By Fiona Long, Cardiff University
Should parents have a right to advocacy during child protection cases?
- Yes, they should have someone to speak up for them. (76%, 954 Votes)
- In an ideal world yes, but there are no funds for it. (13%, 162 Votes)
- No, it would undermine the focus on protecting children. (11%, 133 Votes)
Total Voters: 1,249
Loading ...Legislation, guidance, and policy require that the wishes and feelings of parents are taken into account during key child protection processes such as conferences. However, research has found that this does not routinely happen in practice (Diaz, 2020), with many parents reporting feeling marginalised and disempowered by social workers.
The Department for Education (2023) has recognised the potential benefits of parental advocacy as a form of parental representation but conceded that a consistent approach is not currently being adopted.
As such, it is seeking to understand what work for parents going through the child protection system, through the Families First for Children pathfinders, to inform future models of and approaches to parental representation.
Meanwhile, a piece of Nuffield Foundation-funded research by Cardiff University’s children’s social care research and development centre (CASCADE), Parental Advocacy in England: A Realist Evaluation of Implementation, is seeking to understand how this approach is being implemented across the UK.
The trauma of child protection conferences for parents
Research highlights that parents have described the child protection system – and child protection conferences in particular – as ‘traumatic’.
They must sit in a room full of professionals and listen as personal and embarrassing details about their lives are shared openly.
It is no wonder they feel traumatised and stigmatised, given that they are effectively being put on trial and shamed for their shortcomings as a parent and as a person (Featherstone et al, 2018). The trauma which they experience is enduring.
An imbalance of power
Parents also feel a sense of ‘powerlessness’ when they are subject to investigations and interventions (Gibson, 2017; Muench et al, 2017). They do not have any power over the information shared about them, and often feel that the outcomes of child protection conferences are beyond their control.
This is likely due to be due to the power imbalance between parents and professionals within these meetings.
This sense of powerlessness is likely exacerbated by the fact that professional reports are often only made available on the day of conferences and are filled with specialist language that is not accessible to most people (Diaz, 2020).
Fear and mistrust of professionals
In addition, research has found that parents are often fearful of child social workers and perceive them negatively as a result.
Some of these fears are founded in personal experiences, for example, parents may feel that social workers do not know or care about their lives, or that they intentionally bully parents in meetings. Some are fuelled by popular misconceptions, for example, that social workers are paid a bonus for each child they remove into care.
The bottom line is that parents do not trust child social workers and, in consequence, poor relationships exist between these two groups (Featherstone at al, 2016; Gibson, 2015).
Parental exclusion and disengagement
Firstly, if parents find key child welfare meetings to be challenging, they inevitably struggle to participate in them.
In consequence, parents are essentially being excluded from key meetings, and the decision-making processes within them. This is exacerbated when parents struggle with mental health issues and learning difficulties.
Secondly, poor relationships between parents and social workers can cause problems (Featherstone at al. 2016, Diaz, 2020). When parents feel judged by social workers, they may be unwilling to speak honestly about the issues that they are experiencing and concerns about their child’s safety.
Also, parents may refuse help from social workers and effectively disengage from the child protection system. The irony is that non-engagement, or poor engagement, can result in an intensification and escalation of child protection involvement.
In some instances, children are being taken away from their parents, not because they are unsafe or in danger, but because parents are unable or unwilling to engage with the system. Parents consequently feel that the system is unjust, and that they are not given a fair hearing.
A collaborative rather than oppositional approach
Research from the USA suggests that parental advocacy can empower parents to find a meaningful voice in decision-making processes, whilst helping build relationships between parents and professionals (Lalayants, 2021).
By encouraging shared decision making and improved relationships, parental advocacy offers a new way of doing business that is collaborative rather than oppositional (Berrick et al, 2011; Tobis et al, 2020).
