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Loading ...Most social workers believe parents should have a right to advocacy during child protection cases, a Community Care poll has found.
The finding follows an article by Dr Fiona Long, who highlighted the profound sense of powerlessness and trauma parents experience during safeguarding cases
“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,” she wrote.
Dr Long argued that every parent should be entitled to advocacy once their case reaches the stage of a child protection conference.
Research in the US has found that parental advocacy empowers parents “to find a meaningful voice in decision-making processes” and helps build relationships between parents and professionals, she added
Practitioners on the other side of the pond seem to agree with her.
In a Community Care poll that amassed about 1250 votes, the majority of respondents (76%) said parents should have “someone to speak out for them”.
The poll also revealed some concerns among a minority of practitioners. While another 13% supported the proposal, they added that “there are no funds” to implement it, while 11% rejected the idea because it would “undermine the focus on protecting children”.
‘A winning result for all parties’
Comments under the related article echoed the poll findings, with most practitioners endorsing parental advocacy.
Pauline O’Reggio, who has 43 years’ experience in child protection, said parents should have “skilled independent advocates who [can] support them in court and meetings”.
She noted that many parents feel unheard and find the child protection process confusing, without anyone in the corner to explain it to them.
One parent, Jill Shaw, said she experienced the most “traumatic and shaming experience of my life” when she requested that her adopted daughters of 15.5 years be taken into care.
“My girls had an advocate […] 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.”
Another reader, Laura, said that the advocacy would also contribute to the child’s wellbeing and safety, calling it “a winning result for all parties”.
‘The child takes priority’
However, some were more sceptical.
David, while strongly supportive of the idea, deemed it unaffordable, adding that, without adequate funds, the child protection system would “unfortunately […] remain distinctly faulty and unjust”.
Others voiced concerns that parental advocacy would take away the focus from the child.
One practitioner said they found it challenging to balance parents’ views and the child’s rights.
“Ultimately, child protection plans are there to safeguard children from harm. If a parent doesn’t want to go through the ‘trauma’ of child protection, then parent your children, don’t harm them.”
Lesley Edwards also argued that the “child and their future development takes priority”.
“I would agree parents should be involved but not that their needs supersede the child’s,” she added.
What do you think about the introduction of parental advocacy within child protection cases?
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s20 accommodation of adopted children is, perhaps, one of the toughest ~ it’s genuinely heart breaking territory and with no easy ways through the disruptions; the idea that the State can and should be approached for help becomes test-bed of the integrity and veracity of the system as a whole ~ increasing adversarial advocacy may not be helpful if weighed across the life-span of the child.
Advocacy, as a concept and practice, requires closer attention if it’s going to achieve lasting positive outcomes ~ if there’s a case for socio-legal representation then say this ie what are the issues about (i) ‘legitimate expectations’ (ii) ‘rights to be heard’, (iii) issues of ‘reasonableness and rationality’ and (iv) administrative fairness …
More thought needed, no?
The experience in New York is that, when parents have advocacy from a trained parent with experience of the child protection system, less children enter and stay in care and parents are more able to engage with the system. There’s a review of the research at https://bettercarenetwork.org/sites/default/files/2020-10/BCN_Parent_Advocacy_In_Child_Welfare.pdf
It’s great that the majority of social workers recognise the need for advocacy.
I’m a little saddened that there’s a belief that there is competition in rights.
For the child’s rights within the Convention on the Rights of the Child to be upheld there is a requirement for effective participation by both parents and the child. It is then the job of the child protection conference to weigh up contributions by all parties and make a decision in the best interests of the child. Where the system does not help parents and children to effectively participate it cannot make the best judgements about the child’s best interests.
There’s some way to go in the UK Andy.
Get this!
You-Turn UK, Voice North East, Hope North East are but a small number of parents’ advocacy CIC’s that have been set up and, then, rather cruelly closed down. AND by the professionals too uncomfortable with tipping the power away from themselves.
The hostility was mind boggling actually with the threats against professionalism treated as being subversive and countered by adverts and in, then, PSW.
This said number of ex-teachers now working in Advocacy Services is a tell-sign that the power balance is structurally out of whack.
That ‘advocacy’ is being removed from the bread and butter of Social Work equally worrying but I am not convinced that such initiatives will be undertaken with the rigours needed to ensure anything more meaningful than an appearance of doing something. For example, what will the information sharing rights be?
Thoughts …