BJSW Advance Access originally published online on July 25, 2007
British Journal of Social Work 2008 38(7):1320-1336; doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcm052
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Complexity Theory: Developing New Understandings of Child Protection in Field Settings and in Residential Child Care
Irene Stevens worked in a variety of social work field and residential settings in the statutory and voluntary sector throughout the 1980s and 1990s. She works for the Scottish Institute for Residential Child Care (SIRCC), based in the Glasgow School of Social Work. She taught on the MA(Hons) programme with a particular focus on disadvantage, disability and residential childcare. She is currently research manager for SIRCC and co-editor of the SIRCC Journal. Her current research interests are children’s rights and the application of complexity theory to residential child care.
Pat Cox is based in the Department of Social Work at the University of Central Lancashire, UK, where she researches and teaches. Previously, she worked in child and family social work for thirteen years. Her research focuses on children, young people and their families, particularly those who are disadvantaged and excluded. She is a member of the Delphi Expert Consultation Panel for the Department of Health (UK) and Institute of Mental Health for the Victims of Violence and Abuse Prevention Programme (VVAPP) and a member of the International Expert Advisory Group for COST Action Project on young people and migration.
Correspondence to Pat Cox, Department of Social Work, Faculty of Health, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2HE, UK. E-mail: pcox2{at}uclan.ac.uk
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Abstract |
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The protection of children, whether living at home or in residential care, is a core endeavour of residential and field social work with children. Yet, despite broad support from politicians, policy makers and the majority of the public for this work, child protection practice and practitioners are frequently criticized for perceived or actual failures to protect. Successive inquiries produce reports with similar recommendations, yet children continue to be abused and harmed, sometimes fatally. Clearly, better understandings and more effective protective practices need to be developed. Current research in the area of complexity theory is encouraging the development of concepts and applications which are powerful aids to understanding the issues that child protection practitioners experience daily. Child protection is not simple because of the multiplicity of factors that result in children being at risk. Complexity theory provides a framework for understanding the processes involved but without the problems of reductionism. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to explore the potential contribution of complexity theory and concepts that have relevance to the protection of children in both field and residential child care practice. It is argued that complexity theory offers new and helpful ways to conceptualize and work with the processes which underpin keeping children safe.
Keywords: complexity theory, child protection, field and residential child care social work
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  P. Gillingham and C. Humphreys Child Protection Practitioners and Decision-Making Tools: Observations and Reflections from the Front Line Br. J. Soc. Work, December 23, 2009; (2009) bcp155v1. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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