Neglect: where now? Some reflections
✍ Scribed by Olive Stevenson
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1998
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 137 KB
- Volume
- 7
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0952-9136
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
This contribution oers some comments arising from the previous papers by Jones and Gupta (1998) and by Stone (1998). It accepts and reinforces the concerns expressed by these authors, stressing that much recent practice in relation to seriously neglected children in their families has not protected them from signi®cant harm in terms of their overall development. It argues the need for more precise but holistic assessment of de®cits in children's upbringing; for a more realistic application of notions of partnership with parents; for acceptance of the need for long-term work; and for ¯exible and intensive provision for children designed to make good some of the de®cits.
The two articles on neglect in this issue present clearly many of the problems and dilemmas which face practitioners when they work with families in which children are seriously neglected. My own work on the subject has convinced me that there is a pressing need for these issues to be addressed systematically in policy, at central and local government levels and in education and training and in research.
As the authors point out, child welfare practice in Britain has been narrowly dominated in recent years by a socio-legal, quasi-forensic approach. This has concentrated on happenings' and incidents' in the assessment of risk to children. Since the passing of the Children Act 1989, the emphasis on working partnerships with parents has also been a dominant theme for courts and practitioners alike. A third problematic element in practice, which mirrors wider changes in society, may be described as more purposeful, `targeted' modes of intervention, designed to avoid long-term dependency.
It is my contention that these trends have been seriously detrimental to the well-being of neglected children in the following ways.
First, the assessment of risk to children must include, but not be dominated by, investigation of events and episodes. There is ample evidence, soundly based on research, that, for healthy development, children's physical, social, intellectual and emotional needs have to be met. Especially in the early years, these are intertwined.
Processes of assessment which do not examine the `child in the round' are, quite simply, inadequate. In my forthcoming