Working Together in Managing Child Protection - Coursework Example

Working Together in Managing Child Protection Faculty Table of Contents I. Introduction II. Child Protection III. Child Protection Law and Policies i. The Children Act 1989 ii. The Children Act Report 2002 and The Children Act Report 2003 iii. Every Child Matters 2004 iv. Working Together in Managing Child Protection IV. Conclusion V. Reference I. Introduction Child protection and welfare is one of the primary concerns of any society. Child protection is a universal concern socially, spiritually, and politically that warrant national and global attention. It must be seen as a constituent aspect of the welfare and dignity of the children in general. However, child protection, despite legal provisions of the law requiring civil and political obligation on economic, social, cultural, and community rights of the children; responses of the world community in relation to abuse and exploitation against children’s vulnerability remains far behind to protect children. Along with the number of strategies and policies to protect children the number and types of cases and child abuses are increasing. Instinctively, the civil society is responsive to crimes committed against children by the nature of their (children) inability to protect themselves from the superior strengths of wicked assailants. However, the limited power of the civil society is overruled by the magnitude of child abuse cases in the absence of diligent pursuits in the legal chamber of authority. The paper first briefly discusses the Child Protection issues. It discusses the need of child protection and welfare policies. The next section discusses the policies of child protection laws and policies. This is followed by conclusion. II. Child Protection In the year 1973, Maria Colwell, age 7 died, year 1984 death of Jasmine Beckford, age 4 years, in the same year Tyra Henry, age 21 months, year 1986 Kimberley Carlile age four, year 2000 another girl Lauren Wright age 4, in the very same year Victoria Climbie eight years; all of them victim of child abuse and dead. The list goes on. According to one of the recent reports of UNICEF every week 2 children under 15 die due to child abuse in UK. The every year death rate of child abuse and neglect in industrialised world is 3500. The young children between 1-4 years of age group are at higher risk and most of them getting maltreated. 80% of the abusers are one of the biological parents of the child. Poverty, stress, drug and alcohol abuse are some of the factors of child abuse. Child abuses are of various types i.e. negligence, physical, mental, sexual, emotional and child exploitation. Sometimes as cruel as it leads to the death of the child as it is mentioned above. Child abuse whether physical, sexual, mental or emotional leaves long lasting impact on the child and throughout his/her life an individual fights with that. In the case of Victoria Climbie she had been repeatedly physically abused. She had been beaten by all possible particulars of the house from bicycle chain to the fork. She had reported to be sexually abused by her aunt’s boyfriend. She has been emotionally abused and exploited. All these along with the negligence of the social workers and other professionals might have led to diminishing her hope to escape from her murders. Indeed the inquiry heard of 12 missed opportunities - 12 instances when professionals not only could but, should have acted to save Victoria. (BBC) Death of Victoria Climbie was one of the worst of its kind. It laid foundation to various reforms in UK like ‘Every Child Matters’ to improve childcare services and protection activities for children. In all questions regarding the care, custody, education, and health of the child, his/her welfare shall be the paramount consideration. The natural right and duty of the parents in the rearing of the child for civic efficiency should receive the aid and support of the government. Other institutions, like the school, the church, the guild and the community in general, should assist the home and the state in the endeavour to prepare the child for the responsibilities of adulthood. Poverty being one of the leading problems surrounding child abuse, the inability of the parents to raise their children and entrust the parental responsibility to other people such as sending children to live with relatives, friends, or even adoption, comes with double intention either to escape from parental responsibility or a sacrifice to be separated from the child in exchange for a better future under the care of a supposedly more capable hands and financially stable people to look after the welfare of the child. The need of child protection and welfare policies are to protect them from intentional and unintentional harms and ensure that each child is healthy, safe, developing and enjoying, getting educated, economically, mentally and socially developing and contributing. Children are the vulnerable section of the society. They need to be protected and safeguarded against any wrong. They barely know their rights. They do not know whom to approach in any hard or unexpected situation. In most of the cases of child abuse the abuser is either biological parent or guardian of the child. In such situation it becomes difficult for child to trust anyone. The responsibility of child welfare is not a responsibility of particular agency or people working for child welfare and protection but it is a social responsibility of each member of the society. The education and encouragement to take care of children is required from the basic level. III. Child Protection Law and Policies There have been various policies developed in order to protect children and safe guard their rights to live safely and develop. Some of the law and policies are discussed below: i. The Children Act 1989 The Children Act 1989 generously provides all the elements of the law that protects the right of every child. It covers reforms of the laws relating to the children, it makes various provisions for the local authorities for the child protection, it covers the reforms of the law related to children home, community, fostering, adoption and others. Under section 37 of the Children Act 1989, the court has the power to require investigation in a reported case involving violation of the children’s rights that would warrant delegation of a local authority to take care of the endangered child. Section 47 of the same Act on Child Assessment Order, bestows a power to the local authority to conduct relative investigation where a child is considered exposed to any risk involving the perimeters of his/her right to exist as an individual. Chapter 41 of the Children Act 1989, described as: “An Act to reform the law relating to children; to provide for local authority services for children in need and others; to amend the law with respect to children’s homes, community homes, voluntary homes and voluntary organisations; to make provision with respect to fostering, child minding and day care for young children and adoption; and for connected purposes.” 