Partnership and the limits of procedure: prospects for relationships between parents and professionals under the new Public Law Outline

Abstract

Bradford Scholars -how to deposit your paper Overview Copyright check• Check if your publisher allows submission to a repository.• Use the Sherpa RoMEO database if you are not sure about your publisher's position or email openaccess@bradford.ac.uk.

A new approach to care proceedings

“…Parents may be galvanized into co‐operating with the social worker and providing good enough care. A clear indication of what needs to change and independent legal advice might provide the basis for improved partnership working between parents and the local authority (Broadhurst & Holt 2010). Secondly, parents may agree to protect their child by making arrangements for alternative care within their family.…”

Accomplishing parental engagement in child protection practice?

“…Requiring local authorities to ensure parents are closely involved in decision-making, the PLO can be seen to further strengthen 'partnership working' -a central and guiding principle of the Children Act 1989. However, commentators have questioned whether the diversionary aspirations of the PLO will succeed, given the much documented difficulties of achieving parental engagement in child protection (Broadhurst and Holt, 2010;Brophy, 2006;Buchanan, 1994;Department of Health [DoH], 1995;Freeman and Hunt, 1998;Kaganas, 1995). From a detailed review of research commissioned as part of the national review of care proceedings in 2005-6, Brophy (2006) concluded that even a limited form of partnership was difficult to achieve where there are serious concerns about children.…”

“…The new Public Law Outline (PLO) introduced in April 2008, has been described as reinforcing the nomenclature of the 'no order principle' within the Children Act 1989 that presupposes positive action on the part of relevant agencies to support the upbringing of children in their families wherever possible (Broadhurst and Holt, 2010;Welbourne, 2008). Requiring local authorities to ensure parents are closely involved in decision-making, the PLO can be seen to further strengthen 'partnership working' -a central and guiding principle of the Children Act 1989.…”

Social work the ‘art of relationship’: parents' perspectives on an intensive family support project

“…Consistent with this, the social work literature provides evidence of the positive impact that effective relationships between worker and service user can achieve (Cleaver & Freeman 1995; Farmer & Owen 1995; Spratt & Callan 2004). Even in the context of compulsory removals of children, research has found that the quality of that relationship is often crucial in determining the service user's experience and, arguably, in shaping the longer‐term outcomes for vulnerable families (Ministry of Justice 2008; Broadhurst & Holt 2009). Whilst such arguments are persuasive, the literature does not often explicate how such relationships operate and what the constituent elements of such relationship are.…”

“…The concept of working in ‘partnership’ with parents in child protection, and more recently safeguarding, has a long history. During the 1980s, following a number of studies and inquiry reports, pressure mounted for a greater degree of power sharing between parents and professionals (for a fuller discussion, see Broadhurst & Holt 2009). Indeed, this culminated with the introduction of the Children Act 1989 (Department of Health 1989).…”