The report found wealthy households were effectively “opting out” of the child protection system.
Social workers had uncovered cases of sexual exploitation and emotional abuse, but found children’s services were biased towards poorer families.
All respondents found richer families had a “sense of privilege”, subjecting social workers to a level of scrutiny that poorer families did not.
Some participants commented that wealthy parents would only deal with managers, or would belittle social workers with threats of complaints.
The City of London Corporation, which commissioned the report, announced it was adopting the findings into its Service Improvement Plan.
Key Findings:
- The vast majority of the cases described by the participants concerned emotional neglect, although other forms of maltreatment, such as sexual abuse, child sexual exploitation and emotional abuse, were also identified.
- Commonly encountered cases involved struggling teenagers in private fee-paying and boarding schools, who were often isolated from their parents physically and emotionally, and had complex safeguarding needs.
- Participants consistently cited that highly resistant parents were more likely to use legal advocates or the complaints procedures to challenge social workers.
- Considerable experience, practice wisdom and knowledge of neglect were ssential in relation to working with highly resistant parents who had the resources to challenge social workers’ decision-making.
- The findings revealed that thresholds for neglect are not always understood, which posed challenges for effectively safeguarding children at risk of significant harm in privileged families.
- The vast majority of the cases described by the participants concerned emotional neglect, although other forms of maltreatment, such as sexual abuse, child sexual exploitation and emotional abuse, were also identified.
- Commonly encountered cases involved struggling teenagers in private fee-paying and boarding schools, who were often isolated from their parents physically and emotionally, and had complex safeguarding needs.
- Participants gave many examples to show how parents had the financial resources to access psychological support through private care providers to address their children’s emotional and behavioural problems. Some practitioners viewed this as a positive outcome for the child, but some saw this as a way for the parents to opt out of the statutory child protection system, and to thus slip under the radar of children’s services.
- All of the participants described difficulties in maintaining focus on the child because of the way that parents used their status and social capital to resist child protection intervention. Many also displayed a sense of entitlement to do as they pleased and an attitude that ‘they know best’.
- Participants consistently cited that highly resistant parents were more likely to use legal advocates or the complaints procedures to challenge social workers.
- All of the participants also experienced the challenges of inter-agency working with private fee-paying and boarding schools when child protection concerns were raised.
- Considerable experience, practice wisdom and knowledge of neglect were essential in relation to working with highly resistant parents who had the resources to challenge social workers’ decision-making.
- Skills, knowledge and competence: all of the participants highlighted the important role that supportive managers and good supervision played in helping them to effectively intervene in affluent families.
- Key to their ability to work in this complex field, participants cite the organisational culture of support, purposeful informal conversations about the case with colleagues, good supervision, knowledge, confidence, responsive managers, and themed learning activities.
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