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Research exploring inequalities in UK child welfare interventions has produced counter-intuitive findings with respect to Northern Ireland (NI). Despite experiencing the highest levels of deprivation, NI also displays the lowest rates of children in care of all the UK nations. With reference to wider evidence in the field of child welfare inequalities, this article details the findings of two exploratory mixed methods case studies, located within NI Health and Social Care Trusts. Drawing on the narratives offered by child and family social workers, a series of possible explanations for NI's significantly lower out of home care rates are considered. We suggest the operation of intersecting factors at multiple levels, including social work systems and practices, early help systems and structures, communities and families. These findings extend understandings of NI's out of home care rates whilst raising broader questions for social work research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Delineation of the full integration of quantitative and qualitative methods throughout all stages of multisite mixed methods case study projects remains a gap in the methodological literature. This article offers advances to the field of mixed methods by detailing the application and integration of mixed methods throughout all stages of one such project; a study of child welfare inequalities. By offering a critical discussion of site selection and the management of confirmatory, expansionary and discordant data, this article contributes to the limited body of mixed methods exemplars specific to this field. We propose that our mixed methods approach provided distinctive insights into a complex social problem, offering expanded understandings of the relationship between poverty, child abuse, and neglect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on UK data from an international, comparative project involving eight countries. The study examined how social workers' conceptions and definitions of family impact on the way they engage with complex families, and how social policies that frame social work context impact on the way social workers engage with families. Focus groups were held in which social workers from four service areas (child welfare, addictions, mental health and migration) were asked to discuss a case vignette. Several factors were embedded in the vignette to represent a realistic situation a social worker may come across in their day-to-day work. Social workers clearly identified the complexity of the family's situation in terms of the range of issues identified and candidate 'causes'. However, typical first responses were institutional, looking for triggers that would signify certainty about their, or other agencies' involvement. This resulted in a complicated story, through which the family was disaggregated into individual problem-service categories. This paper argues that understanding these processes and their consequences is critical for exploring the ways in which we might develop alternative, supportive professional responses with families with complex needs. It also demonstrates how organisational systems manifest themselves in everyday reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The relationship between children's material circumstances and child abuse and neglect raises a series of questions for policy, practice, and practitioners. Children and families in poverty are significantly more likely to be the subject of state intervention. This article, based on a unique mixed‐methods study of social work interventions and the influence of poverty, highlights a narrative from practitioners that argues that, as many poor families do not harm their children, it is stigmatizing to discuss a link between poverty and child abuse and neglect. The data reveal that poverty has become invisible in practice, in part justified by avoiding stigma but also because of a lack of up‐to‐date research knowledge and investment by some social workers in an “underclass” discourse. We argue, in light of the evidence that poverty is a contributory factor in the risk of harm, that it is vital that social work engages with the evidence and in critical reflection about intervening in the context of poverty. We identify the need for fresh approaches to the harms children and families face in order to support practices that engage confidently with the consequences of poverty and deprivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2010, the United Kingdom has witnessed a number of initiatives that shift away from reliance on performance management to improve social work with children and families, towards a renewed interest in practice models. This study reports on the evaluation of a local government programme in England to introduce and embed systemic family practice through the roll out of intensive training to social workers and frontline managers. It was anticipated through the programme that child protection social workers would undertake more direct work with families and build more positive relationships, resulting in a fall in the number of child protection plans and children experiencing repeat periods of care. The evaluation adopted a mixed-method approach encompassing an online survey of social workers, interviews with team managers and family members, a case audit and statistical analysis of local level metrics. It found limited employment of systemic family practice or improvement due to the programme. Adopting the 7 S framework, this study examines the barriers to and facilitators of successful change and identifies generic considerations for change programmes in child protection social work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The role that area deprivation, family poverty, and austerity policies play in the demand for and supply of children's services has been a contested issue in England in recent years. These relationships have begun to be explored through the concept of inequalities in child welfare, in parallel to the established fields of inequalities in education and health. This article focuses on the relationship between economic inequality and out‐of‐home care and child protection interventions. The work scales up a pilot study in the West Midlands to an all‐England sample, representative of English regions and different levels of deprivation at a local authority (LA) level. The analysis evidences a strong relationship between deprivation and intervention rates and large inequalities between ethnic categories. There is further evidence of the inverse intervention law (Bywaters et al., 2015): For any given level of neighbourhood deprivation, higher rates of child welfare interventions are found in LAs that are less deprived overall. These patterns are taking place in the context of cuts in spending on English children's services between 2010–2011 and 2014–2015 that have been greatest in more deprived LAs. Implications for policy and practice to reduce such inequalities are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Practice theories to support child protection social work in the United Kingdom, as in the United States and Australia, are being squeezed out by a focus on performance targets and procedural timescales. This study examines an innovative programme designed to reverse this trend initiated by an English local government authority. The programme aimed to embed systemic family practice in situations where children are deemed to be at risk of harm. The findings, derived from an analysis of a case file sample, indicate that the social worker interaction with family members is predicated on who is living with the child in conjunction with the risk status of the case file. Conversely, practitioner interactions with family members are divorced from family structure and the lived experiences of kin relationships. This study concludes by examining why, despite training in systemic family practice, it was problematic for social workers to integrate it into their encounters with families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to argue for the need to move away from a sole focus on assessing and dealing with individualised risk factors in order to more fully engage with and understand the social determinants of many of the harms that are manifest in families.Design/methodology/approach