Purpose This paper aims to present an analysis of a “county lines” safeguarding partnership in a large city region of England. A critical analysis of current literature and practice responses to “county lines” is followed by the presentation of an analytical framework that draws on three contextual and social theories of (child) harm. This framework is applied to the partnership work to ask: are the interconnected conditions of criminal exploitation of children via “county lines” understood?; do interventions target the contexts of harm?; and is social and institutional harm acknowledged and addressed? Design/methodology/approach The analytical framework is applied to a data set collected by the author throughout a two-year study of the “county lines” partnership. Qualitative data collected by the author and quantitative data published by the partnership are coded and thematically analysed in NVivo against the analytic framework. Findings Critical tensions are surfaced in the praxis of multi-agency, child welfare responses to “county lines” affected young people. Generalising these findings to the child welfare sector at large, it is proposed that the contextual dynamics of child harm via “county lines” must be understood in a broader sense, including how multi-agency child welfare practices contribute to the harm experienced by young people. Originality/value There are limited peer-reviewed analyses of child welfare responses to “county lines”. This paper contributes to that limited scholarship, extending the analysis by adopting a critical analytic framework to a regional county lines partnership at the juncture of future national, child welfare responses to “county lines”.
When young people are harmed in extra-familial settings children’s services may place them into care at a distance from their home authority to remove them from contexts in which they are considered ‘at risk’. Guidance and regulation suggest such intervention be used as a last resort and only in a child’s best interests. Using survey and interview data, this article examines how relocations are used in response to extra-familial harm (EFH) in thirteen children’s services departments inEngland and Wales—exploring the extent to which they are intended to mitigate risk, or build safety, for young people. Findings demonstrate that rates at which relocations were used varied across participating services. Interview data suggest that variation may be informed by the strategic position a service takes on the use of relocation, the goal(s) of interventions used in cases of EFH, and the target of these interventions. In considering each of these factors, the authors recommend further study into the national (varying) rates of relocation and the role of those who review care plans for relocated young people; both intending to create conditions in which young people can safely return to their communities should they choose to do so.
This paper critically reflects on the role of surveillance and trusted relationships in social work in England and Wales. It explores the characteristics of relationships of trust and relationships of surveillance and asks how these approaches apply to emerging policy and practices responses to extra-familial forms of harm (EFH). Five bodies of research that explore safeguarding responses across a range of public bodies are drawn on to present an analytical framework that explores elements of safeguarding responses, constituting relationships of trust or relationships of surveillance and control. This analytic framework is applied to two case studies, each of which detail a recent practice innovation in response to EFH studied by the authors, as part of a larger body of work under the Contextual Safeguarding programme. The application of this framework signals a number of critical issues related to the focus/rationale, methods and impact of interventions into EFH that should be considered in future work to address EFH, to ensure young people’s rights to privacy and participation are upheld.
This article explores how refugee advocates, and refugees themselves, manage social hostility towards refugees and migrants through their talk, specifically how this hostility is managed through orientation to the category 'victim'. Case studies from the publicity materials of four advocacy organisations, as well as the 'internal' talk of their staff, volunteers and beneficiaries collected via Narrative Biographical Interviews, are analysed using discourse analytic methods, specifically Membership Categorisation Analysis. This allows insight into the differing aspects of the organisation's talk and allows analysis of how orientation to the victim category is distributed and managed across the 'dialogical network'. This discourse analytic approach, sensitive to how members of the 'dialogical network' make hostile and sympathetic voices relevant features of their local talk and manage categorisations of refugees in often tacit ways, highlights a pattern of category change, where a reworking of the dominant modes of refugee representation performed by the organisations in their publicity materials is achieved by their members and beneficiaries. The category work negotiated by advocate and refugee informants rearranges the components of the helping relationship, centring the experience, voice and strength of asylum seekers/refugees, and de-centres the objectives of the helping organisations-offering insights into new ways forward for refugee advocacy as a practice of solidarity beyond charity.
Social Workers Without Borders is a UK social work charity established in early 2016 to provide direct support to migrant children and families, and to scaffold this through the development of social work education and activism reflecting the principles of human rights and social justice. Reflecting on Social Workers Without Borders’ model of practice, Lauren Wroe, co-founder and trustee of Social Workers Without Borders, discusses the charity’s recent campaign against Capita and the implications of privatisation for asylum-seeking and migrant families, as well as for the ethical value base of the profession. Positioning Social Workers Without Borders as a voluntary network that ‘fills the gap’ in state services, the author discusses campaign strategies to defend the profession, and the families it supports, from the rolling back of state welfare and the rolling out of state hostility through the deregulated outsourcing of social care services.
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