Towards Parity in Protection: Barriers to Effective Child Protection and Welfare Assessment with Disabled Children in the Republic of Ireland

ABSTRACT

Disabled children experience increased risk of abuse and neglect. Concurrently, serious concerns and practical impediments persist regarding the capacity of statutory child protection and welfare services to respond adequately to their needs. Specifically, the focus in this article is on the assessment stage of the social work process within child protection and welfare teams in the Republic of Ireland. Within this, critical commentary on the literature in this article sets out barriers to professional assessment. These include those associated with interviewing children with cognitive and linguistic impairments, negotiating resource constraints, and overcoming knowledge impediments. Following a thematic overview of literature, theoretical vantage points associated with ableism and derived from the broad field of disability studies, informs concluding analysis with focus on lessons learned for future practice. The proposition is, that theoretical perspectives associated with ableism may aid practitioners in seeking to overcome knowledge, attitudinal and social equality barriers to effective child protection, that existing literature alludes to.

KEYWORDS:

• Child protection
• welfare
• disabled children
• ableism
• assessment
• social work

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Susan Flynn

Susan Flynn is Asst. Professor at Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin. Her research interests have been developed around biographical narrative methods, childhood disability and child protection, and scholarship within the theoretical and transformative space of critical disability studies. Susan has broad practice experience within the social professions.