Social Work with Children and Families by Steve Rogowski

Author:Steve Rogowski [Rogowski, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367132804
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2019-06-06T00:00:00+00:00

The 1989 Children Act and (lack of) its implementation

The 1989 Children Act aimed to address the wide-ranging disquiet about the practices of social workers, and to a lesser extent, other health and welfare professionals in relation to child abuse. However, it was also informed by research and a series of official reports which aimed to update and rationalise child care legislation, notably the Short Report (Social Services Committee 1984) and the Review of Child Care Law (DHSS 1985).

The 1989 Act attempted to encourage an approach to child welfare based on negotiation with families which in turn involved parents and children in agreed plans (Parton 2014b). The accompanying guidance and regulations encouraged working in partnership, emphasising support for families with children ‘in need’ so as to keep the use of care proceedings and emergency interventions to a minimum. The concept of prevention was elevated, the aim being to establish a new balance in policy and practice between ‘family support’ and what had become ‘child protection’, an important aspect of this being the introduction of a new threshold criterion. This criterion had to be met before care proceedings could be initiated, and it was that the child concerned was, or was likely to, suffer significant harm, with harm itself referring to ill-treatment or impairment of health or development. Further, as alluded to, once care proceedings were initiated they were subject to close legal oversight.

In some ways the 1989 Act was welcomed as a progressive piece of legislation, albeit it was introduced in a ‘hostile [neoliberal] climate’ and its success depended on whether resources would be available for the preventative family support provisions (Frost 1992). Less positively, health and social work experts were seen as being not able to be left to make decisions alone, so under Working Together (Home Office et al. 1991) law and order agencies became involved. In addition, social workers had to complete a lengthy comprehensive assessment (the Orange Book), which was introduced in an attempt to improve and clarify the assessment of risk (DH 1988). It was hoped that the rationalisation of inter-agency working and procedures would be matched by developing practice skills in the assessment of individual cases. Importantly, the roles of social workers and the police were merged from the initial strategy meetings to discuss both child care and law enforcement issues and thereafter throughout the whole investigation process. These developments were reinforced by the Memorandum of Good Practice (Home Office/Department of Health 1992), since which the social work/police relationship has been central to child protection work despite the dangers of social workers losing their identity and professionalism (Garrett 2003).

Perhaps it is no surprise that the ‘hostile climate’ proved insurmountable in that the progressive aspects of the legislation in relation to prevention and family support were barely implemented, with anxieties about child protection dominating. Thus, throughout the 1990s practice was largely crisis-orientated and reactive in relation to child protection, and this often involved a more authoritarian and controlling attitude towards families and alienated them in the process.

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