Child Abuse: Social Work Perspective

REFLECTIVE ESSAY

Introduction

This is a reflection of a research carried out by a group within the class on 'investigating information sharing between professionals and how it impacts child abuse: social work perspective '. This theme was the basis for the research and published research articles were used to analyse the research question. The reporting of child abuse is a complex issue that generates lots of controversies but recently, social policy has been focused on improving the way child abuse is reported. The Nursing Standard (2013) reports on how child abuse and the risk of it should be reported by professionals that deal with children. These professionals include health practitioners, social workers and teachers. Child abuse,
either at the hands of parents or care givers has a long history and despite the joint protective services being provided by inter-agency professionals, it continues to be a pandemic issue in the society.

The World Health Organisation (2014) generally defines child abuse (child maltreatment) as constituting of all forms of physical and/or emotional ill-treatment, sexual abuse, neglect, and exploitation that results in actual or potential harm to the child 's health, development or dignity.
Despite increased legislation and penalties for child abuse, extreme cases continue to appear and to sustain the debates over child maltreatment cases. Although there is compelling evidence on inter-agency working with the aim of addressing child abuse cases, including research initiatives commissioned as part of response to neglect cases, however child abuse cases continue to be an issue. Although there appears to be a universal and targeted service to help prevent child abuse, incidents of missed opportunities by agencies in safeguarding children from maltreatment continue to be recorded (Farmer and Lutman, 2009). It is against this background that this research reflective essay would be exploring information sharing by professionals to protect children from all forms of abuse.

For the research carried out by the group, five articles were utilised based on validity and relevance. So the main aim of this reflective essay is to establish through critical review, the relevance of the five publications used for the group work to the research question as well as social policy in general. The objectives of this reflective essay base on the guidelines therefore will be:

The formulation of the research question by the group.
A consideration of the methodological approach used to collate the articles.
A critical review of the five articles by consideration of research methods.
Explore strengths and weaknesses of research methods.
Explore alternative approaches to the research methods adopted by the articles.
Link the issues in the articles to the wider context of social policy and work.
Consideration for the extent to which the research carried out in the articles have enhanced knowledge and understanding of the research subject.
Explore the extent to which the research has answered the research question.
Analysis of the research question in the wider social and political context.
Implication of research on my social work practice based on the findings.

Methodology Analysis

This section will explore the formulation of the research question by the group and consider the methodological approach used to collate the articles.
The research question was derived through discussions made by members of the group. As students of social work and policy, the title appealed to us because of the recent history relating to the research question. Getting the title was not straight forward as different suggestions were made by members of the group. The other areas for research consideration were, 'looked after children ' and 'social policy and housing '. The research topic we eventually chose was appealing to most of us as it is a contemporary issue in social work and policy. Furthermore, the issues surrounding child abuse have been covered in a module and the members of the group saw this as an area that will enable maximum contribution from every
member.

Also formulating the research question was done from a problematisation perspective.
Problematisation is defined by Alvesson and Sandberg (2011) as generating research questions by identifying and challenging the assumptions underlying existing theories. In this case, it is not just child abuse that is being investigated but the way it is reported through information sharing amongst professional from a social work perspective. The existing theories on information sharing with regards to child abuse are definitely not water-tight for two main cases leading to death to occur in the same London Borough of Haringey within a decade. So problematisation constructs research questions from existing literature and for the group, even though we knew the direction we had to go with the research question, we had to check with publications made in this area of study before fine tuning the research question. Using EBSCO Host, the group checked for relevance, availability of research publication and applicability to the wider issues of social work and policy. The research question emerged from this process and since communication remains a vital tool in social work and given that the profession involves provision of holistic service by different agencies working together, the group agreed to investigate information sharing between professionals and how this impacts on child
abuse.

