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

本研究的目的是透过社会工作者的工作经验，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，到目前为止，这是儿童和家庭最常见的地方，实际的儿童保护工作正在进行。令人惊讶的是，很少有人知道社会工作者在家访中的一般行为，他们是否在房子周围走动检查，他们是否或如何与孩子互动，采访，触摸或检查他们；或者他们如何在父母家中进行采访。然而，我们所知道的是，从对儿童死亡或没有受到严重伤害的案件的审查中，包括像“婴儿彼得”、维多利亚·克里比、贾斯敏·贝克福德、玛丽亚·科尔韦尔等引人注目的案件中，社会工作者在与儿童在同一房间进行家访时没有直接与儿童接触，这是为什么虐待没有被发现的关键。人们对这种不与儿童接触的原因知之甚少。住在家里虐待孩子的男人也没有被发现，部分原因是母亲设法隐瞒了这些男人，而社会工作者没有在家里四处搜查，以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如何相互沟通也知之甚少。对儿童保护实践的研究主要集中在办公室里发生的事情，专业人士如何谈论他们的案例，以及官僚主义和绩效管理的影响。最近的一些创新研究研究了社会工作者对案例的反应，以及真实的社会工作者如何在模拟访谈中与演员扮演的服务用户进行沟通。没有研究系统地关注社会工作者在家访中与儿童和父母面对面的实际做法。政府在2010年发布的指导意见要求社会工作者单独探视已知的有风险的儿童。然而，很少或根本没有经验证据表明，看孩子的做法规范是什么，文献中也很少有关于哪里是最安全、最可靠的与孩子接触的地方。本研究的目的是产生关于社会工作者如何在家庭领域进行家访和与父母和儿童接触的原始数据。参与者对社会工作者家访的观察，对社会工作者-服务用户在家中访谈的录音（在获得知情同意的情况下），以及在访问后对社会工作者关于这些经历的访谈，将为当前实践方法的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，家访的经验将被概念化，根据工人的生活经历，以及影响他们是否走向儿童并在家中直接与他们接触的因素。这将使我在最近的一些出版物中发展起来的关于执行儿童保护的理论工作和家访经验得到检验和完善，以产生对实践的原始理论见解和理解。通过制定家访和保护儿童的最佳做法模式，将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有效的策略指导，以协商进入家庭的方式，如何以及在何处进行评估，确保儿童定期被看到并直接参与，如何应对父母的抵制，以及如何干预以对儿童及其照顾者产生积极的变化。

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.