Evaluation of serious case reviews and anti-racist practice

Abstract

Placing a child in out-of-home care is one of the most important decisions made by professionals in the child care system, with substantial social, psychological, educational, medical and economic consequences. This paper considers the challenges and difficulties of building statistical models of this decision by reviewing the available international evidence. Despite the large number of empirical investigations over a fifty year period, a consensus on the variables associated with this decision is hard to identify. In addition, the individual models have low explanatory and predictive power and should not be relied on to make placement decisions. A number of reasons for this poor performance are offered, and some ways forwards suggested. This paper also aims to facilitate the emergence of a coherent and integrated international literature from the disconnected and fragmented empirical studies. Rather than one placement problem, there are many slightly different problems, and therefore it is expected that a number of related sub-literatures will emerge, each concentrating on a particular definition of the placement problem.

Serious case reviews: The lived experience of Black children

“…Indeed, the ethnicity of the child was often missing, incomplete, inconsistent, or difficult to find. This is supported by findings from a number of studies (Bhatti‐Sinclair & Price, ; Brandon et al, ; Ofsted, ; Sidebotham et al, ). In the main, the SCRs consistently highlight a lack of professional curiosity about the children's lived experiences within their cultural and ethnic context.…”

“…The search strategy for the review utilized electronic databases and web‐based online search engines. As Bhatti‐Sinclair and Price () have already undertaken some work on Black children and SCRs, published between 1991 and 2010, we limited our review to SCRs published since 2010. In order to review the range of available evidence, searches were conducted via the electronic databases of the NSPCC case review repository, which provided a chronological list of the executive summaries or full overview reports published in a given year.…”

“…Recent high‐profile child death inquiries highlight particular issues for safeguarding Black children, including risk factors and harmful practices (Laming, ; Radford, ; Wate, ). For example, a number of commentators on the Laming report on Victoria Climbié, who died in 2000, highlighted some key issues, including the impact of globalization and international considerations, the vulnerability of privately fostered children, and misinformation about Victoria's identity as well as her relationship to her carer, Marie‐Therese Kouao (Barn & Kirton, ; Bhatti‐Sinclair & Price, ; Laming, ; Parton, ). Furthermore, Laming () drew attention to her carer's belief in spirit possession, the failure to speak with Victoria on her own and in her native language, as well as practitioners' erroneous assumptions about culture, involving racism and culturally based stereotypes.…”

“…Bhatti‐Sinclair and Price () used content analysis to examine the extent to which issues of culture, language, religion, and ethnicity are incorporated into the findings of SCRs published between 1991 and 2010. Three key themes were identified: (a) the value of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children's (NSPCC) national online repository of published SCRs for gathering data on the voice of Black children and social inequalities; (b) the absence of data on family demographic characteristics and inconsistency in the recording of ethnicity, religion, culture, and language; and (c) the absence of in‐depth analysis of and sensitivity to diversity including professionals holding biased views regarding living standards.…”

“…Three key themes were identified: (a) the value of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children's (NSPCC) national online repository of published SCRs for gathering data on the voice of Black children and social inequalities; (b) the absence of data on family demographic characteristics and inconsistency in the recording of ethnicity, religion, culture, and language; and (c) the absence of in‐depth analysis of and sensitivity to diversity including professionals holding biased views regarding living standards. Due to the inconsistency in recording of ethnicity, culture, and religion, Bhatti‐Sinclair and Price () indicated no conclusions could be drawn.…”