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The Role of Child Care Social Work 159

Child Abuse Review Vol. 15: 159–177 (2006) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/car.942

∗ Correspondence to: Professor Brian Corby, Department of Social Work, Univer- sity of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2HE, UK. Tel: 01772 893451. Fax: 01772 892974. E-mail: [email protected]

Brian Corby* Department of Social Work University of Central Lancashire Preston, UK

The Role of Child Care Social Work in Supporting Families with Children in Need and Providing Protective Services— Past, Present and Future

This article examines the way in which child care social work with deprived families has changed and developed since the inception of Children’s Departments in 1948. It is argued that between 1948 and 1970 child care social workers enjoyed a fair measure of social support. A variety of reasons are considered for explaining this—specialization, smallness of size, privacy and a consensus about the needs of children. From the early 1970s it is argued that broader societal changes, including a shift away from social solidarity towards individualism, organizational changes and the advent of child abuse as a public concern, resulted in conflicting demands on child care social workers and a subsequent loss of credibility and confidence. The 1990s have seen a return to emphasis on family support policies which has been further accelerated in the new millennium by New Labour’s stated commitment to eliminating child poverty and creating better life opportunities for all children. The implications of these new developments for child care social workers engaged in meeting the needs of children living in highly disadvantaged families are considered. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

KEY WORDS: child care social work; child protection; children in need; family support

T he aim of this paper is to examine the part played byBritish child care social workers with disadvantaged children and their families from 1948 to the present time,

‘Conflicting demands on child care social workers and a subsequent loss of credibility and confidence’

160 Corby

considering their dual but linked role of supporting such fami- lies in the care of their children and of safeguarding children from abuse and neglect. It will then proceed to review new proposals for the future development of child care services and the role that child care social work may play in these new arrangements. It will be argued that broader societal factors have had a major influence on what has been required of child care social workers in this area of activity and also on the way in which their interventions have been perceived, portrayed and understood. The implications of this analysis are consid- ered in relation to current proposals for service provision for disadvantaged families with children. While reference is made mainly to legislation and guidance for England and Wales, the general tenor of the developments described here also holds for Scotland and Northern Ireland.

At the outset, it is important to clarify what is meant by ‘child care social work’. For the purposes of this article, the term is being used mainly in relation to state social work, though clearly it has its roots well before 1948 in voluntary organizations such as Barnardos (Wagner, 1979) and the NSPCC (Behlmer, 1982) and continues to thrive in such set- tings today. Also, it should be noted that after 1971, with the demise of Children’s Departments, child care social work in a discrete sense ceased to exist in the state sector, though most social workers in the new generic departments were specializ- ing again by the end of the 1970s. By the early 1990s, when the 1989 Children Act and the 1991 Community Care Act were implemented, a clear organizational divide between child care social work and social work with other service user groups was reestablished. The recent formation of Children’s Serv- ices Departments, which have taken on all local social and educational services provided for children, means that child care social work, though not officially titled as such, is clearly demarcated again.

Arguably, there have been three phases in the provision of care and social services to poor children and families since the Second World War. The first of these, it is suggested, dated from between 1948 and the early 1970s and was character- ized by a family breakdown prevention approach. The second, stemming from 1974 to the mid-1990s, was a period domi- nated by the goal of protection of children. The third phase, into which we have now moved, is one of support for families with children living in or on the margins of poverty with safe- guarding of children within such families seen as an impor- tant but subsidiary goal. Recent proposals for the development of children and family services to be found in the Green Paper Every Child Matters (DfES, 2003) and the subsequent

‘Broader societal factors have had a major influence’

‘Child care social work, though not officially titled as such, is clearly demarcated again’

The Role of Child Care Social Work 161

Children Act have taken things a step further in that they point to state responsibility (working alongside parents) for all chil- dren. They propose that services for disadvantaged children be seen within this wider framework, alongside the provision of universal services for all children.

From 1948 to the 1970s—Children’s Departments: A Success Story?

