Rethinking ‘disguised compliance’ in child protection practice

‘Disguised compliance’

“Disguised compliance involves parents and carers appearing to co-operate with professionals in order to allay concerns and stop professional engagement (Reder et al, 1993). Published case reviews highlight the importance of practitioners being able to recognise disguised compliance, establishing the facts and gathering evidence about what is actually happening in a child’s life.” (NSPCC Disguised Compliance Briefing, Oct 2019)

The first time the term ‘disguised compliance’ appeared in social work literature was in the book Beyond Blame (Reder et al, 1993). The authors coined the term ‘disguised compliance’ to succinctly describe how they found some parents responded to professional involvement in the inquiries they read.

A common feature in case reviews was that professionals missed ‘disguised compliance’ by parents and needed to be more alert to the signs and be more questioning, displaying more  ‘professional curiosity’.

They told professionals that the signs of disguised compliance to look out for in parents are:

• a sudden increase in school attendance;
• attending a run of appointments;
• engaging with professionals such as health workers for a limited period of time;
• cleaning the house before receiving a visit from a professional.

Practitioners now had a set of criteria that they could use to identify this kind of behaviour when it occurred. As a result, the term ‘disguised compliance’ easily integrated itself into social work practice because it offered a two-word phrase that captured the complexity of families in the welfare system. The term started to appear regularly in serious case reviews, government reports, academic articles, factsheets relating to child abuse and social work blogs.

Rethinking the term ‘disguised compliance’

However, over time, the concept has come to be questioned, including because it may divert social workers from considering why parents may conceal things from them and how they can work more effectively with these parents.

If we are to meaningfully help parents whose behaviour harms their children, we need to first consider the functioning and needs of the parents.

The way our current welfare system works is almost entirely organised around the needs of children, hence why it is often referred to as safeguarding or child protection.

However, what this approach misses is that all parents were once children themselves. In many situations, they have had involvement with social services as children. Pat Critttenden, author of Raising Parents (2008), states that from the extensive research she has conducted internationally over the years, three common themes among parents whose children are in the child protection system have emerged:

1. Even when parents harm their children, they almost never intended to do so.
2. Harmful parental behaviour has roots in what parents learned in their own childhoods – that is, parents were also threatened or harmed as children.
3. Parents seek to raise their children better than they were raised

If a parent has suffered abuse in their childhood, they will have developed strategies that kept them safe as a child, such as avoidance or withdrawal from the caregiver, strategies that the parent uses in the unconscious belief they will to continue to keep them safe in adulthood but, in reality, are now having the opposite effect.

For example, by hiding from a social worker, a parent is likely hoping to deter them or keep their children safe at home – but the act of hiding is going to work against them and perhaps lead to greater intervention. Working with intergenerational trauma is not simple, but considering how parents we work with have learned to make meaning from the world and organise their behaviour can make a significant difference to child protection work (Crittenden, 2008).

Applying a relationship-based approach

The professional encounter between parent and social work practitioner should be used as an opportunity to work both in and with the relationship to promote change (Turney, 2012).

Relationship‐based practice recognises that people want to be understood and be treated as an individual in their own right rather than parents simply being seen as ‘a means to an end’ in terms of protecting their children from harm (Turney, 2012: 150).

If collaboration from parents is not actively sought by professionals, then a lack of parental investment is a most likely outcome. When this happens, more often than not, the parent is seen as ‘the problem’ rather than the solution. And if parents feel they are being stereotyped as ‘bad parents’, it can lead to relationships between them and professionals deteriorating even further (Webb, 2006).

The LEARN model

One practical tool that practitioners can use to improve their communication with families is the LEARN model. It was specifically designed by Baim and Morrison (2011) to respond to three key questions from practitioners they had worked with over the years:

1. How can attachment theory help us to form a clearer picture of the difficulties faced by the people we are assessing and trying to help?
2. How can we use this clearer picture to help people better understand themselves, and to help them find their way to more satisfying relationships at home, at work and in the community?
3. How can we use the same concepts within supervision to help support and develop practitioners?

Photo: Baim and Morrison (2011)

A key feature of the foundation stage is for practitioners to acknowledge how they feel (see above diagram) and to be aware of how they communicate with the potential ‘involuntary client’. Baim and Morrison highlight the importance of the practitioner being respectful, collaborative and containing.

If you have a Community Care Inform Children licence, log on to access the full guide and learn more about applying ‘disguised compliance’ and how to apply the LEARN model.  

What to read next

• Increasing parental motivation and aspiration
• Attachment-based parenting and trauma
• How to use professional curiosity to understand social and emotional responses

References

Baim, C, Morrison, T (2011)
Attachment-based Practice with Adults: Understanding strategies and promoting positive change: A new practice model and interactive resource for assessment, intervention and supervision

Crittenden, P (2008)
Raising Parents : Attachment, Representation and Treatment

NSPCC (2019)
Learning from case reviews briefings: Disguised compliance

Reder P, Duncan S, Gray M (1993)
Beyond Blame: Child Abuse Tragedies Revisited

Turney D (2012)
‘A relationship-based approach to engaging involuntary clients: The contribution of recognition theory’

Webb, S, A (2006)
Social Work in A Risk Society: Social and Political Perspectives