The Role of Child Death Inquiries

The Role of minor demise InquiriesRecently the benefits of churl finish inquiries and serious scale revues imbibe seed under particular scrutiny (Corby, Doig and Roberts, 1998). This assignment will use testify base information and design to find new(prenominal) addresses or how to ameliorate the form of the question so its benefits surfaceweigh its limitations.The United Nations estimate that any week two pincerren in the United Kingdom die from annoyance or neglect (UNICEF, 2003). The United Nations Convention, article 3 on the rights of the nipper places a duty on countries to protect tiddlerren from make fun or neglect, the outdo interests of the minor must(prenominal) be the primary concern when making decisions which whitethorn affect them, article 6 focalizationes on the importance of safeguarding their right to invigoration (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1992).There atomic number 18 two types of kidskin conclusion inquiri es serious case reviews and unexclusive inquiries. A serious case review takes place when a minor dies and abuse or neglect is suspected. They as well take place in new(prenominal) circumstances where serious situations stupefy occurred for example where a sister has suffered from serious sexual abuse. The purpose of tiddler expiry inquiries according to Working Together, 2010 is for agencies and individuals to learn where problems hurt arisen and to learn from these to purify their practice. The slightons learnt should be tending(p) to all individuals who work in this sweep to procure they safeguard chelaren in the correct way. When agencies al seey know where certain problems comprise they should rectify upon them before the serious case review is finished. A domain inquiry for example The Colwell Report (1974), The Climb inquiry (2003) is a inquiry ordered by the government to review events, in this case electric razor conclusions. To conclude where practice co uld be improved upon, recommendations preserve be given and lessons can be learnt.Under regulation 5 of the local safeguarding childrens circuit card requires that the local safeguarding children board undertakes reviews of serious cases. Serious case reviews must defecate lessons to be learnt, identify which lessons be within agencies and which among and how long they have to act upon the changes to be undertaken. The reviews must in any case improve upon inter and intra commission working to promote and safeguard the wellbeing of children (chapter 8, Working Together, 2010). Laming (2009) affirms that serious case reviews argon an important in any casel for information lessons. Currently on that point is olfactory modality at regarding the approach used in serious case reviews some call up that there be unalike approaches to take to learn from poor favorable work practice. Effective safeguarding practice is an approach considered, to learn from what is already tu rn up to work.The unambiguous aim of child conclusion inquiries is to try and avoid early tragedies. There is a repetitive circle within child protective cover. Families collide with professionals and most of the outcomes involve protection. The tensions involved between families and professionals involve competition of rights. The tender Rights Act, 1998 article 8 stipulates the familys right to a offstage family life and to be able to conduct their lives according to their cultivation and construeing. The opposite to this argument is to envision all children are protect. When should professionals become involved? Parton (1991) describes the dilemma of how can the rural area establish the rights of the child and still promote the family to be an independent bole in which to raise their children how they see fit and not intervene in all families and consequently reduce its autonomy.Depending on the theoretical point of view the professionals and stream Government take s would impose when the lead should intervene. A laissez-faires government would have microscopical preventive. State paternalism is a survey which favours more than involvement of state intervention to protect children from abuse. This theory regards the childs social welfare as more important than family autonomy. This lieu was reflected in the Children Act, 1989 as it introduced the expression likely for the child to be in significant harm. If there is a likelihood of significant harm there are possibilities of child protection orders being produced, and in other extensions of state power.Tensions between the duties that mixer workers have to safeguard children, the familys right to a private family life, the rights of the child, working in partnership with the parents and taste when the state should intervene origin problems within complaisant work practice. Knowing when to intervene has always been a problem for affable workers within this area. Malcolm Hill (1990 ) imbed that published child abuse inquiry reports identified working with parents as a park problem. He constitute that papers noted access difficulties, in a number of cases parents didnt cooperate when the cordial worker needed to see the child at risk. Hill (1990) concluded that papers found genial workers were too ready to believe parents. Hill (1990) concluded that the Colwell report (1974) found that social workers should focus on parents demonstrating their parenting skills and not to assume all was well because the parents tell so.Social workers also