From Substitute Care to Prevention

Child care social work as an identifiable occupational group- ing was a product of the 1948 Children Act and the forma- tion of Children’s Departments. The key aim of the Act, in response to the findings of the Curtis Committee (Curtis, 1946), was to provide adequate care for children separated from their families. The Committee, having commissioned a survey of residential provision for children, concluded that, despite some examples of good caring practices, the overall quality was very poor, and argued for the establishment of a dedicated service to work to raise standards. The key instru- ments in this process were to be child care officers specifically trained for the task and one of the key early influences on their training was the research of John Bowlby into the psychologi- cal short- and long-term ill-effects of institutional care on children (Bowlby, 1953). Throughout the 1950s the new Chil- dren’s Departments were, therefore, particularly concerned to improve the quality of substitute care, with fostering and small group family homes being seen as the most desired forms of such care because of their potential for providing children with individualized attention and a family atmosphere in which to grow and develop.

By the mid- to late 1950s, attention was also being centred on working with families to prevent children coming into care. The focus had shifted from improving the quality of substi- tute care to working to prevent admissions to care in the first place by supporting parents and carers in the community both materially and through relationship-building. In 1963, follow- ing the passing of the Children and Young Persons Act, Chil- dren’s Departments were given statutory support for carrying out this type of preventive work. A major step forward was that they were empowered to help financially (albeit in a very limited way) to achieve this goal. By this time, there were also many progressive initiatives being developed to assist at a broader level in the prevention of children coming into care, such as the establishment of community-based children and family centres.

‘Providing children with individualized attention and a family atmosphere in which to grow and develop’

162 Corby

High Morale

Hard though it is to imagine, given the way in which child care social work has been viewed in more recent times, morale within Children’s Departments was generally high. Bob Holman and Olive Stevenson, themselves ex-child care offic- ers, writing in a 1998 edition of Child & Family Social Work celebrating the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the 1948 Children Act, attest to this (Holman, 1998; Stevenson, 1998).

It is interesting to speculate why child care social work was viewed as so relatively successful in this period. Holman’s ac- count points to the specialist nature of child care work and to the small size and simple organizational structures of child care departments, which resulted in limited but attainable goals and facilitated a sense of cohesion, identity and confidence among its workers. He noted that ‘The Children’s Departments bred a highly committed work force. The officers were in a service which conveyed a crusading zeal to improve the lot of deprived children’ (Holman, 1998, p. 206).

However, probably more important was the fact that Chil- dren’s Departments had a following wind, in terms of societal support for their enterprise. They were established at a time characterized by a collectivist ideology that found its expres- sion in the formation of the welfare state (Parton, 2005). For much of their existence, there was a consensus about the need to provide a service dedicated to meet the needs of deprived families. Linked to this was the fact that during this period there was not a great deal of media attention or bad press about child care social work except for periodic reporting of ‘tug-of- love’ cases (cases where children who had developed close attachments with foster-parents over a long period of time were returned to their birth parents (Wilson et al., 2000)). Child neglect and ill-treatment remained more in the province of the NSPCC (Housden, 1955) and excited little public concern. Ferguson (2004) uses the term ‘sequestration’ to de- scribe what was happening, noting that it was a consequence of a societal view that ills of this kind were best left to those with a professional responsibility for dealing with them.

Some Caveats

It should not, however, be thought that everything in Chil- dren’s Departments’ gardens was rosy. One of the negative offshoots of progressive workers’ desire to concentrate on working more and more intensively with families to prevent admissions to care (and, if care was necessary, to use foster

‘The Children’s Departments bred a highly committed work force’

‘Child neglect and ill-treatment remained more in the province of the NSPCC and excited little public concern’

The Role of Child Care Social Work 163

parents) was that residential care came to be seen as a last resort and therefore did not greatly improve its quality and standards in the way in which the Curtis Committee had hoped that it would (Corby et al., 2001).

It could also be argued that child care practice was some- what maternalistic in its approach and characterized by a degree of professional certainty that would not go unchal- lenged now, when there is greater emphasis on the rights of service users (Stevenson, 1998). For instance, child care social workers then had much greater discretion to make key decisions without legal scrutiny. Local authorities could as- sume parental rights over children placed voluntarily in their care at any time (until the passing of the 1975 Children Act) and thus maintain considerable authority over parents in deciding what was in their children’s best interests.