Parent advocates ensure that the interests of parents are represented at key child protection meetings. They help parents understand child protection processes, for example, by translating the jargon in reports, and explaining what is likely to happen before, during and after key meetings.
They then ensure that the views and concerns of parents are conveyed in key meetings, by first listening to those concerns and then either empowering parents to share them themselves, or by sharing them on the parents’ behalf.
Giving parents someone in their corner
When parent advocates attend child protection conferences, parents feel that they have somebody in their corner, who is there to support them.
This goes some way to redressing the power imbalance within these meetings. One mother recounts the ways in which her advocate helped her to better communicate with social workers and other professionals:
“I was very emotional for the first couple of weeks, I was angry, swearing a lot, there was always effs and b-words, and she said: ‘You can’t swear, you can’t do this, if they see that you’re angry or showing any kind of emotional instability, they will use that against you. You’ve got to keep that down. If you want anything said, I’ll say that for you, or if you want to say it, write it down and then read it out.’ The first couple of weeks, I was an emotional wreck, but she did make me feel a lot better.” (Long, 2023).
Bridging the gap between parents and social workers
As this example shows, advocates can help parents understand how to convey their thoughts and feelings, and to engage more positively with the child protection system and professionals.
As independent intermediaries they can ‘bridge the gap’ between parents and child social workers. In this capacity, they can also challenge common misconceptions that parents hold about the role of the social worker.
It is positive to see parental advocacy services developing across England. However, access to services is currently determined by geographical location, resulting in a ‘postcode lottery’ of support.
Making parental advocacy an entitlement
Instead, every parent across the country should be given the opportunity to engage with advocacy services at the point of the child protection conference (as a minimum).
To achieve this, new guidance would need to be implemented by the Department of Education, setting out the requirement that prior to child protection conferences taking place, parents be offered parental advocacy.
Whilst this is not a fix to a faulty system, it goes some way to addressing the power imbalances within it.
Dr Fiona Long is a research associate at CASCADE at Cardiff University
References
Berrick, J, Cohen, E and Anthony, E (2011) ‘Partnering with Parents: Promising Approaches to Improve Reunification Outcomes for Children in Foster Care’, Journal of Family Strengths, 11, pp 1-13
Community Care (2018) Divisive, demeaning and devoid of feeling: how social work jargon causes problems for families, Community Care
Diaz, C (2020) Decision making in child and family social work: perspectives on children’s participation, Bristol: Policy Press
Featherstone, B, Gupta, A, Morris, K and Warner, J (2016) ‘Let’s stop feeding the risk monster: Towards a social model of child protection’, Families, Relationships and Societies 7(1)
Gibson, M (2013) ‘Shame and Guilt in Child Protection Social Work: New Interpretations and Opportunities for Practice’, Child & Family Social Work 20, pp. 333-343.
Lalayants, M (2021) ‘Secondary traumatic stress among parent advocates in child welfare‘, Journal of Family Social Work, 24(5), pp 341-362.
Long, F, Fitz-Symonds, S, Diaz, C and Roberts, L (2023) The Power of Parental advocacy: Full report on NYAS Cymru’s parental advocacy programme in PAN Gwent, NYAS Cymru.
Muench, K, Diaz, C and Wright, R (2017) ‘Children and parent participation in child protection conferences: a study in one English local authority‘, Child Care in Practice 23 (1), pp 49 – 63.
Tobis, D, Bilson, A and Katugampala, I (2020) International Review of Parental advocacy in Child Welfare, Better Care Network and IPAN, 166,New York: Better Care
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Could not agree with you more but as previous Tory governments and now the new Labour administration have been saying your proposals are not affordable. So, unfortunately the system will remain distinctly faulty and unjust.
