How Children Become Invisible in Child Protection Work: Findings from Research into Day-to-Day Social Work Practice

Ferguson, Harry

doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcw065

Cited by 118 publications

(107 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Rigid procedural adherence, for instance, may help manage anxiety engendered by the work (Whittaker, 2011). Existing research on home visits in child welfare suggests that intense emotional experiences within the family home can immobilise social workers, leading to professional paralysis and a loss of child focus (Ferguson, 2016). Existing research on home visits in child welfare suggests that intense emotional experiences within the family home can immobilise social workers, leading to professional paralysis and a loss of child focus (Ferguson, 2016).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The home visit in child protection social work: Emotion as resource and risk for professional judgement and practice

Cook

2019

Child & Family Social Work

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This article conceptualises the role of emotion in social work home visits. It draws on findings from a qualitative study of initial child protection home visits in the United Kingdom. The research used narrative interviews and focus groups to examine how emotions arising from visits were registered in social workers' narratives. These visits were often challenging; social workers needed to manage their own emotions and those of the family, while at the same time investigating concerns and assessing need.This article identifies seven key emotional experiences associated with the home visit from the perspective of the social worker: going into the unknown; being intrusive; being disliked; fear of harm to self; fear of causing or allowing harm; pain, disgust, and distress; and "absorbing" emotion. It is argued that emotion plays a central role in home visiting and that professionals' emotional responses have important implications for the way they make sense of, and manage, home visits. Emotion is therefore conceptualized as both a potential resource and risk for social workers' professional judgement and practice.

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confidence: 99%

The home visit in child protection social work: Emotion as resource and risk for professional judgement and practice

Cook

2019

Child & Family Social Work

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“…It is proposed that there is great value in engaging in ethnographic research with the aim of getting as close to practice as possible through participation and observation of child protection workers and their practice with children and families (Ferguson, 2017). …”

Section: Implications For Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

The child in child protection: Invisible and unheard

Bastian

2019

Child & Family Social Work

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The paper presents findings from a qualitative study of four child death reviews published in Australia. The study was informed by the theoretical concept of childism. A critical social research methodology facilitated the exposure of childist dynamics in statutory child protection. The transformation of child protection practices and systems has traditionally relied on the imposition of never-ending structural changes, policies, and procedures. This paper proposes that transformation and the erosion of childist dynamics is contingent on humane and ethical statutory child protection agencies.

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“…Workers were also affected by organisational culture, time limits on their work and insufficient support to enable them to contain their feelings, think clearly and focus on the child (Ferguson 2016c). Here again tensions arise in the staging of social work as top-down bureaucratic pressures and insufficient support with the emotional demands of the work limit the time available to conduct such complex work and to be able to think clearly and critically while doing it.…”

Section: Swmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…My aim here is not to report the findings in a systematic way -which I have done elsewhere (Ferguson 2016b(Ferguson , 2016c(Ferguson , 2016d) -but to use the data to illuminate the key theoretical and practice dimensions of social work as a form of work on the move. This work is "mobile" in the sense that it takes place in a whole range of different sites and settings (unlike, say, a GPs practice), which means that if social workers are to be effective they are compelled to move.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%