Perceptions Of Child Protection Services In Edinburgh

The City of Edinburgh Council commissioned Ipsos to conduct a series of face-to-face depth interviews with parents and children who have experience of child protection services. The research explored all stages of the child protection process, including initial contact with social workers, case conferences and follow up care and support. The findings will be used to help the Council improve the services for future users. Fieldwork was between 4 November and 9 December 2005.

Summary And Implications

The circumstances surrounding respondents' initial contact with the services varied considerably, as did the nature of their current involvement with the services. However, there were several recurring themes emerging from the interviews.

Most fundamentally, there appears to be significant variation in the standards of support provided by different social workers throughout the process and especially in the early stages. While some social workers were described as kind, helpful and respectful, others were seen as being too ready to assume that parents are in the wrong, unwilling to listen to what parents have to say or generally unsupportive. Parents' and children's relationships with individual social workers clearly have a determining influence on how they perceive and relate to the child protection system as a whole, hence it is important to address any deficiencies in this area. A review of existing guidelines for social work personnel may be a first step towards improving on existing practice and promoting greater consistency of standards across the service.

Aside from these issues, certain procedural aspects of the child protection system, and in particular of case conferences, appear to provoke considerable stress and anxiety among parents and children. This in turn has implications for the extent to which they feel able or inclined to interact effectively with the professionals they encounter. Specific issues mentioned include the very formal nature of the case conference setting; the number of people attending case conferences - and the fact that these people are sometimes unknown to parents; and an absence of relevant professional support for parents. Addressing these issues may go some way towards easing the process for people going through the system. However, there is also an onus on professionals to approach cases with due sensitivity and respect. While case conferences and core group meetings may be part of their daily routine, it is important that they are consistently mindful of the magnitude of such events from the points of view of parents and children.

The involvement of children in case conferences was another particularly emotive issue for respondents. Several of those with whom we spoke felt strongly that children should not have to attend case conferences - both because they are too young to understand what is happening and because the experience can cause them considerable distress. There was an appetite for alternative means of soliciting children's views - for example, one parent suggested that video evidence might be used, while another felt that the pre-conference questionnaires currently issued to children are effective tools.

The research provides a clear indication of the issues and concerns that are salient to users of the child protection system and should help the Council in its efforts to improve the system, whilst recognising that further research may be useful to substantiate some of our findings.