need to look at the care the child is receiving holistically not focus on single areas of the family where they are showing tyrannical steps, for example social workers whitethorn be satisfied as the family are participating in counselling but they need to still look at their parenting at home whilst this continues. Thus depending on the theoretical viewpoint the social worker takes decides when they should intervene. Th is assignment will adopt a state paternalism perspective, this perspective although draws conclusions that the child is likely to suffer significant harm which whitethorn affect the family relationships and autonomy its better to intervene now then attend until abuse or neglect has taken place and then safeguarding the child. This perspective takes a view that children have a high priority in society, they have rights to high standards of care and using this approach ensures that they are protected at all costs by the force of the law (Fox Harding, 1997).Child end inquiries are seen as an important tool used to improve local practice and implementing wider community health approaches to improve upon infant fatality rate rates. Bunting and Reid (2005) found that there numerous benefits to serious case reviews fetching place. These included more effective multi execution working, improved communication between agencies, they found that expiration certificates had become more inf ormative they also found that from participating in serious case reviews practitioners had more knowledge meet child death and the causes of them ensuring a further focus on intervention measures of child death rather than cerebrate on child abuse.Corby et al (1998) have found that there is a growing concern on the rival of child inquiries on professionals especially social workers. They found that whilst inquiries were victorious place social workers face continual criticism. The Maria Colwell case engage social work practice public and put it under majuscule scrutiny. Professionals within this case became points of focus of criticism, their work was scrutinised in incorrect contexts focusing on training of social workers impact their morale significantly (Corby et al, 1998).The impact of child death inquiries on social workers and other professionals in this area can be psychological and emotional. Corby et al (1998) asks both sides of the case that child death inquiries can highlight poor practice and the need for the public to know why children already known to social services and other departments can still go on to be abused and killed. withal the emotional and psychological effects on social workers can be so detrimental because of the scrutiny they are under, their work will be affected, and affecting further work they do.Corby et al (1998) investigated child abuse cases and inquiries and how profitable they are and what changes have been do by using child death and abuse inquiries as an approach. Of the seventy inquiries they investigated between 1945 and 1997 they all produced similar recommendations in areas of improving inter agency co-ordination, training of professionals, improving child protection systems and using more experienced staff. Corby used this information to highlight that changes do between 1945 and 1997 have not been inviolable as inquiries continue to make the said(prenominal) recommendations.Child death inquires do have their place in the public eye specifically when practice goes wrong, nevertheless they have a number of limitations. Child death inquiries affect personal confidence of the social workers and other professionals when they become embroiled within the investigation. Due to the nature of the child death inquiries the public only see the negatives of social workers, social workers tutelage the association of such inquiries. Practice will not change when inquiries focus solely on the structure of children and families department. If social workers feel like the backside when involved in inquiries their work will be affected consequently affecting the work they do further on for example other children whitethorn be more at risk because social workers have no confidence in the work they are practicing.To use child death inquiries as a vehicle for insurance policy vexment whitethorn not be the most effective approach to take. Child death inquiries are very expensive. If a more ef fective approach was to be taken and social workers and other professionals were able to learn more from this different act it would be more beneficial to take this approach than to carry on using money and concluding the aforementioned(prenominal) issues. Parton (2004) has found that the same issues have been identified on numerous ages without any obvious changes in social work practice. Devaney, Lazenbatt and Bunting (2010) found that child death inquiries can still be effective but more accent mark needs to be on recommendations, implementing and acting upon them. Devaney et al (2010) also deal that policy makers need more understanding of the difficult situations in which children are at more risk from abuse or neglect. Devaney et al (2010) argue that this can help the policy makers express what social workers can do and make a distinction between that and what should be done.Child death inquiries make assumptions that something has gone wrong and that the inquiry can find out what and give recommendations to learn from the mistakes. It assumes that practice will change because of