activity
- Grounds for investigating concerns
-Definitions Of Abuse And Categories Of Registration – do we need to revisit?
-Signs And Symptoms
-Risk / /
- Emergency procedures
- Case management and review processes
Post registration planning
risk management and intervention
Outcome focussed
links with GIRFEC /
- Individuals who pose a risk of harm to children
Links with Vetting and Barring and Safer Recruitment? /
- Information Sharing
When to share information
Key information to be shared
Analysis of information
lessons from SCRs
Issues around consent and confidentiality /
- Record Keeping And Confidentiality
Use of chronologies – links with GIRFEC
Minutes and recording decision making – introduce agreed timescales? /
Current Activity / Planned
Activity / No
Activity
- Guidance on Significant Case Reviews
- Leadership in child protection
Role of MARS post
Role of National Co-ordinators post?
Links with research e.g. SCCPN and CLCP
Core Data/management info
Public awareness/community engagement /
/
Specific circumstances
Work is already ongoing under the two workstreams on the following areas:
- Domestic abuse
- Parental mental illness
- Parental substance misuse
- Parental learning disability
- Abuse of children with disabilities
- Abuse by children and young people
- Sexual exploitation through prostitution
- Risks posed by developments in communications technology
- Children and young people who go missing
- Children living in temporary accommodation
- Child victims of trafficking
- Unaccompanied asylum seeking children
- Vulnerable young people
- Working with non-engaging families
Also for consideration are the following areas (a number of which are addressed within the English/Welsh or Northern Ireland Guidance)
- Consensual sexual activity
- stranger abuse
- children on international visits
- children in hospital
- visiting of psychiatric patients by children
- children of prisoners
- children in custody
- children who are privately fostered
- Bullying
- sudden infant death in infancy
- fabricated or induced illness
- female genital mutilation
- children living away from home
- allegations of abuse by a professional carer/volunteer
- organised abuse
- Historical abuse
- Criminal prosecution of alleged perpetrators
- Armed forces
Sharing Responsibilities
As the landscape of child protection has shifted dramatically over the past 11 years, the expectations and roles of different agencies has increased exponentially. Services and/or agencies who in 1998 perhaps saw child protection as the domain of children andfamily social workers and police, are now expected to recognise and actively consider potential risks to a child, irrespective of whether the child is their ‘client’. Increasingly they are expected to identify and consider the child’s needs, share information with other agencies and work collaboratively with other services (as well as the child and their family) to improve outcomes.
Accordingly, greater emphasis needs to be given to the role of all agencies who interface with the public, both within an adult service and child service provider context. This will serve not only to emphasise the role all agencies have within a child protection context, but will also underpin that child protection is not simply about ‘investigations’ but about improving outcomes for children and families.
Whilst respecting and understanding professional distinctions and boundaries, the following areas are common to all services, irrespective of professional role. This list is not intended to be pre-emptive of the work that will be undertaken within the 2 work streams and is by no means exhaustive.
- Upholding and implementing the core values and principles of child protection
- Assessing children’s’ needs
- Information sharing
- Assessing risk
- Managing risk
- Participation in key processes e.g. meetings/assessment etc
- Transparency of practice
- Meeting children’s needs
- Working with families/carers
- Accurate recording
- Sharing concerns
- Providing leadership and direction and evaluating effectiveness – Chief Officers/CPCs?
- Delivering a competent and confident workforce
- Delivery of child protection plan
- Listening to children
Links with GIRFEC
Given the enhanced role of the Universal services under the GIRFEC agenda, and the concepts of lead professionals and lead workers, the revised guidance will need to clearly emphasise this approach. Social work have traditionally been seen as the lead agency in child protection, and in terms of some of the ‘process tasks’, this will likely remain relatively unchanged. However the guidance will need to strongly emphasise the role of all agencies in delivering the shared responsibilities in order to improve better outcomes for children.
Despite the evocative titles of “It’s Everyone’s Job…” and “Protecting Children - A Shared Responsibility”, child protection is still to a large extent seen as the domain of social work. This is perhaps due to the association of child protection with investigation and formal processes and the guidance will need to address this clearly. The formal processes provide a rigour and accountability that the very nature of child protection requires and in the main, these processes have served child protection well. However, processes in themselves do not protect children and it is this message that needs to be conveyed explicitly if the guidance is to move to a more outcome-focussed approach that shares responsibilities in a meaningful way.
‘Target Audience’
Whilst some of the services are currently listed in the ‘98 guidance, the following list also identifies specific staff groups who could be included in the revised inter-agency guidance. Again, this list is not exhaustive and it is not intended to pre-empt the work of the two workstreams.
The All Wales Child Protection Procedures 2008 provide a clear index for different staff groups, highlighting section relevancy for each agency. Consideration could be given to adopt a similar approach within the revised 98 guidance.
- Social Work (Children and Family services)
- Education
- Health (HV’s, GP’s, School Nurses, Paediatricians, maternity services, A & E etc)
- Police – Specialist Child and Family units, Domestic Abuse officers, Sexual Offending etc)
- Housing
- SCRA
- Voluntary sector
- Churches
- Culture and Sport services
- Community safety services
- Adult services – within this there could be specific mention of addiction services, mental health, domestic abuse, criminal justice services etc
- Youth Justice
- Procurator Fiscal Services
- Chief Officers
- Child Protection Committees
- Senior managers
- Local communities/general public
Conclusion
What we mean by the term ‘child protection’ has changed significantly since 1998; this change has, at times, developed by default rather than design. The revision of the revised guidance provides us with a clear opportunity to revisit what we understand child protection to be and in particular, to develop clear and strong links with other policy and strategy developments.
The number of potential ‘new’ areas to be included in the revised guidance needs to be seen within a context. It is not the intention to repeat policies or approaches detailed elsewhere but rather where relevant to signpost where that ‘elsewhere’ may be and to consider the relationship with the subject matter and child protection. As such, the revised guidance would serve as an ‘umbrella’ document; pulling together the different strands of practice, research and policy that have emerged over the past 11 years.
Hopefully this paper will serve as a prompt for discussion and ultimately agreement as to the areas to be addressed within the revised guidance. If the group agree to the additional areas indentified, consideration will have to be given to extending the membership of the two workstreams.
Gillian Buchanan
Professional Advisor
August 2009