After the research question was chosen, the next thing we did as a group was to identify how we were going to gather published research articles. There also needed to be a base-line in the search for articles as Bettany-Saltikov (2010) suggested that reviewing literature needed to be based on identifying components which will give a clear direction on where the research will explore. The base-line for this research was the Victorie Climbie case which was the most heralded case of child abuse that implicated information sharing in social work for inefficiencies. So the questions identified by the group were:

What are the reasons for continued failures in protecting children from abuse?
What are the means of communication among the different agencies working together, and are these effective enough to protect children from abuse?
What are the expectations of professionals working together, in terms of support need in order for their intervention to be more effective?

To select the articles that will effectively address the research question, the group made use of a exclusion and inclusion criteria. Aveyard (2010) encourage the use of these criteria for researchers that want to identify suitable and relevant literature that address the research question. This aids the reduction of ambiguity and creates symmetry in the literature review.

The inclusion criteria the group set for our literature search were:

Published literature in peer-reviewed journal.
Published in the UK and for the UK.
Publications from 2005 to date.
Research that have used qualitative or quantitative approach.
Articles that focus on child abuse and information sharing.
Articles that use the analysis of the Victoria Climbie case as a base-line.

The exclusion criteria the group set for our literature search were:

Publications made from other sources apart from peer-reviewed journals.
Literature published outside of the UK and not necessarily for the UK.
Literature published before 2005.
Literature that does not focus on child abuse and information sharing.

Using the research question to search for articles, there were hundreds of published literature. Using the exclusion criterion of peer-reviewed journals, all articles that were not peer-reviewed journals were excluded. Also the group excluded publications that were not focused on child abuse in the UK as well as information sharing. Finally the group excluded any articles published before 2005. Using all the exclusion criteria set, the articles were reduced to 12. Using the inclusion criterion of ' articles that use the analysis of the Victoria Climbie case as a base-line ', the articles were reduced to the 6. The group then decided to remove one of the articles based on the perceived relevance to the research question.

The table below is a summary of the selected articles for the group research.

Table 1: Summary of literature selected for review

TITLE
AUTHOR(S)
PUBLICATION YEAR
TYPE OF LITERATURE
RESEARCH METHOD

In summary, all the articles were qualitatively researched and this is because most of them focused on the issues surrounding the death of Victoria Climbie. Some of the publications are personal like the one carried out by Rustin (2005) which is an analysis of critical moments in Victoria Climbie 's life. This article makes use of personal pronouns in the write up and shows how much the case meant to the writer. This can be a weakness in an article as Neale et al. (2005) see some qualitative research as a subjective method of research because it can become personal. Yet it is hard to use some form of empirical data for the research subject as it involves the investigation of an action or rather lack of action. Critical Review

This section of this reflection is concerned with reviewing the five articles by considering their research methods, explore the strengths and weakness of research methods, explore alternative methodologies to the ones utilised by the publications and link the issues in the articles to the wider context of social policy and work. This section will therefore handle the four objectives per article.
Considerations

This section will explore the consideration to which the research carried out in the articles have enhanced knowledge and understanding of the research subject as well as explore the extent to which the research carried out in the articles have enhanced knowledge and understanding of the subject.

Conclusion (Implication of research on social work practice)

In the wider social and political context, some of the recommendations made in the researches have been adhered to. For instance, professionals are now statutory required to report cases of child abuse or suspicions of abuse. Also Munro 's (2005) suggestion of improving the collection of information rather than just a gathering of information for the use of a database has ensured that social and health workers are doing more information collection and review. Lazenbatt and Freeman (2006) report that primary health care professionals are recognising the need for identification and reporting of child abuse cases. This means that social work education and practice has to focus on the various ways that information is gathered. In my opinion, this is an important aspect of training I need to receive as a student as it might be the barrier to my effective performance as a social worker.

References

Alvesson, M., and Sandberg, J. (2011). Generating research questions through problematisation. Academy of Management Review. 36 (2): 247–271.

Aveyard, H. (2010). Doing a Literature Review in Health and Social Care: A practical guide. Published by Open University Press. 2nd Edition.

Batty, D. (2005). Information overload. The Guardian

Bettany-Saltikov, J. (2010). Learning how to undertake a systematic review. Part 1 Nursing Standard. 24 (51): 47 – 55.

Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology. 3 (2): 77-101.