What Do Child Protection Social Workers Talk about When They Talk about Helping Children and Families? An Observational Study of Supervision

Abstract

Social work is often described as a helping profession. Yet in the context of child protection services, the kind of ‘help’ on offer is not always welcome. Relatively few parents or children request the assistance of child protection services, and child protection investigations are often highly stressful. Workers and family members may have different ideas about the nature of the family’s problems, and the type of support they need. So, how do child protection social workers think they are helping children and their families? In this paper, we report an analysis of audio-recordings of supervision case discussions, through which we explore what social workers talk about when they talk about helping families. In some cases, workers did not know how they were helping, or even if they were. Other times, workers said they were helping by developing positive relationships, addressing parental behaviour change, coordinating with other services, and fulfilling their statutory duties. We reflect on these findings in relation to the nature of ‘help’ in child protection services, practice epistemologies and Hasenfeld’s typologies of power.

Keywords:

• child protection
• epistemology
• help
• outcomes
• power
• supervision

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from What Works for Children's Social Care and by infrastructure funding from Health and Care Research Wales.

Notes on contributors

David Wilkins

Dr David Wilkins is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at Cardiff University, and Assistant Director of the Children's Social Care Research and Development Centre. Prior to working in academia, David worked as a social worker, manager and Principal Child and Family Social Worker for the London Borough of Enfield. David's research interest is primarily focused on supervision, and on good judgement and decision-making in child protection and child and family social work. Correspondence to: David Wilkins, Room 1.08, Glamorgan Building, King Edwards VII Avenue, Cardiff, CF10 3WT. Email: [email protected].

Samia Addis

Dr Samia Addis is a Senior Public Health Researcher at the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Support Hub, Public Health Wales. Prior to Joining Public Health Wales, Samia worked on various research projects relating to population and public health, health services and social care. Email: [email protected]