It draws from a number of research studies being conducted by the authors and a literature on psycho-social approaches to social suffering.Findings It highlights the evidence on the contribution of poverty and inequality to many of the problems encountered within families. It explores how hurt, shame and loss are experienced by those who are marginalised and struggling to live well and care safely for themselves and others.Practical implications It highlights the practice implications of adopting an approach that engages with both the social and the psychological and understands their inter-relationship. It offers some thoughts on how the social in psycho-social might receive the attention it deserves, a situation which does not pertain currently.Originality/value It offers an original contribution to thinking in the area of child protection where the focus is primarily on individualised risk factors. It highlights the importance of understanding the social determinants of many of the harms experienced in families and offers some pointers towards thinking and practising differently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on a British Academy (BA) funded study exploring social workers' conceptions of family using a vignette and focus groups. The policy context is discussed and the data from the BA study are then compared and contrasted with families' accounts of their own situations using the data from a separate qualitative study about child protection social work. The paper discusses the themes emerging and argues for a renewed focus on theorizing family in children's social work and the implications for practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the experiences of families and professionals in case reviews where a child has died/suffered serious injury as a result or abuse or neglect. There is an expectation in the four UK nations that families will be included in such case reviews. The article draws on a study of policies and practices, and family accounts of involvement. An overview of UK policies and practices is described, and the broader questions that emerge for participatory practices identified. Family experiences in this complex area of practice are considered, and recommendations made for practice. The uneven picture of family involvement is argued to reflect uncertainty about the purpose, value and role of family involvement. Concerns are raised about the unresolved dilemmas arising from family involvement and the potential for practice to be unhelpful if not carefully examined. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Key Practitioner Messages: Family involvement in reviews is an expectation across the UK nations, but with limited practice guidance., Family perspectives add invaluable insights and support learning for future protective services., Professionals have common drivers for family involvement in reviews, but few policies articulate the purpose of participation., Family involvement raises difficult questions for participatory practices., Without further clarity and adoption of principles for practice, dilemmas will remain whatever review models are adopted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades, engaging families in decision-making has grown in popularity across child welfare systems internationally. The family group conference in particular has generated interest as a practice model that facilitates broader family engagement in care and protection. As the practice has flourished, research has been undertaken to strengthen the knowledge base and to support the introduction of family engagement strategies across jurisdictions. This paper examines the recent research relating to family engagement strategies in child welfare and explores the ways in which family involvement in decision-making can be incorporated into emerging protective practices. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with exploring the research and policy base that underpinned the development of the Children's Fund Prevention Programme. It discusses how the initiative developed, how it is being evaluated and how it is now contributing to the new policy agenda around prevention services. Early findings are discussed highlighting some of the challenges local projects have to manage around partnership working, participation of children and young people in the programme, and the embedding of prevention strategies in local practice. Finally the conclusion sets the Children's Fund in forthcoming central government policy activity and examines how the evaluation can best inform the development of collaborative preventative services to children and their families. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Most minority ethnic groups in England and USA experience socio-economic (SEC) disadvantage. • Controlling for SEC, wide disparities in child protection rates found between ethnic categories. • Indian rates lower than Pakistani, Bangladeshi, White British. • Black African rates lower than Black Caribbean. • More research is needed to build understanding and underpin policy and practice attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attempts to record, understand and respond to variations in child welfare and protection reporting, service patterns and outcomes are international, numerous and longstanding. Reframing such variations as an issue of inequity between children and between families opens the way to a new approach to explaining the profound difference in intervention rates between and within countries and administrative districts. Recent accounts of variation have frequently been based on the idea that there is a binary division between bias and risk (or need). Here we propose seeing supply (bias) and demand (risk) factors as two aspects of a single system, both framed, in part, by social structures. A recent finding from a study of intervention rates in England, the ‘inverse intervention law’, is used to illustrate the complex ways in which a range of factors interact to produce intervention rates. In turn, this analysis raises profound moral, policy, practice and research questions about current child welfare and child protection services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Multilevel models were used to reanalyse child welfare inequalities data. • Robust quantitative evidence for the 'inverse intervention law' and social gradient. • Evidence of an 'income inequalities intervention law' mirrors international research. • Average 55-75 per cent increases in CWI for one SD increases in deprivation. • Less equal/deprived LAs social gradients 5x stronger than more equal/deprived LAs. This article addresses some potential limitations of key findings from recent research into inequalities in children's social services by providing additional evidence from multilevel models that suggest the socioeconomic social gradient and 'Inverse Intervention Law' in children's services interventions are statistically significant after controlling for possible confounding spatial and population effects. Multilevel negative binomial regression models are presented using English child welfare data to predict the following intervention rates at lower super output area-level: Child in Need (n = 2707, middle super output area [MSOA] n = 543, local authority [LA] n = 13); Child Protection Plan (n = 4115, MSOA n = 837, LA n = 18); and Children Looked After (n = 4115, MSOA n = 837, LA n = 18). We find strong evidence supporting the existence of a steep socioeconomic social gradient in child welfare interventions. Furthermore, we find certain local authority contexts exacerbate this social gradient. Contexts of low overall deprivation and high income inequality are associated with greater socioeconomic inequalities in neighbourhood intervention rates. The relationship between neighbourhood deprivation and children looked after rates is almost five times stronger in local authorities with these characteristics than it is in local authorities with high overall deprivation and low income inequality. We argue that social policy responses addressing structural determinants of child welfare inequalities are needed, and that strategies to reduce the numbers of children taken into care must address underlying poverty and income inequality at both a local and national level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]