Yet, despite these caveats, child care social work during this period was a success story, certainly when compared with what took place later. As already noted, key factors in this were the specialist nature of the work, a shared and relatively straight- forward remit and philosophy, and the overall backing of society.

From 1974 to the Mid-1990s; Child Care Social Work in Social Services Departments. Child Abuse—A Tale of Woe?

The setting up of social services departments in 1971 heralded an end to the relatively sheltered but successful existence de- scribed above, though the true impact of this change did not take effect until a little later, with the advent of child abuse in the shape of the Maria Colwell Inquiry in 1974 (DHSS, 1974). Between this time and the late 1980s, the public image of child care social work shifted from that of a reasonably respected and necessary occupation to one which was seen to be of low status, staffed by not very competent practitioners who were deemed to be out of touch with the realities of life. Indeed, this view has not changed a great deal since (see Guardian, 2001). The situation in which child care social workers found themselves during this period could not have been more dif- ferent from that of their Children’s Department predeces- sors—they had a contradictory remit, there was no clear focus to their work, and the managerial requirements of their tasks and the range of their responsibilities militated against a sense of cohesion, identity and confidence. The result was low morale among qualified practitioners which was influential in creating a massive shortage of frontline practitioners and

‘They had a contradictory remit, there was no clear focus to their work’

‘Child care social workers then had much greater discretion to make key decisions without legal scrutiny’

164 Corby

the proliferation of unallocated child protection cases (Chief Inspector of Social Services, 2003, para 2.21).

There were several factors which contributed to this drastic shift in the popularity of child care social work over this period of time.

Societal and Organizational Shifts

Firstly, there were considerable developments occurring in family life. Changes in family composition, such as rises in the numbers of lone parents and divorces, were taking place as a result of shifts in relation to the role of women and develop- ments in the spheres of sex, sexuality and sexual mores. Family size was also reducing with wider use of contraception and the legalization of abortion.

Secondly, in the political sphere, there was a shift from welfarism to greater emphasis on individualism (Parton, 2005). This shift could be attributed to increased affluence, greater geographical mobility and the development of the consumer society.

As a result of the combination of these factors, reliance on traditional welfare methods (i.e. encouraging males to find work and supporting females in their domestic and childcaring roles) fast became outmoded. There was increas- ing concern about the impact of changes in family life and structure on the care of children, particularly in relation to antisocial behaviour and offending (Dingwall et al., 1984), added to which was the development of a child abuse syndrome in the USA which had considerable influence on the British child care scene (Parton, 1985). All these factors combined to create a climate in which concern about chil- dren’s care and treatment within the family reached a level of intensity that had not been seen since the early days of the NSPCC.

The Rise of Child Abuse

The advent of child abuse was the key factor in the demise of child care social work’s good reputation. The Maria Colwell Inquiry Report published in 1974 was the catalyst (DHSS, 1974). Olive Stevenson, who was on the Inquiry panel, con- sidered that, ‘That report has come to symbolise a sea change in British child welfare practice and public attitudes to it’ (Stevenson, 1998, p. 159). Abuse of children had by no means been unknown in the preceding period, but child cruelty and neglect, as it was then termed, was seen as a problem that occurred in a small number of the poor families which social

‘Considerable developments occurring in family life’

‘Seen as a problem that occurred in a small number of the poor families which social workers were trying to keep intact’

The Role of Child Care Social Work 165

workers were trying to keep intact and it was to be tackled within this context.

The procedures established in 1974 following the Maria Colwell Inquiry demanded a much more abuse-focused ap- proach (and they also made child care social work a much more public activity). They required social workers to shift from working with the family to ensure that children were not admitted to care at all costs to viewing the child as at poten- tial and actual risk from its parents and to operating authori- tatively to remove that risk. Social workers were thus required to move away from working through parents to support the welfare of children to providing children with protection from their parents and families. Social workers did not easily adapt to this new approach. In a study of social work practice with child abuse cases in Liverpool in the early 1980s (Corby, 1987), it was clear that they were then still adopting a whole- family approach to working with child abuse cases, albeit within the new child abuse frameworks (ironically, a form of practice that would now receive plaudits from the Department of Health or Department for Education and Skills).

