The Vicious Cycle: Recurrent Interactions Among the Media, Politicians, the Public, and Child Welfare Services Organizations

Communicating concern or making claims? The 2012 press releases of UK child welfare and protection agencies

“…It is through claims-making that agencies compete with one another to show not only that they are still the most important and knowledgeable ‘experts’ on a given subject, but, to put it more contentiously, they show that they care the most. Social work, and in particular, child care agencies have suffered from a constant stream of negative publicity, stretching back at least over the last 20 years (Butler & Drakeford, 2003; Chenot, 2011; Jagannathan & Camasso, 2011). In addition, the impact of contractual government funding and competitive tendering on voluntary organisations has been to pitch agencies against one another in a world of increasingly scarce resources (Buckingham, 2009; Carmel & Havelock, 2008).…”

Social work and the media: A collaborative challenge

“…Concern has been expressed for several decades about how the social work profession is portrayed in the media (Aldridge 1990;Ayre 2001;Franklin & Parton 1991;LeCroy & Stinson 2004;Chenot 2011). This topic has understandable, unavoidable interest for social workers, given both the dominant place of the media in daily life and a natural interest in what others may think of the profession's achievements.…”

“…It is the experience of social work practitioners in the field of statutory child protection, for example, that media stories about child protection (social work) services are predominantly negative, are based on limited or biased information and have unintended consequences for vulnerable children in need of state support (Goddard & Liddell 1995;Chenot 2011). In New Zealand and internationally, negative news stories undermine public confidence in our collective ability to protect vulnerable people, reducing trust in social service and putting the public at greater risk, yet may rarely lead to positive policy change.…”

“…In New Zealand and internationally, negative news stories undermine public confidence in our collective ability to protect vulnerable people, reducing trust in social service and putting the public at greater risk, yet may rarely lead to positive policy change. Chenot (2011), for example describes a cycle beginning with intense media interest in a child death, followed by a criminal investigation, political claims-making focused on accountability, calls for punishment and the implementation of minor policy and practice changes. Chenot argues that these cases then slip into the background and rarely create lasting reform; rather there is a, '…lull in public scrutiny of the agency and the preparatory phase that leads to yet another grievous case, which triggers a spike and the cycle continues ' (2011, p.169).…”

“…The media acts as a necessary watchdog, highlighting social issues and critically analysing how society responds. Social workers remain uncertain, however, about whether this tendency to focus on inadequacies leads to improved service, or whether it has the opposite effect -with potentially tragic consequences (Galilee 2006;Chenot 2011). The social work profession has an ethical and professional obligation to manage this dilemma, a task made more complex by the acknowledged reality of the media world, where output is regulated by time, money, competition and politics.…”