Families investigated
Rising numbers of intrusive investigations do not help children and there are harmful consequences for all members of the family
Child protection investigations are, unsurprisingly, very difficult experiences for every member of the family, including the child. What’s deeply troubling is that there has been a drastic move towards investigation instead of the support which children and their families are entitled to.
Academics, organisations and grassroots groups are speaking out about this harmful approach which doesn’t help and is not in line with human rights.
“The number of occasions families were put through a highly stigmatising, and harmful, investigation not leading to a child protection plan increased from 45,000 to 135,00”
Impact on families
Human cost and suffering
Children and their parents are harmed by the intrusive process of being ‘assessed’. Impacts including terror, shame, fear of strangers, family breakdown, increased stress, inability to sleep and shame. Some studies suggest it is similar to post traumatic stress disorder.
As well as lasting trauma there can be ongoing negative impacts of being ‘known’ to children’s services and other professionals, increasing the chance of further state intervention in the life of the family.
“The process of being investigated is incredibly difficult and traumatic for children and for parents and other family members. Recent research has shown that this is not the result of ‘bad practice’, although this does happen, but that the process itself is intrusive, upsetting and shame inducing. Impacts include terror, shame, anxiety, fear, distrust and symptoms similar to PTSD, which has been known for many years.”
“I was intimidated with them coming, intimidated while they were there and utterly humiliated when I’d shut the door when they’d gone – I just couldn’t believe what had just happened, it was that shocking.”
Parent interviewed
Professor Anna Gupta and Hannah Blumhardt
Families, Relationships and societies: Giving poverty a voice: families’ experiences of social work practice in a risk-averse child protection system (2016)
“Humiliating, bullying and devastating. [Like] the police turning up at your door and [saying] ‘we’ve got a warrant to search your house”
Parent who had asked for help
Professor Luke Clements and Dr Ana Laura Aiello
CEREBRA: Institutionalising Parent Carer Blame (2021)
Investigated below threshold of concern
While the harm caused by investigation is a problem for all families what is even more concerning is that many of the children and their families put through this are when the family has asked for help.
“Requiring assessment that includes an inference of parental failings simply in order for services to be provided raises issues of coercive consent if services are withheld if assessment is not carried out, or if parents are threatened with child protection processes if they do not comply.”
Government guidance
The 2013 guidance mandated full assessments of all families with a child referred even when no significant harm or abuse suspected.
“Each child who has been referred into local authority children’s social care should have an individual assessment to respond to their needs and to understand the impact of any parental behaviour on them as an individual.”
The focus of this is on the parents as the problem with councils and social workers empowered to decide whether they think parental behaviour is problematic or not.
The 2013 guidance can be found here.
Families with disabilities
Families which include a disabled person often need to ask for support and services which they are entitled to. A common experience and fear for parents of disabled children and parents with disabilities is that asking for help can result in being investigated for child abuse or neglect. This both creates a barrier to these children getting the help and support that they and their families need, and also leads to increased numbers of children being removed from their families.
“It is of great concern to Cerebra that national and local social care policies in England create a default position that assumes parental failings when assessing the needs of disabled children. It is an approach that ignores the fact that disabled children often have complex medical, educational and social support needs and face many barriers to their participation in society. It places blame within the family, ignoring the wider societal barriers these children, and families, encounter.”
Foreword Dr Tracey Elliot, Head of Research and Information, Cerebra
Professor Luke Clements and Dr Ana Laura Aiello
CEREBRA: Institutionalising Parent Carer Blame (2021)
Parents of disabled children
A major report has shown that even when there was no reason to suspect abuse or neglect families are routinely investigated as though they were suspected..The report recommended that social workers should be trained to understand the relevant human rights issues, and to understand that interference of a family’s Article 8 rights – such as searching a child’s room or interviewing the child alone – must only happen in cases where there was cause for concern as to abuse. Also that Article 14 of protection from discrimination was engaged when disabled children and their families were being treated as though there was reason to suspect abuse.
Disabled parents
Disabled mothers and parents are not getting the support they need and instead are being investigated under child protection.
“So you are suggesting that if the child is removed, you are willing to spend all the Social Services money on looking after her in a foster home but at the same time, you’re not willing to give an hour of support that my wife has asked for?”
Father with disabled wife quoted in report
Professor Emily Munro and Dr Maryam Zonouzi with Richard Fountain, Julie Harris, Dan Vale and a group of disabled parents
DRILL: Re-imagining social care services in co-production with disabled parents (2018)
“It was shocking to find that many disabled parents were often too scared to ask for help from social services for fear of being judged unfit to look after their children.”