CHILD PROTECTION

Child Protection

Abstract

This thesis argues for treating the task of improving the child protection services as a systems problem and for adopting the system-focused approach to investigating errors that has been developed in areas of medicine and engineering where safety is a high priority. It outlines how this approach differs from the traditional way of examining errors and how it leads to different types of solutions. Traditional inquiries tend to stop once human error has been found, whereas a systems approach treats human error as the starting point and examines the whole context in which the operator was working to see how this impacted on their ability to perform well. The study outlines some factors that seem particularly problematic and worthy of closer analysis in current child protection services. A better understanding of the factors that are adversely effecting practitioners' level of performance offers the potential for identifying more effective solutions. These typically take the form of modifying the tasks so that they make more realistic and feasible demands on human cognitive and emotional abilities. All in all, this research will find out that is the child protection arena working or not?

Table of Contents

ABSTRACT2

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION4

Purpose of the study7

Research Question7

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW8

CHAPTER 3: METHODS AND RESULTS32

CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION40

REFERENCES43

Chapter 1: Introduction

While focusing on the main area of this research that the child protection arena working or not, this thesis also explains the problems and issues behind the protection scenario. This research argues for treating the task of improving the child protection services as a systems problem and for adopting the system-focused approach to investigating errors that has been developed in areas of medicine and engineering where safety is a high priority. At first glance, the engineering problems of nuclear power plants and aviation might seem remote from concerns about children's safety and well-being, but anyone from child protective services would find their discussions and worries surprisingly familiar. They too are concerned with avoiding disasters that result in death or injury to humans. They too have experienced a series of well-publicised inquiries into their mistakes. The resemblance to child protection work continues into the findings of those inquiries: disasters are more often judged to be caused by people than being due to faulty equipment or organisational factors. Human error was identified as the culprit in 70-75% of accidents in anaesthesia (Cooper et al., 1984 and Wright et al., 1991) and in over 70% of plane crashes (Boeing Product Safety Organisation, 1993). This is remarkably similar to my own finding from studying inquiries into child abuse deaths in the UK: 75% concluded that professional errors made a significant contribution to the failure to see the risk to the child and to take steps to protect him or her (Munro, 1999).

Child protection also resembles an engineering problem because efforts to improve practice have increasingly taken the form of providing tools for front line workers. Assessment frameworks, procedure manuals, decision-making instruments are all, like power drills and computers, designed to enhance workers' performance, by augmenting ...