Learning from child deaths and serious abuse in Scotland by S. Vincent, Dunedin Academic Press, Edinburgh, 2009. 133pp. ISBN 978‐1‐903765‐96‐8 (Pbk)

Abstract

, Dunedin Academic Press, Edinburgh, 2009. 133pp. ISBN 978-1-903765-96-8 (Pbk), £14.95 Sharon Vincent has tackled an almost impossible problem head on, and come out the other side with something worthwhile, readable and robust. While there has been much study and analysis on this subject elsewhere in the UK, this book provides a fi rst attempt to collate information from inquiries into serious and fatal maltreatment in Scotland, giving a much-needed insight into trends and approaches to legislation and policy on child neglect and abuse. The heterogeneous and infrequent nature of the public inquiries reported, however, makes any meaningful collation of the material extremely diffi cult. From individual cases of fatal abuse, through to systematic abuse in children's homes, to the removal of children from their families in island communities, the scope is vast. Unlike England, prior to 2007 Scotland did not have a system requiring a serious case review for every fatal or serious case of maltreatment, nor any mechanism for collating information from such reviews to inform national learning. The decision to undertake an inquiry or review therefore appears arbitrary. This in itself raises an enormous question which Vincent fl ags up in the fi nal chapters-does a systematic approach to reviewing every case of fatal maltreatment and a regular national review of these reviews improve learning or practice? The question remains unanswered.The fi rst chapter highlights demographic trends in child mortality and in fatal abuse and neglect in the UK. This chapter makes an essential early point about the diffi culty in identifying child abuse or neglect as a cause of death but agrees with many international studies that a large proportion of deaths in children are preventable, opening up the wider public health agenda adopted in child death review procedures in England, but not Scotland. Chapter 2 describes the different approaches used in the individual countries of the UK for inquiring into and reviewing child deaths.The following chapter then describes the circumstances around the initiation of 13 Scottish inquiries, and compares the methods and formats utilised. The reader is unfortunately left somewhat in the dark about the actual context for each inquiry and needs to piece together information from the following chapters to fully understand what each inquiry was about. These next two chapters provide the main focus for the book, outlining issues in the child, family, environment and service provision highlighted in each inquiry. The author correctly points out that with small numbers and diverse contexts, it is diffi cult, if not impossible, to draw valid conclusions about the nature of serious and fatal abuse, so it is