These new requirements placed on child care social work- ers were exacerbated by major organizational changes taking place throughout this same period. In 1971, social services departments were introduced which, with their emphasis on the generic nature of social work, resulted in child care social workers experiencing a loss of cohesion and specialist expertise. For instance, they were no longer necessarily managed by those with child care backgrounds. Their new generic managers were largely occupied with handling hugely increased budgets and the complex task of coordinating the delivery of a wide range of services to various service user groups. The loss of a specialist approach at this time resulted in diminution of focus and certainty. A good case example of these developments is to be found in the North Wales Tribunal of Inquiry Report, where the lack of child care expertise in higher management in Clwyd and Gwynedd over a period of 20 years was seen as a key factor in the poor stand- ard of children’s residential provision there (Waterhouse, 2000).

Yet another problem for child care social work identified in this report was the impact of the number of reorganizations of social services departments which took place during this period and the fast rate of legislative change.

The demands of child abuse concerns continued through- out the 1970s and 1980s. By the mid- to late 1980s, following the findings of the Beckford (London Borough of Brent, 1985), Carlile (London Borough of Greenwich, 1987) and

‘They were then still adopting a whole-family approach to working with child abuse cases’

‘The number of reorganizations of social services departments which took place’

166 Corby

Henry (London Borough of Lambeth, 1987) inquiries, social workers had gone much further along the road to more pro- cedurally driven and authoritative interventions in what were now termed child protection cases (Howe, 1992). The impact of media reporting of inquiries reinforced the public image of social workers as being indecisive and failing to protect vulner- able children from dangerous parents (Aldridge, 1994). On the other hand, child care social workers were being termed by some service users as the SS or child-snatchers, eponyms that were not justified by care proceedings statistics but which reflected a clear shift in terms of style of intervention. In 1985, the Parents against Injustice group was set up to support parents against what they saw as excessive intrusion by social workers in response to false allegations.

A Return to Family Support

By the end of the 1980s, the dominance of the child protec- tion perspective started to be more widely challenged. This change in thinking commenced with the furore raised about interventions into families where child sexual abuse was sus- pected in the county of Cleveland. The subsequent inquiry (Butler-Sloss, 1988) was the first of its kind to criticize child protection workers for responding too precipitately to abuse allegations and its findings led to a tranche of Department of Health sponsored research projects which, reporting in 1995, were highly critical of what was seen to be excessive child protectionism (DoH, 1995). Not only was child care social work seen as over-intrusive into families, it was considered to have allowed child protection concerns to eclipse all other concerns. In particular, the family support sections of the 1989 Children Act were simply not being implemented in their own right, and only those families where there was concern about the safety of their children were being assessed and gaining access to resources.

By the early 1990s, there was beginning to be a consider- able backlash against the intrusiveness of child protection social work, a situation that had also occurred earlier in the USA (Myers, 1994). At this time, there were a series of inves- tigations into ritual abuse taking place up and down the coun- try. One of these cases, that which took place in the Orkneys, resulted in a public inquiry which was highly critical of the way in which professionals conducted their interventions (Clyde, 1992). Subsequent research into a wider range of ritual abuse investigations, again sponsored by the Department of Health, concluded that there was no evidence to support the existence of such abuse cases (Lafontaine, 1994).

‘Media reporting of inquiries reinforced the public image of social workers’

‘The family support sections of the 1989 Children Act were simply not being implemented in their own right’

The Role of Child Care Social Work 167

Similar rises and falls in concerns about forms of child abuse have taken place with regard to institutional abuse (Webster, 1999) and, most recently, with regard to Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy (Doward, 2004).

