Child sexual abuse and exploitation: knowledge, confidence and training within a contemporary UK social work practice and policy context

In 2014, research was undertaken to examine social workers’ confidence, understanding and awareness of child sexual abuse (CSA) as it was suggested that a decline in numbers of reported incidents might be due to a decline in levels of understanding and awareness. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty-five first-line, middle and senior managers and two chairs of local safeguarding boards across six local authorities in England. Focus groups were conducted with fifty-four social workers. Key themes revealed a complex array of issues, ranging from the diverse forms of CSA and exploitation that social workers are required to address, the variable support and training available, and the inter-disciplinary nature of much of the work. Although social workers undertake this important work with a strong sense of commitment and concern for children, they face a number of challenges. Paradoxically, whilst their work on these cases is the source of intense scrutiny, the training, support and supervision, and role clarity required to undertake this work well are often overlooked. The aim of this paper is to discuss the research findings and to identify implications for social work practice, training, multi-agency work and future research

The Child Welfare Inequalities Project: final report

The Child Welfare Inequalities Project (CWIP), 2014-19, aimed to establish child welfare inequalities as a core concept in policy making, practice and research in the UK and internationally. Key research tasks were to identify the scale of inequalities in social welfare intervention rates as they affect children in different places, of different ages and identities, and their families, and to begin to understand how different factors in family lives and service responses interact to produce inequalities. A longer term intention was that remedies could subsequently be developed by policy makers and service providers and their impact tested. CWIP was the main project in a programme of research conducted over the period 2013-2019. It was designed to provide the foundations for the development of an inequalities perspective on child welfare, not the last word. By developing and testing a set of concepts, theory and methods and by securing a range of evidence, we hoped to set the baseline for subsequent reflection, research and action, in the UK and internationally (Bywaters, 2015). A social welfare system reflects the society in which it operates: its assumptions, priorities and attitudes to children, parents and family life. It also reflects the role of the state: how policy is made, the values that underpin policy, the power it exercises over its citizens, how it manages and polices that power and what it counts as success. All of these themes are explicit or implicit in our work. In summary, this project reports on a system which treats its citizens – parents and children – remarkably unequally but which focuses more attention on policy aspirations and implementation processes than on either the causes of family difficulties or the consequences of state responses