I am a well educated person but the Child Protection process nearly broke me. My CP ordeal – because I requested a S20 after my adoptive placement of 15.5 years broke down in a spectacular way – was the most traumatic and shaming experience of my life. I’m not sure I will ever fully recover. I still cringe when I see the persistent (literal) red flag on the screen when I take either of my two ADs to the doctor. That red flag symbolises my shame and I think it should have been removed now that my children were stepped down to Child in Need. My girls had an Advocate; supposedly an independent person who is paid by the LA and sits alongside the CP SWs. As independent as the IROs. I had no one to speak up for me when I was too broken to speak up for myself – and too ashamed to share my situation with my real life friends.
Thankyou for sharing this. I think that your voice and others who have experienced like yours should be heard.
I find that sometimes parents only have facebook and the like to turn to for a independent perspective, which in turn can create its own problems, as groups on facebook are not always the most informed (not to dismiss this form of support entirely though) and like you say there can be feelings of shame in approaching real life friends
I hear you. BUT the Facebook group of 700 disrupting/disrupted adoptive parents to which I belong has quite literally saved my life. Many, many dozens of us have been put through CP proceedings for the crime of requesting a S20 when the CPVA, aggression, verbal abuse, stealing, lying, drug use, County Lines involvement, sexual exploitation, regular police visits, confabulation, arrests on false allegations and general anti-social behaviours have become too much for us to bear. We are the most assessed parents of the most vulnerable children but we are not supported effectively. We keep trying and we do not throw in the towel until our physical and mental health are seriously depleted (15.5 years in here and I am severely depressed, my elderly mum has stress-induced psychosis and my AD2(8) is diagnosed with anxiety.) Post- adoption support is a joke. We encounter professionals who do not understand developmental trauma and attachment disorders and who attribute all our problems to poor parenting.
As a social worker dealing with child safeguarding I find it can be a challenge when trying to balance parents views vs the right of a child. Ultimately Child Protection plans are there to safeguard children from harm, bottom line if a parent doesn’t want to go though the ‘trauma’ of child protection then parent your children, don’t harm them.
Ian- you must know that it is a lot more complicated than this.
As the MacAlister Report found; ‘In the majority of cases, families become involved with children’s social care because they are parenting in conditions of adversity, rather than because they have caused or are likely to cause significant harm to their children’.
This is very true but merely demonstrates the complexities in making judgements. At the end the safety of the child and their future development takes priority. I would agree parents should be involved but not their needs supersede the child’s.
I did parent my children, not harmed them. I haven’t seen them in 3.5 years, due to apparently “severe declining mental health” after my son died. I’ve just been erased from their lives.
Personally my experience of child protection was that I lost all respect for a system I previously had high levels of trust and confidence in.
My experience was that I was told a penatrative sexual assault on a child in school is normal and that any efforts I made to protect my child from that are abusive.
I was told I am mentally ill dispite the GP making it clear I have no mental health issues there were outright lies told and a large amount of professionals excluded from enquiries and not invited requiring me to approach them for statements where the social worker failed to do so. Only inviting those professionals working for the la who were actively covering up sexual abuse in their care.
My experience was that it was oppressive and in its entirety corrupt.
I was told to withdraw complaints about sexual abuse or my child would go to child protection. When I continued with my complaint I was threatened with a further ICPC.
I no longer believe social care are honest or trustworthy.
I have no respect for professionals who minimise or cover up sexual abuse or who will misuse their professional position to do so.
The system is set up against parents and social workers lack the skills or integrity
There should be a focus on broken families too. Non residential parents/alienated parents are simply ignored even though they were not the reason for social services input.
Advocacy for both parents would only improve the child’s wellbeing and safety. A winning result for all parties.
It’s about money. You have to tax the very wealthy individuals and very wealthy companies to free finances for the those who have no access to such resources. This is called redistribution of wealth, essential to socialism. Karmer has claimed to be a socialist and on the grounds that he is progressive. He has no idea. Get a grip to improve things for those subject to state intervention through poverty, very inadequate housing and equally poor health opportunities. Don’t let the people down.