Thus, since the early 1990s, child protection work has been under extremely close scrutiny, with emphasis being placed largely on the negative effects of what has been seen as over- intrusive intervention. However, the messages emanating from central government over this period have by no means been consistent in that, although they have raised concerns about over-reaction to certain types of abuse and have encouraged refocusing on the need for more family support work, there has at the same time been a widening of the range of abuse types requiring a child protective response. The 1999 Work- ing Together to Safeguard Children lists the following range of abuse concerns: physical abuse, children in whom illness is fabricated or induced, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, abuse of disabled children, abuse by children and young people, children living in situations of domestic violence, children involved in prostitution, children who may be approached via the internet, children who go missing, female genital mutilation, organized or multiple abuse and institu- tional abuse (DoH, 1999).

New Managerialism

Another important factor impacting on the morale of child care social workers in this period was that of the increasing managerial demands being placed on them. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, a series of Conservative administrations pushed through health and welfare reforms which consistently promoted the market over statism, consumerism over clientelism and managerialism over professionalism (and this trend has continued under subsequent Labour governments). The impact on child care social work (particularly in the field of child protection) was twofold. In terms of the families with which they were working, their intervention tasks were, as a result, made more difficult and contradictory. While child care social workers were being enjoined to place parenting under closer scrutiny (at least until the early to mid-1990s), consumer rights and wider participation were also being encouraged and greater emphasis was placed on individuals and families hav- ing more choice and less interference from external sources. Another consequence of these shifts has been to increase the amount of procedural and bureaucratic work required in child care interventions ( Jones, 2001). Child care social workers have been required to adopt more case management roles such

‘A widening of the range of abuse types requiring a child protective response’

‘Increasing managerial demands’

168 Corby

as conducting formal assessments, servicing child protection procedures, managing core groups and, more recently, pur- chasing services. Involvement in these activities has greatly reduced opportunities for face-to-face contact with service users and for child care social workers to make use of core professional skills. Indeed, it is estimated that at present child care social workers spend only 30% of their time working directly with service users and, as will be seen in the next section, this trend is likely to increase in the future (DfES, 2003, p. 85). It is small wonder therefore that most child care social workers by the end of the 1990s were finding their work stressful and morale-sapping.

Summary

On the face of it, therefore, compared with the previous era, the period between 1974 and the mid-1990s was a disastrous one for child care social work in many respects. As has been noted, closer examination of the reasons for this shift points to a range of factors, including a decline in social support for child care social work, the loss of specialist focus, the advent of child abuse and the greater bureaucratization of their work. Child care social workers in recent times have operated in a much more turbulent and complex environment than their predecessors.

Recent and Planned Developments for Supporting Families and Safeguarding Children

New Labour Initiatives

The incoming Labour Government in 1997 initially concurred with much of the analysis and policy direction developed by the Department of Health under the previous Conservative administration in relation to child and family social work, i.e. with its emphasis on refocusing from child protection onto family support. Between 1997 and 2001, therefore, it intro- duced a wide range of new initiatives aimed at raising the general standards of child care social work interventions, including the Quality Protects programme in 1998 (DoH, 1998) and new requirements for the assessment of children in need (DoH, 2000). It also introduced new legislation for children leaving care (Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000), for the registration and inspection of a wide range of social care activities, including children’s homes (Health and Social Care (Community Standards) Act 2003) and for adoption

‘Involvement in these activities has greatly reduced opportunities for face-to-face contact with service users’

The Role of Child Care Social Work 169

(Adoption and Children Act 2002). In relation to social work training, it introduced post-qualifying child care programmes across the country and confirmed the establishment of 3-year generic social work qualifying courses (at undergraduate level). In addition to these more specific developments, the Labour administration also committed itself to raising an estimated 3 –4 million children out of poverty by means of a series of provisions such as tax credits, the Neighbourhood Nurseries Initiative, Sure Start, the Children’s Fund and the Connexions service. It made it clear that its intention was to develop the potential of all children to the full and that a key means of achieving this was to be concerted and coordinated interprofessional activity.

