Performing child protection: Social worker's experiences of home visiting and relating to children and parents in the home

这项研究的目的是通过关注实践者从事社会工作和儿童保护的经验以及他们如何在家中保护儿童来加深对社会工作和儿童保护的理解。关注家庭(访问)的最重要原因是，这是迄今为止最常见的儿童和家庭被看到的地方，也是实际儿童保护工作继续进行的地方。令人惊讶的是，人们对社会工作者在家访中的一般行为知之甚少，他们是否在家里四处走动进行检查，他们是否或如何与儿童互动，采访、触摸或检查他们，或者他们如何在家中与父母进行面谈。然而，从对儿童死亡或没有受到保护免受严重伤害的案件的审查中，我们知道的是，社会工作者在与儿童在同一个房间进行家访时，没有直接与儿童接触，这是为什么他们的虐待行为没有被发现的关键。人们对这种不接触儿童的原因知之甚少。住在家里虐待儿童的男子也没有被发现，部分原因是母亲们设法隐藏了这些男子，社会工作者也没有环顾家里，确定谁和孩子住在一起。即使撇开这些悲惨的案例不谈，人们对社会工作者和服务使用者在日常实践中实际上是如何沟通的也知之甚少。对儿童保护做法的研究主要集中在办公室里发生的事情和专业人员如何谈论他们的案件，以及官僚作风和业绩管理的影响。最近的一些创新研究研究了社会工作者对案例插曲的反应，以及真实的社会工作者如何在模拟采访中与演员扮演的服务使用者进行沟通。没有研究对社会工作者在家访中与孩子和父母面对面的实际做法给予系统的关注。2010年发布的政府指导意见要求社会工作者自行查看已知的高危儿童。然而，关于观察儿童的实践规范是什么，几乎没有经验证据，文献中也几乎没有关于在哪里发生这种与儿童接触的最安全、最可靠的地方。这项研究的目的是提供有关社会工作者如何进行家访以及与家庭领域的父母和儿童接触的原始数据。对社会工作者进行家访的参与者观察、在家庭中对社会工作者服务使用者进行访谈的录音(在获得知情同意的情况下)以及在走访后对社会工作者进行的关于这些经历的访谈将为对现行做法方法进行批判性分析提供基础。这项研究将为理论和实践提供重要的知识。从理论上讲，家访体验将根据工人的生活经历以及影响他们是否走向孩子并在家里直接与他们接触的因素而被概念化。这将使我在最近的一些出版物中发展的关于执行儿童保护的理论工作和家访经验得到检验和提炼，以产生独到的理论见解和对实践的理解。将通过制作家访和保护儿童最佳做法范本，对教育和实践作出重大贡献。这将为社会工作者和其他专业人员提供指导，指导他们如何谈判进入家庭的有效战略，如何以及在哪里进行评估，确保儿童经常被看到并直接参与，如何应对父母的抵制，并进行干预，为儿童及其照顾者带来积极的变化。

The aim of this study is to deepen understandings of social work and child protection through focusing on practitioner's experiences of doing the work and how they go about protecting children in their homes. The most important reason to focus on the home (visit) is that it is by far the most common place where children and families are seen and actual child protection work goes on. Surprisingly little is known about how social workers generally behave on home visits, whether they move around the house to inspect it, whether or how they interact with children, interview, touch or examine them; or how they conduct interviews with parents in their homes. What is known however, from reviews into cases where children have died or not been protected from serious harm, including high profile cases like that of 'Baby Peter', Victoria Climbie, Jasmine Beckford, Maria Colwell, is that social workers did not directly engage with children while in the same room as them on home visits and this was crucial to why their abuse was not discovered. The reasons for this non-engagement with children are poorly understood. Men who were resident in the home and abusing the children have also gone undiscovered, in part because mothers managed to conceal the men and social workers did not look around the home to establish who resided with the children. Even leaving aside these tragic cases, little is known about how social workers and service users actually communicate with one another in day to day practice. Research into child protection practice has been predominantly focused on what goes on in the office and how professionals talk about their cases, and on the impact of bureaucracy and performance management. Some recent innovative studies have researched social workers' responses to case vignettes and also how real social workers communicate in simulated interviews with service users played by actors. No research studies have given systematic attention to studying actual practice when social workers are face-to-face with children and parents on home visits. Government guidance issued in 2010 requires social workers to see known at risk children on their own. Yet little or no empirical evidence exists on what are the norms of practice in seeing children and there is little in the literature about where is the safest most reliable place for such contact with children to happen. The aim of this research is to produce original data on how social workers go about home visiting and engaging with parents and children in the domestic sphere. Participant observation of social workers doing home visits, audio-recordings of the social worker-service user interviews in the home (where informed consent has been given) and interviews with the social worker after the visits about those experiences will provide the basis for a critical analysis of current methods of practice. The study will produce vital knowledge for theory and practice. Theoretically, the experience of home visiting will be conceptualised in terms of workers' lived experiences and what influences whether or not they move towards children and engage directly with them in the home. This will enable the theoretical work on performing child protection and the experience of home visiting that I have developed in a number of recent publications to be tested out and refined to produce original theoretical insights and understandings of practice. A major contribution to education and practice will be made through the production of a model for best practice in home visiting and safeguarding children. This will provide guidance to social workers and other professionals on effective strategies for negotiating one's way into a home, how and where to conduct assessments, ensure the child is regualrly seen and directly engaged with, how to work with parental resistance, and intervene to effect positive change for children and their carers.