the recommendations given and umpteen inquiries dont focus on acting upon the recommendations, if they did then future day inquiries wouldnt produce the same recommendations. Inquiries assume that the method they use is sophisticated. However, research into inquiries and literature has shown that other approaches could be more effective and less intrusive in practice and less strain can be put on professionals. Inquiries assume that multi agency working will be more effective, though if tensions between professionals are problematic then these will be difficult to resolve. Inquiries cannot assume that these tensions can be worked at by the professionals they need a superior management style to overlook the different professionals to be able to work in effect together.As well as the implications for social workers individually and for policy makers regarding the process o f child death inquiries, organisational structures will be also be wedged upon when changing child welfare policy. Due to changes within organisations, for example changes in roles of professionals involved in child death inquiries the foundations of interprofessional multi agency work are not secure, concluded because inquiries focus excessively on the role of social workers rather than the antecedents of child death or abuse. With regards to the case of Maria Colwell (1974) the secretary of State Barbara Castle concluded that social workers alone cannot solve the cardinal problems. all professionals in this field of child welfare need to understand their role but if child welfare policy continues to change continuously the role cannot be undertaken as professionals have poor ideas of what their role is and how they should practice. All professionals need to work effectively together and have an understanding of delivering super services to diverse communities so no children are lost in the system or ignored. The importance of effective interprofessional multi agency work is such that until there is a balance of role and practice then the safeguarding of future children may be affected.Contemporary social work values may be affected, social workers have their own values personally and from learning from experience. Social workers must focus on human rights and social jurist as their motivation for social work. Some critiques may argue that depending on the theoretical example for example state paternalism some social workers may not be able to justify their motivation to impose this framework in their practice by not letting the family have a right to private family life (Human Rights, article 8) and be too prompt to intervene. To ensure anti discriminatory practice social workers must understand different cultures have different behaviours when it comes to parenting. The social worker may hold it is not appropriate, the family however may believe di fferently. This can lead to the social worker to not act at all. The social worker must ensure anti discriminatory practice, they need to see things from the perspective of the culture the family employs. Though still maintaining the values and knowledge they have regarding child abuse and when they should intervene. They must keep each case individual and make judgements based on inference, not on their assumptions.To evaluate how profitable child death inquiries are as a vehicle for policy development evidence needs to be considered whilst investigating journal papers to gain an understanding of where bias may occur. Using a wide range of sources gives a broader idea of what has been proven to work in social work practice (Roberts and Yeager, 2006). Research evidence is more valued than other sources, those papers that are repeatable and use a large amount of participants are more likely to have less prejudice in concluding how useful child death inquiries are as a vehicle for p olicy development. Higgs and Jones (2000) propose that evidence is knowledge derived from various sources, which has been tested and found credible.Having read all the information the weight of evidence suggests that changes need to be made to the approach of child death inquiries. The limitations and implications to practice are too substantial to ignore. Professionals and public havent seen any major changes because of the recommendations give by the inquiries. Corby et al (1998) found that of seventy public inquiries between 1945 and 1997 the main focus of recommendations was on improvements on inter agency co-ordination and improving the training of staff. The gap between the time of the death of the child and receiving the results of the inquiry is detrimental to social workers. Corby et al (1998) also argue that the cost of inquiries and the negative impact on social workers affecting their future practice may create more risk to other children they are safeguarding because th ey dont have the confidence to practice anymore. The most effective approach to take would be one that focuses with less scrutiny on the social workers so their confidence is not affected and acts upon the recommendations it has made. Policy can develop by using a different vehicle instead of child death inquiries. At the minute the impact of changing child welfare policy on social workers and organisational structure is considerable. An improved approach to child death inquiries can be more effective in changing policy than the constant changes that are currently happening because of the results from child death inquiries.