It’s just more political subversion isn’t it? How the hell can Council’s actually function when sucessive government’s are taking any and all opportunities for a shot at lessening State Liabilities at Local Authority level?
Hiving-off yet another services area, like childrens rights and representation as with other AA services, to procurement and contracting, is about what?
The myth of efficiency savings under the illusion that framework agreements are actually fit for purpose and children’s needs canbe advertised as ‘a lot’ to be competitively bid for?
Come on!
Even the Competition and Mergers Authority think we’re having a laugh.
The statutory arrangements made for participation are pretty much already set out, no?
The specificalities of addressing, and then meeting the needs of parents has long been a recognised unmet area (see Farmer and Owen ‘Private Lives and Public Risk’)
So, how is a separation of advocacy, say from the IRO going to practically improve participation.
When Lord Wolfe in 1997 ushered in the idea of alternative dispute resolution, to lessen the burden on judicial reviews, he did so by asking ‘if all we have is a hammer’
A world of difference could be made to the outcomes for both children and parents, IF we didn’t keep using the same old hammers, right?
Will a separation of advocacy for parents improve participation?
Addressing the use/abuse of power is an entirely different matter and inherently a problem of decision-making rights and the information/evidence for such. Bolstered data subject protections is an alternative address to power imbalance, maybe?
For sure advocacy appears the obvious solution, and for sure there’s interim labour market and blossoming provider market but are these, now, economically conditioned reactions going to do what is required to meet the needs of parents?
As with adults services under the NHS Community Care Reforms (as covered in cc recently) the removal of nurse advocacy ended and the erosion of advocacy within statutory social work started in earnest.
Independent advocacy has never cut the mustard; the socio-legal aspects embedded in both nursing and social work diluted to nonexistence.
Think! Again?
btw depressive realism is a far better framework than the standard realism presented here ~ see Julie Reshe and her work on such, Zizek’s Less Than Nothing is also worth the effort.
Having worked in child protection for 43 years plus.Parents should have skilled independent advocates who are able to support them in court and meetings.
Parents may feel at any stage of involvement with children’s services thier wishes and views are not given relevent consideration,they do not fully understand the decisions and why certain decisions are being recommended and or reported.
This may also support professional practice?
Emotionals are high, parents may feel they are not listened to,the process may not make sense to them and may not be explained so they understand.This may not necessarily be because the social worker has not taken the time to explain but because of time constraints and the fast moving pase of the process parents do not have time to process the information.
The parents legal representative focus on the legal aspects of the case. Parents are emotional and may not fully understand what happens when they get to court having someone explain may help to make sense of the process,which in turn may help parents feel there is a more balanced approach of all sides.
Even at the care proceedings stage parents may not fully understand or want to understand why proceedings where initiated by the local authorty, they may not undetstand the local authorty process such has initial case conferences, review confrences ,child in need meetings or child protection meetings,who will be invited to each meeting and why.
Although there are leaflets for parents to read having an advocate may address the imbalance felt by parents.
The process is necessary,however parents should also be supported to understand the process, important and life changing decisions will be made which will impact the child and family will it not.
These are some of my views based on my own experiences.
It is widely acknowledged that collaborating with and assisting parents and caregivers is the most impactful method of enacting enduring change for adolescents. Extensive research and practical experience indicate that a holistic approach that involves the entire family can tackle underlying issues and reinforce familial bonds, leading to positive and long-lasting results.
In cases of child exploitation, whether it is of a sexual or criminal nature, an all-encompassing family-focused strategy becomes even more indispensable. This is because, unlike traditional child protection (i.e., abuse that happens within the home), professionals responsible for safeguarding are less likely to come into contact with the perpetrator of the abuse. Consequently, when working with children in situations involving exploitation and harm from sources outside the family, it is crucial to concentrate on forging strong relationships with all individuals linked to the child. Embracing this approach is the most effective method to cultivate robust partnerships and heighten the likelihood of ensuring the child’s safety and welfare.