There is quite a lot which I like about Re-imagining Child Protection by Brid Featherstone, Sue White and
Kate Morris [1]. There is also quite a lot that makes me feel uncomfortable.
What I liked
I liked the emphasis on ‘talk about ethics’, even if I had
some reservations about the Cook’s Tour of philosophy that formed much of
Chapter 3. Featherstone et al are
absolutely right to remind us of the centrality of ethics to child protection by
endorsing the contention of Dingwall et
al [2], that “… child
protection raises moral and political issues which have no one right technical
solution”. Indeed anyone engaged in the protection of children is faced daily
with daunting moral and ethical dilemmas that cannot be ignored and that intractably
resist resolution. It is absolutely right to revile glib technical ‘solutions’.
There are no quick fixes. Angst and
uncertainty go with the territory.
I also liked the emphasis on ‘research mindedness’ and
‘learning culture’. Featherstone et al
are right to caution against the idea that research is the preserve of a small
elite and condemn the fallacy that child protection professionals can be simply
‘informed’ by potted summaries of research. They are right to stress that practitioners
should undertake research within their own practice to examine and understand
what they are trying to do, what they are actually doing and what they have
achieved.
And, of course, I also liked the authors’ emphasis on
developing a just reporting culture and recognising the importance of
understanding human factors in developing a safety culture. I only wish they
had developed these ideas much further in Chapter 5.
It goes without saying that I very much agreed with their
disdain for bureaucratisation of practice, target setting and poorly designed
IT systems which try to enforce compliance with an arbitrary rule book.
What I didn’t like so
much
I felt uncomfortable with one of the central arguments of
the book. The authors state and re-state it in several ways but basically it
seems to be based on a dichotomy (in my view a false one) between
‘authoritarian demonisation’ on the one hand and ‘support to families to care
safely and flourish’ on the other. Another formulation (p. 152) contrasts what
they see as an undesirable individualistic child-focused orientation with a
desirable one of supporting and developing ‘the strengths within families and
communities’.
Politically progressive as this approach may seem, it is
difficult to square it with the reality of practice. It is frequently the
worker who is a committed supporter of an oppressed family who is the first to
realise that a child within that family is suffering abuse and neglect.
Ideological perspectives do not prepare the worker for what happens next. A child
cannot be left to suffer, no matter how much hope and potential there is for
change. Inevitably at some point the family’s champion becomes the child’s
defender and the rhetoric of family and welfare support gives way to the
language of protection and rescue. Like the Necker Cube illusion, suddenly the complete perspective changes.
People who work with troubled families and their children
can (perhaps I should say ‘should’) never be politically comfortable. Those of
us who like to think we believe in empowerment and welfare and justice may feel
naturally in sympathy with talk of support for oppressed families and
communities. But whatever we believe, we should never lose sight of the horror
of an individual abused child’s suffering at the hands of her/his carers. We will
always need to accept that sometimes doing the right thing involves doing
things that we would much rather not do.
My other area of discomfort with this book concerns the
title and its implications. Re-imagining
child protection sounds like a breath of fresh air, but no matter how
well-versed in practice and theory the authors of this book are, and no matter
how erudite and articulate, they are just in the final analysis three people
with an idea. The history of child protection policy seems to be littered with
big ideas that ultimately result in little or no change. And the hope that
somehow a seismic paradigm shift will occur simply as a result of a good
written argument is at best naïve.
The truth of the matter is that we need to start changing
child protection from the perspective of where we are now, not where we would
like to be. Real change will not come about from the imaginings of academics
and visionaries. It will only come about from creating a solid basis for
learning to take place among those who actually do the work and feedback from those that receive the service. That is learning that
currently does not take place; learning about how to provide safer services,
learning more about the needs of children and their families; learning more
about how to deploy resources to raise quality.
Where that learning will take us, if it comes about, none of
us knows.
Endnotes
[1] Featherstone, B. White, S and Morris, K. Re-imagining Child Protection: Towards humane social work with families.
Policy Press, Bristol, 2014
[2] Dingwall, R., Eekelaar, J and Murray, T. The protection of children: State
intervention and family life. Blackwell, Oxford, 1983
