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British Journal of Social Work (2004) 34, 199-224
© BASW Trading Ltd 2004 all rights reserved
Parents’ Views on Social Work Interventions in Child Welfare Cases
Trevor Spratt is a lecturer in social work at The Queen's University Belfast. He previously worked as a social worker, team leader and manager within social services departments over a ten-year period. His current research interest, examining how organizations translate policy into practice, has largely come about as a result of his own practice with children and families.
Jackie Callan is a lecturer in social work at the University of Ulster, Jordanstown. Her research interests are in refocusing children's services, evidence-based practice and working in partnership. She previously worked as a social worker, trainer and team manager within statutory family and child-care departments.
Correspondence to Trevor Spratt, Lecturer in Social Work, School of Social Work, The Queen's University Belfast, 7 Lennoxvale, Belfast BT9 5BY, Northern Ireland. E-mail: T.Spratt{at}qub.ac.uk
Summary
This article reports findings from the third part of a three-part research project examining the potential for social workers to shift from a child protection to a child welfare orientation in their practice. Whilst social workers in the UK have been encouraged to make such changes, they have been hampered by concerns to manage risk. Findings reported from the earlier parts of the project, indicated that there was potential for a substantial proportion of child protection work to be redesignated as child welfare work, but that where this was achieved in practice, there was evidence of the continued influence of child protection processes as social workers sought to manage the risks inherent in child welfare cases. The study reported here sets out to ascertain the views of parents who were subject to child welfare interventions. The findings indicate that while parents feel apprehension with regard to contact with social workers, in the majority of cases successful relationships are formed. It is argued that social workers display considerable skill in monitoring potential risks whilst engaging with families and that the subtleties involved in such activity are not captured by official measures of governance which concentrate on more abstract indicators of performance.
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