Child Abuse Again

Despite the emphasis on wider-based family support work, the issue of child abuse would not go away. Key landmarks in the late 1990s were the inquiries into the death of Ricky Neave (Bridge Child Care Consultancy, 1997), poor inspection re- ports about the handling of cases on child protection registers and the inquiry into institutional abuse in North Wales (2000). Concern culminated again following the death of Victoria Climbié and the subsequent inquiry into the circumstances surrounding it (Lord Laming, 2003). Victoria died in hospi- tal in February 2000 having suffered appalling injuries and neglect from her aunt and her partner. The Inquiry, chaired by Lord Laming, demonstrated what almost all previous in- quiries had shown, namely, how poor communication between agencies, lack of attention paid to a child in her own right and failure to follow up concerns could have disastrous conse- quences. What was different from previous inquiries was the complete condemnation of the way in which child protection work was organized and conducted at all levels. Lord Laming was at pains not to point the finger just at frontline workers. His criticisms extended to managers, councillors and the work- ings of bodies such as Area Child Protection Committees, and even pointed to the shortcomings of central government for failing to establish clear lines of accountability up to the high- est levels of administration. Laming was also particularly criti- cal of standards of training and the lack of effective systems for sharing information.

Current Child Care Initiatives

The recommendations of the Climbié Report ensured that safeguarding children was high on the Government’s agenda

‘Introduced post- qualifying child care programmes across the country’

‘Lord Laming was at pains not to point the finger just at frontline workers’

170 Corby

when it finalized its proposed transformation of child care serv- ices in the Green Paper Every Child Matters (DfES, 2003) and the subsequent Children Act passed on November 15, 2004, the main concerns of which were originally to make service provision for lifting disadvantaged families out of poverty. The key proposals in the Act resulting from the safeguarding concerns are as follows:

• The appointment of a national Children’s Commissioner with a remit to represent children and develop and enhance chil- dren’s rights

• The formation of Children’s Services Departments incorpo- rating both education and social services for children under the leadership of a Director of Children’s Services. These may eventually be replaced by Children’s Trusts, which are now being piloted and monitored across 35 local authorities with a view to enhancing interprofessional work across the whole range of services for children, including health serv- ices, Connexions and youth justice teams as well as educa- tion and social services

• The replacement of Area Child Protection Committees with Local Safeguarding Children’s Boards with stronger statutory and fiscal powers

• The production of detailed procedural guidance about how to respond to and monitor safeguarding children referrals, in- cluding the development of common assessment frame- works and of computerized systems for sharing and tracking information across all relevant agencies

• Closer management surveillance of frontline work with more specific tasks and goals set in order to ensure consistency and effectiveness of practice

• Greater emphasis on joint training

The broader aspects of the new Act reflect the Govern- ment’s aspirations for providing a seamless interprofessional service to maximize the potential of all children. It identifies a range of facilities for achieving its goals, including Children’s Centres, after-school activities, the development of a Young People’s Fund for out-of-school activities and improved mental health services for children and young people. Its emphasis is on the development of a preventive strategy, one which consists of tackling poor parenting early on and of linking families with young children to a wide range of supportive community services.

Issues Arising

What are the implications of these new developments for child care social work? The Green Paper makes it clear that child care social workers will retain responsibility for five key areas of service provision:

‘To make service provision for lifting disadvantaged families out of poverty’

‘The Government’s aspirations for providing a seamless interprofessional service’

The Role of Child Care Social Work 171

• Disabled children • Looked after children • Management of arrangements for adoption • Family support to children in need • The safeguarding of children

They will do this from the newly formed Children’s Serv- ices Departments, which combine mainly education and child care services. This arrangement clearly provides better condi- tions for communication with pre-school and school-related personnel than before and may well lead to earlier alerting of concerns in relation to children in these settings. On the other hand, splitting child care social work from health-related social work means that other areas of communication might be weakened, such as those of mental health and child care (Stanley et al., 2003).

The new proposals aimed at facilitating interprofessional communication, i.e. Children’s Centres, Children’s Trusts arrangements, Local Safeguarding Children Boards and the use of Common Assessment Frameworks across key agencies, should in theory improve matters in an area which has been highlighted by almost every public inquiry since that of Maria Colwell as being the main reason for failures to protect chil- dren at risk (Corby et al., 2001). However, achieving effective interprofessional working with disadvantaged families is not an easy proposition and poor interprofessional communication in such situations is often not simply the outcome of some individuals forgetting to inform others. Factors such as reluc- tance to get involved in difficult situations, fear and low expectations of other professions (often on the part of child care social workers) are important too. Another key concern in relation to interprofessional work is that related to profes- sional identity and security. In order for professionals to work effectively together, they need to value their own and each other’s perspectives and contributions (Frost et al., 2005; White and Featherstone, 2005).

