Practical Guide to Child Protection by Joanna Nicolas

Author:Joanna Nicolas [Nicolas, Joanna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Social Work, Family & Relationships, Abuse, Child Abuse, Political Science, Public Policy, Social Services & Welfare
ISBN: 9781784500320
Google: cm4NCgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Published: 2015-08-21T03:31:07+00:00

Disguised and non-compliance in serious case reviews

There are many examples of disguised compliance in serious case reviews, some of which I have mentioned already.

In the most recent high profile serious case reviews, there was only a single mention of disguised compliance in Daniel Pelka’s serious case review,9 and this was regarding education. One of the concerns was around Daniel and his siblings’ attendance at school. Every so often this improved, but then it dipped again.

In the Hamza Khan serious case review, there was no mention of disguised compliance, but the mother was known to be non-compliant with most of the agencies. The mother’s ‘antagonism to hospitals and health staff was generally known about from early on and was used to rationalise the absence of contact with the primary health services. It had implications for late ante natal care, post natal support and the on-going care and immunisations of the children.’10 On one occasion a nursery nurse attempted a home visit but was rebuffed by a hostile Amanda Hutton, the mother, and an older sibling. The nursery nurse saw a child who looked pale and told the health visitor, but nothing more was done.

In the case of Khyra Ishaq, the little girl who died in Birmingham, the mother, Angela Gordon, was so aggressive that the teacher and social workers feared for their physical safety. Angela Gordon made allegations of racism and complaints of harassment. In the words of the serious case review,

Adult resistance to professional intervention, doorstep conversations, the mother’s sound knowledge of home education legislation and a hostile and aggressive approach, influenced and affected professional actions, preventing a full understanding of conditions within the home and seemed to render professionals impotent, thereby directing the focus away from the welfare of the children. Adults within the household fully controlled, monitored and limited access to the children and through their behaviours and attitudes frustrated a thorough analysis and assessment of the issues. The approach reinforced that the power dynamics lay with the parents and not with the rights, welfare and protection of the children.

The review went on to say:

The complaint raised by the mother in February 2008, within the Children’s Social Care complaints process, following the initial assessment visit above, appeared to impact upon the Children’s Social Care manager and practitioner. This action appears to have generated a reluctance to follow through on plans with a partner agency to effectively pursue assessment processes, for fear of wider repercussions within the complaints process.

Angela Gordon had complained about racism. We look at that in greater detail later, in Chapter 6, where we consider further areas of complexities for professionals. On one occasion the education social worker attempted a home visit, ‘but was prevented from access to the house by the mother who was hostile and quoting her human rights’. This happened on more than one occasion.

(This serious case review is no longer available online.)

There are differing views of disguised compliance being evident in the case of Peter Connelly. According to the first serious case

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