1 Community participation on relative social policies for children plays a significant role to expedite political approval and policy enactment. Non-government Organisations (NGOs) and Social Welfare Organisations (SWOs) are often made as facilitators and conduit between the government and the community. ii. The Children Act Report 2002 and The Children Act Report 2003 These two reports are developed on the basis of "The children Act 1989". The Children Act Report 2002 pulls together the latest information from statistical returns, inspections and research into a single concise document and explains the progress in some areas. The Children Act Report 2003 again covers the statstical data, inspecton reports and outcomes of various research. It is based on the Green Paper of Every Child Matters. It reflects improvements in the outcomes of Government and children’s services all children and young people in significant period. It also shows the result where the gap in outcomes between the most vulnerable children and their peers is narrowing. iii. Every Child Matters 2004 Every Child Matters 2004 was a response to unfortunate death of 8 years old Victoria Climbie in 2000. There was 12-missed opportunity where the child could have been saved. Based on the Victoria Climbie Inquiry report this Every Child Matters 2004 have been developed. The reasons of failure to save Victoria Climbie are many. It ranges from individual’s negligence to lack of information sharing. Some of the reasons are as follows: Lack of training and experience of the Social Worker dealing with Victoria Climbie case Lack of information recording and sharing within the organisation and with interdependent agencies Working with diversity: At some interrogations social worker and other professionals assumed that Victoria had been acting in a particular manner that was one of the feature of afro-Caribbean families to show respect to elders. The assumptions of the cultural norms, practice and fear of getting accused for racial discriminations came out as a challenge to deal with such situations. Interagency and intra-agency coordination: During the investigation of Victoria Climbie case when information from various agencies had been collected it depicted the clear picture of the child abuse and risk. These information was not being shared either within the agency as one doctor examined Victoria’s brushes and wounds and prepared body map at the same organisation other Doctor examined her based on the Kuao’s (the foster mother) statements. Language Problem: Victoria could not speak English and in none of her meeting with social worker or any other agencies had interpreter to speak to her directly. Throughout the time they had been depended on what Kuao had told them. The main thing that was missing in the case of Victoria Climbie was the lack of common sense. Professionals working with her assumed several things based on her diverse background. There are many other points that came out from Victoria’s report. Based on all these several recommendation has been made. The recommendations of the Victoria Climbie Enquiry Report in brief was as follows: 1. Information Sharing 2. Development of child protection database and information management system 3. Adequately Trained and skilled staff 4. Adequate resources and vehicles 5. Child protection investigators should get high priority, well resourced, well managed and well motivated teams. 6. Clarity of responsibility and accountability should be ensured. 7. Adequate training to ensure the knowledge and understanding within the child protection teams 8. Keeping track of child birth and new arrivals by well developed system with information like Child name, Age, address, relationship with primary carer, registration with general physician, name of the physician, registration in school or day care centre and name of the school or centre. 9. Common assessment framework for children and young people 10. Guidance and training materials to equip the professionals 11. Identifying Children who are missing education or schooling 12. Working Together2: Clear procedural guidance, setting out how organisations and individuals should work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children  13. Use of Common skill and knowledge 14. Supporting transitions There have been many other recommendations based on this inquiry report. Every Child Matter 2004, the legislation base is on the following five main outcomes for children:3 Every child has right of Being healthy, Staying safe, Enjoying and achieving, Making a positive contribution and Achieving economic well-being Every child Matters lists the conditions where children and young people live in considerable stressful situations. These conditions are with families living in poverty, domestic violence within family, parent or elders with mental illness, parent is misusing drugs or alcohol, parent or member of family has a learning disability, families facing racism and other forms of social isolation, living in areas with high crime rates, poor housing and a lots of unemployment. iv. Working Together in Managing Child Protection Unlike the fundamental law of the land, a child is not a mere creation of the state but a natural challenge to humanity in Working Together in Managing Child Protection. Their