Cultures of Care in Primary Schools in Ireland that Support Child Protection Work

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a qualitative study completed with 16 designated liaison persons (DLPs) for child protection in Ireland. The care practices and systems in place in Irish primary schools that support child protection work are the particular focus of this paper. Recent changes in legislation, following the publication of the Children First Act 2015 (Government of Ireland, Irish Statute Book; Office of the Attorney General), are considered. The Act recognises all teachers registered with the Teaching Council as mandated persons. Mandated persons are recognised as persons who work with children and young people and are required to report child abuse, above a defined threshold, which comes to their attention in the course of their professional or employment duties. Semi‐structured interviews were completed with the DLPs, and an exploratory approach using interpretative phenomenologial analysis was deemed the most suitable method of analysis for the study. Five superordinate themes emerged from the findings, alongside a number of subordinate themes; the theme ‘The School Story’ which focuses on the care practices that are undertaken in schools daily is illuminated throughout this paper. The findings highlight the need for formal acknowledgement of this work in schools and also for greater interagency communication and collaboration in the area of child protection. Key Practitioner Messages Teachers, in their day‐to‐day work in schools and through the care structures in place in schools, contribute in a significant way to the safety and protection of children. There is a need for greater communication and collaboration between schools and the Child and Family Agency to support children at risk of abuse effectively. There should be formal recognition in the evaluations undertaken by the Department of Education of the care practices that exist in schools.

Broader Concepts of Safeguarding: To Teach, Nurture, Care and Protect

“…This is the theme picked up in the first paper in this issue of Child Abuse Review . In a qualitative study based in 16 primary schools in Ireland, Margaret Nohilly () explores the care practices and systems that support child protection work in the schools. Ireland differs from the UK in that all teachers (along with other professionals) are mandated to report child abuse, above a defined threshold, which comes to their attention in the course of their professional or employment duties.…”

“…These are challenging questions which warrant some reflection. Nohilly () suggests that ‘student support teams’ and having allocated social workers in each school may be helpful approaches to improving the quality of care and interagency working. Others may have developed other initiatives to support the care and protection of children in schools.…”

Missing Data, Complex Processes and Differing Contexts: A Case File Analysis of School Staff's Involvement in Child Protection Cases for Concerns of Neglect

“…Cross tabulations were run to test the association between variables with a view to building a logistic regression model to estimate the probability of a child who was living with neglect, receiving support from the school. Variables were chosen based upon the prevalence of existing literature on child neglect, as having impact on services provided (Jonson-Reid et al, 2007;Nohilly, 2019).…”

“…The average age of children in the sample was nine years old. This could suggest that physical neglect is more recognised in children before they reach adolescence (Rees et al, 2011), or perhaps connected to the broadly held view that primary schools are able to offer a greater 'culture of care' (Nohilly, 2019). It may simply reflect that the most common age for a child to be on the child protection register in Wales is five to nine years old (NSPCC, 2021).…”

Why Do School Staff Sometimes Fail to Report Potential Victimization Cases? A Mixed-methods Study

“…As a recent review has highlighted (Alazri & Hanna, 2020), it Running head: Reasons victimization is not reported by schools seems that different variables in the reporter (e.g., lack of knowledge), the victims (e.g., type of victim's family) or the system (e.g., school setting) play a role. Other factors reported in the literature have been the link and communication between social services and schools (Nohilly, 2019), and the challenges regarding the definition of what constitutes a suspicion (Crowell & Levi, 2012).…”