Significant harm: making professional judgements
✍ Scribed by Patrick Ayre
- Book ID
- 101276049
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1998
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 265 KB
- Volume
- 7
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0952-9136
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Judging whether a child is suering or is likely to suer signi®cant harm has become a critical task for professionals working with children and their families in England and Wales. Yet little guidance is available about what the phrase means in its entirety and how it should be applied in practice. This study set out to examine how the phrase was used in practice by a selected sample of experienced health and social work sta. The evidence collected suggests ¯aws in the general approach adopted by professionals to identi®cation and assessment in child protection cases. The data indicate a heavy concentration of attention on the weaknesses of families being assessed rather than their strengths and on parents rather than children. Problems are identi®ed in responding eectively to long-term, chronic abuse such as emotional abuse and neglect. The study recommends changes in practice based on these ®ndings which have been implemented by a wide range of practice agencies within the study area.