The Impact on Child Care Social Work

What, however, is the likely impact in practice of all these changes on child care social workers? As yet, we do not know exactly what will be expected of child care social workers in the new scheme of things, nor whether there is enough confi- dence and support for them to achieve these expectations. There are some superficial similarities with the 1948–71 era in that we are seeing a return to a specialist approach and greater emphasis on family support, but there is little chance

‘Other areas of communication might be weakened, such as those of mental health and child care’

‘There are some superficial similarities with the 1948 –71 era’

172 Corby

of child care social work attaining the relatively high level of public confidence that it had then. The events of the ‘child protection era’ from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s and the continuing poor image of social work as a result of its associa- tion with the ‘failures’ of that time preclude this. Public concern about the mistreatment of children remains intense despite the backlash against professional practices in relation to certain forms of abuse. Indeed, there is now even greater pressure on those with responsibilities for safeguarding chil- dren. They must both ensure that children under their remit are properly protected and also avoid wrongfully attributing culpability to a person subsequently proved to be innocent. Of course, this is not particular to child care social work and reflects the problems of a much wider social movement towards achieving a risk-free existence (Beck, 1992). What we do know, however, is that social workers are more likely to do an effective job if they have a better image and improved professional standing. Do the new proposed arrangements point to the likelihood of this happening?

One of the problems in answering this question is that child care services are still in a state of flux. There are many new initiatives taking place, but it is not clear how they will map out and how and whether different parts of the jigsaw will fit together. In relation to safeguarding children, we do know that social workers will carry a lead role in coordinating work and it seems that, following the Climbié Report, there will be much more emphasis on greater communication between agencies than before and more technological and managerial supports for this kind of work. Hopefully, this means that responsibil- ities will be more shared and, if so, this will result in a more balanced view of the role of social workers if and when serv- ices fail to protect a child. At present, we do not know the extent to which the new safeguarding boards will be able to influence developments in this area and what resources they will have at their disposal to make improvements, but their roles and duties have been clearly set out in recently published guidance (DfES, 2006).

It should be noted, however, that despite sharing the load of responsibility, safeguarding children work remains a very public activity and those with lead roles within it remain very much in the firing line. What past experience suggests is the need for some public awareness-raising about the inevitability of a number of child deaths by abuse per annum and for those whose remit it is to deal with these matters to be as well equipped as possible to keep these numbers to a minimum. There is need, therefore, for constant updates in training for child care social workers and others involved in this field.

‘More likely to do an effective job if they have a better image and improved professional standing’

‘Safeguarding children work remains a very public activity’

The Role of Child Care Social Work 173

While, quite rightly, the need to do this has been highlighted in the Green Paper proposals, and it is one of the duties placed on the new safeguarding boards, it is worth noting that interprofessional training of this kind was implemented after the Cleveland Inquiry, but not maintained over time.

The Green Paper’s emphasis on family support also provides opportunities for social workers to broaden their perspective in child and family social work and, thereby, to improve their image. It is important that these opportunities are taken up. There are still many organizational and public pressures on child care social workers to play safe and focus on child pro- tection concerns (Spratt, 2001). To continue to do so, however, would be a mistake. Child care social workers should be proactive in making constructive use of new assessment frame- works (Millar and Corby, 2006). They also need to be proactive in Children Centre work and in the formulation of local plans for children and young people. Working outside the caseload is not a strong point for social workers. Yet, it could do much to enhance the status of the profession and help in the build- ing of good relationships that are crucial to successful inter- ventions in individual cases.

The fact that the new Children’s Services Departments and Children’s Trusts will be multidisciplinary is a positive factor. Child care social workers need to embrace these developments and work strategically and constructively with other agencies to ensure more broad-based supportive and protective interventions. By so doing, they can utilize the strengths that they undoubtedly have to offer in relation to working with disadvantaged families (see below) with greater assurance of shared responsibility. The shift towards special- ist organizations for children and their families also provides opportunities for child care social workers to consolidate and develop professional expertise and identity.

