22 research outputs found
Social Worker and Midwife Decision Making Regarding Child Protection Risk and the Unborn Baby: A Qualitative Study
Judgements of health and social care professionals on a child protection referral of an unborn baby: factorial survey
Sensitivity and specificity of electronic databases: The example of searching for evidence on child protection issues related to pregnant women
‘The lion's den’: Social workers' understandings of risk to infants
Recent research has highlighted the increasing trends in newborn and very young children entering child welfare processes and care proceedings in a number of countries. Furthermore, differential responses to risk within young families across different geographical locations and communities in the same child protection system have been found. Safe care arrangements for newborn babies may include placement with kinship carers, or with foster carers not previously known to the family. The distinctive needs of the increasing population of infants in the care system are only beginning to be fully recognised. The short and long term impact of contested infant removals on birth mothers has been powerfully highlighted, although the impact on fathers remains under-reported. There has been limited research evidence available on how decisions about the care arrangements for newborn babies are reached. In this paper, the author draws on data from an ethnographic study of pre-birth child protection in order to explore how social workers understand and frame risk to infants when assessing families during pregnancy. Data from interviews with practitioners reveal the extent to which their conceptualisations of and anxiety about risks to unborn babies, shape plans for the future care of infants