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Managing the Commitment to Protect Children from Maltreatment: the Case of Child Contact Centres in England

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Managing the Commitment to Protect Children from Maltreatment: the Case of Child Contact Centres in England Managing the commitment to protect children from maltreatment: the case of child contact centres in England. Louise Caffrey The London School of Economics and Political Science A thesis submitted to the Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. February, 2014 Declaration of Authorship I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the MPhil/PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is clearly identified in it). The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without my prior written consent. I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. I declare that my thesis consists of 95,290 words. I can confirm that parts of my thesis were copy edited for conventions of language, spelling and grammar by Daireen Caffrey, Trisha Keilthy, Paul Bouanchaud, Louisa Earls, Else Knudsen, Trish Hiddleston and Jerrieann Sullivan. ________________________ Louise Caffrey 1 Abstract BACKGROUND: According to the guidance to the Children Act (1989 and 2004), ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ (2010; 2013), all organisations that work with children have a responsibility to protect children from maltreatment. However, previous research on child contact centres raises questions about how well this service is meeting the responsibility. This study seeks to explore in more detail how well contact centres manage their responsibility to protect children and what factors may influence them in this task. Research in the area of safety management has shown the limits of top-down guidance in achieving the desired level of practice. It provides a systems framework for studying how guidance is being implemented on the ground, including how it is interpreted by different actors in the system, and how they interact to produce the observed level of practice. METHODS: Mixed methods were used to undertake a systems approach to studying the management of child protection responsibilities in contact centres. This approach aims to provide an in-depth understanding of what is happening in child contact centres, in terms of child protection, and why. FINDINGS: Despite the introduction of reforms which aimed to improve safety in child contact centres, problematic child protection practice has persisted. It is argued that this is because common weaknesses in voluntary sector provision of human services have not been fully addressed. These weaknesses are insufficient funding, inadequate professionalization and narrow organisational focus. The findings suggest that these issues informed how actors in the system experienced and understood the practice of protecting children. The findings suggest that the safety of children in contact centres is also affected by the persistence of problematic inter-professional working. It is argued that the tools which have been introduced to address this have not been effective because they do not in themselves address the difficulties actors face in working together. There remains a lack of capacity amongst some centres and referrers who do not necessarily 2 have the skills required to safely make and accept referrals. In addition, actors in the system experience role ambiguity. Finally, the thesis suggests that although organisations that work with children are encouraged to take account of children’s wishes and feelings in order to protect them, workers in child contact centres engaged with children in diverse ways. A typology of engagement, which was developed from the data, suggests that engagement can be conceptualised as ranging from ‘coercive’ to ‘limited’ to ‘meaningful’. The findings suggest that workers’ engagement with children was influenced not just by factors within contact centres but by individuals’ personal values and the wider family justice system, which contact centres operate in. IMPLICATIONS: This research suggests that in the empirical context of child contact centres, the ‘Working Together’ guidance to organisations working with children does not in itself produce predictable effects which will fulfil the guidance aims. Rather, when the guidance combines with local factors it produces unexpected effects. The meaning that actors attributed to their actions was not static. Instead, socially constructed, local rationalities influenced how actors understood and experienced the process of protecting children. The findings contribute to the growing body of research which argues that policy makers need to focus, not simply on telling organisations what do, but on enabling them to do it. In addition, the findings contribute to the systems approach literature, which suggests that safety needs to be understood within the socio-technical system that actors inhabit. 3 Acknowledgements First and foremost I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Eileen Munro, for her guidance, support, patience, encouragement and kindness as I wrote this thesis. It has been such an incredible privilege to study under her supervision. Doing so made the process of writing a thesis valuable for its intrinsic worth. I would also like to gratefully acknowledge Professor Julian Le Grand who read and provided feedback on the full draft of this thesis. This research would not have been possible without the participants who volunteered their time to take part: the staff and volunteers at the case study contact centres who kindly permitted me to observe their work, the families who allowed me to observe their contact time and the individuals who spoke with me about their work in the centres or their experience of referring to them. I am also grateful to ADCS and the Office of the President of the Family Division who granted permission for interviews respectively with social workers and judges. NACCC were integral to the research and I would like to gratefully acknowledge their support. In particular I would like to thank Michael Durrell, Yvonne Kee, Ruth Miles and Elizabeth Coe. While writing this thesis I have been surrounded by an incredible group of friends at the LSE. Their support and encouragement was vital in the process of writing this work. In studying with them I have learnt so much and have also had an immeasurable amount of fun. In particular I would like to thank Else Knudsen, Paul Bouanchaud, Anne Marie Brady, Victoria DeMenil, Eleri Jones, Emily Freeman, Dwan Kaoukji, Ravit Alfandari and Alice Goisis. I cannot thank my family enough for the support they have given me. I owe so much gratitude to my parents who have always encouraged me to do what I love and who believed in me and supported me throughout this process. I hope I have produced something which will make them proud. To my partner Billy, who saw me through this journey from beginning to end with love, immutable good-humour, unquenchable belief in me and an insistence on dancing around the kitchen together whenever I needed to de-stress. I cannot put my gratitude into words. 4 Finally, I would like to gratefully acknowledge the support of the LSE who funded this research through an LSE PhD Scholarship. 5 Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................................................... 4 LIST OF ACRONYMS .......................................................................................................................... 10 LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES .......................................................................................................... 11 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 12 1.1 DEFINITIONS OF KEY TERMS ................................................................................................................. 17 1.2 THE EMPIRICAL CONTEXT: CHILD CONTACT CENTRES ................................................................................. 19 1.3 CHILD PROTECTION PRACTICE IN CHILD CONTACT CENTRES ......................................................................... 22 1.4 INFLUENCES ON CHILD PROTECTION PRACTICE IN CHILD CONTACT CENTRES .................................................... 27 1.4.1 Early research ....................................................................................................................... 27 1.4.2 Introduction of reforms and other changes ......................................................................... 31 1.4.3 Recent research .................................................................................................................... 33 1.5 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK: A SYSTEMS APPROACH .................................................................................. 34 1.5.1 The study of normal activities .............................................................................................. 35 1.5.2 Local rationalities ................................................................................................................. 37 1.5.3 Non-linear causality ............................................................................................................. 40 1.5.4 Conceptualisation of tools...................................................................................................
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