individual traits and aptitudes should be cultivated to the utmost insofar as they do not conflict with the general welfare. Child development starts with child’s primary institution “family”. Consequently, every member of the family should strive to make the home a wholesome and harmonious place as its atmosphere and conditions will greatly influence the child’s development. Attachment to the home and strong family ties should be encouraged but not to the extent of making the home isolated and exclusive and unconcerned with the interests of the community and the country. This provides guidance and sets out the way individuals and organisations should work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. The new updated version reflects developments in legislation, policy and practice. The guidance is addressed to all practitioners and front-line managers who have particular responsibilities for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, and to senior and operational managers in organisations that are responsible for commissioning or providing services to children, young people, parents and carers.4 This is a statutory guidance that covers supporting children and families, parenting, family life services, safeguarding reports, Government responses, health services, police, Local safeguarding boards, training and development for interagency works, management of cases with respect to Section 47, supplementary guidance for promoting and safeguarding child welfare and others. It defines duties roles and responsibilities of individuals, organisations and agencies that have direct impact on children and young people. Section 11 of the Children Act 2004 and section 175 of the Education Act 2002 place duties on organisations and individuals to ensure that their functions are discharged with regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.5 Analytically, from the shared institutional contexts wherein the relationship among humans can flourish and develop, the preservation and protection of children demand that rectification in justice to be brought on those who violate the freedom and rationality of children. The various degrees of punishments and different types of psychological therapies pre-suppose that there is a corresponding degree of freedom and rationality. Justice administration should therefore require recognition of the magnified effects of crimes committed against children, and punishment should constitute the rationality in the commission of criminal and heinous acts. To be able to fully understand the system on working together in managing child protection, it is first necessary to look into the situation out of which the system has evolved. Child protection is still developing. For wherever one goes, there are continued violations of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. The identification of the reasons of child abuse and policies based on that will indeed help. The current policies on child abuse Every Child Matters 2004, Children Protection Acts, Working together and others covers the large and main aspects for the children protection. Still much work is needed in the same direction. Availability of resources, proper implementation and monitoring is much required in this specific area. Clarity of responsibilities among the professionals, recognition of their work and encouragement is required. Professionals should be trained to avoid unnecessary assumptions and encouraged to monitor each child closely. a. Conclusion Child protection has become a serious issue in last few years within UK and all over the world. Children are vulnerable. They are easy to access and controlled by the unsocial elements, cruel family members and carers. This poses a big challenge for Government to safeguard children. There are several agencies working together for the same goal. The child abuse and negligence have adverse impact on child growth and development. Government and other agencies together are trying to safeguard welfare of children. Children need assessment can be done on the basis of their physical and mental health, behavioural changes, their self image and identity, presentation and the way they take care of themselves. Government have developed and implemented various policies but the success of these policies depends on the way these are being implemented and taken forward. The responsibility is at the basic level to each individual to take care of the policies and regulations set. IV. Reference Working Together, 2004 retrieved on 19 May 2006 from http://www.lsc.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/e5pax5ro53k6mljqyib2ytkek5bi6jpjj4fipbticmzivyhz7tvnu73ypzjtn4ro6nwxzwuq2szwdf/workingtogether.pdf Working Together to Safeguard Children, A guide to inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, HM Government, 2006 retrieved on 19 May 2006 from http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/_files/CC33F42E29C4BB89100BB0AF34A57386.pdf Child Protection retrieved on 19 May 2006 from http://www.devon.gov.uk/text/index/cyps/child-protection/cp-what-can-i-do.htm http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/_files/B324AC9563C98BE220ED4B8004D9023A.doc accessed on 20 May 2006. PROTECT-New York Chapter, State Campaign Update [Internet]. Available from: [Accessed 7 May 2006] Lord Laming (2003) The Victoria Climbie Inquiry [Internet]. Available from: [Accessed 7 May 2006] The Children Act 1989, c.41 [Internet]. 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United Nation’s Training Fund [Internet]. Available from: [Accessed on 9 May 2006] Coping.org: Tools for Coping with Lifes Stressors (1999-2006) Child Management Principles with Young Children 0-5 [Internet]. Available from: http://www.carestandards.org.uk/publications/national_reports/state_social_care_summary.pdf accessed on 20 Dec 2005. THE VICTORIA CLIMBIÉ INQUIRY, REPORT OF AN INQUIRY BY LORD LAMING, January 2003 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/2002/victoria_climbie_inquiry/default.stm accessed on 5 December 2005 The children Act and Reports retrieved on 19 May 2006 from http://www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/childrenactreport/ Read More