Conclusion

Despite its recent history and the poor public image that child care social work has acquired, it clearly remains a pro- fession that has developed massive experience in working with families and children facing difficulties and problems. The strengths of child care social work lie in several areas:

• Its well-established knowledge base in key areas such as attachment theory and the needs of children (for consist- ency, the development of identity and feeling safe) (Howe et al., 1999)

‘It could do much to enhance the status of the profession’

‘It clearly remains a profession that has developed massive experience’

174 Corby

• Its extensive knowledge of, and experience in working with, families where children’s health and safety are at issue (Munro, 2002)

• Its role in, and knowledge of, the law in relation to children and families (Braye and Preston-Shoot, 1997)

• Its strong ethical value base, with emphasis on individual worth and interpersonal skills (based on casework methods) for working closely and patiently with disadvantaged families with multiple problems (Searing, 2003)

These strengths need emphasizing and building on in the new organizations now being developed for working with children and their families. Clearly, child care social work has much to offer and will be playing a key role in future alongside other professions. However, given what has been reviewed in this paper, it also has a lot of ground to recover before it can regain the credibility that it needs to do such work. To some degree, the analysis that has been offered here could assist in this, as it points to the environment in which child care social work is carried out and the social support it receives as being key factors in the way in which its success (or lack of it) is judged. Social work practitioners need to be much more aware of this and work to improve their image in what I have argued is a climate that offers more opportunity than before. But there is much more that needs to be done, particularly in the areas of education and training and in developing interprofessional ways of working.

With regard to education and training, while the 3-year degree is to be welcomed, it is noteworthy that the curricu- lum remains generic and is unlikely to provide the depth of knowledge required to work effectively in the child care field. Although additional training is being provided by the new post- qualifying child care awards schemes, it could be argued that there is a need for a full-time specialist child care course to be provided in order to achieve the levels of skill, knowledge and expertise required.

The need for much greater cooperation and coordination between professions in carrying out work with children and families cannot be overstressed. There are still major differences in culture and outlook between social workers, health workers, teachers and police which can act as barriers to developing effective interprofessional working. Overcom- ing these problems needs to commence early on in professional training. At the more specialist level, advocated above, train- ing courses should have a very strong interprofessional content and be taught by and for a range of professionals. Finally, further consideration needs to be given to develop- ing effective interprofessional practice arrangements such as

‘Still major differences in culture and outlook’

‘These strengths need emphasizing and building on in the new organizations’

The Role of Child Care Social Work 175

interdisciplinary teams and interagency outposting and secondments.

Given the right sorts of developments in these areas, there is every possibility that child care social work can both make and, just as importantly, be perceived to make a key contribu- tion to meeting the social and emotional needs of disadvan- taged families in future and to ensuring the safety of their children where necessary.

A third concern surrounds the complexity of the new arrangements for developing child care services. Many of the Climbié recommendations relate to pooling of information, careful recording and closer managerial oversight of assess- ments and interventions. No-one could sensibly question the risk-reducing intentions of such arrangements. However, there is an issue about how practical and, therefore, effective they are likely to prove. There is a danger that such measures could become so complex, so systematized and so reliant on man- agement control that they prove unworkable. Commenting on the proposed development of the new Children’s Trusts, Tina Lyon, a leading children and family lawyer, asserts :

‘the major problem that needs to be addressed in all of this is not the creation of new tiers of managers . . . but recruitment of the people en- gaging in the actual work of the provision of services and the protection of children, namely social workers. The view of many social workers on the ground is that there has already been too great an increase in the number of management bureaucrats placing impossible demands on an ever-diminishing number of workers on the ground as a result of ever increasing demands to meet central government performance indicators and management targets.’ ( Lyon, 2003, p. 172)

Clearly, there is an issue of balance here. Few people would dispute the view that in child protection work there is need for supervisory oversight as well as professional autonomy. Nevertheless, Professor Lyon’s point is an important one and highlights the dangers of over-reliance on systems in situations where the need for human judgements is compelling.

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