Panel reiterates concerns over quality of child protection decision making in annual review of serious cases that will shape children's social care review.

Councils and other safeguarding agencies should prioritise tackling “weak” risk assessment and decision making in child protection, a panel of advisers has said.

The recommendation was made last week by the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, as its annual report flagged concerns about the quality of decision making for a second consecutive year.

Tasked with analysing serious cases, assessed 482 serious safeguarding incidents notified by local partnerships in 2020, including 206 where children died. It found risk assessment and decision making was a “critical cross-cutting theme” in the cases, as well as many inquiries historically.

Influencing care review

Panel chair Annie Hudson said that, as well as commissioning a thematic review of risk assessment and decision making, it was contributing to the children’s social care review to ensure it took account of the findings. Hudson noted that the panel focused on the most serious cases of abuse and neglect, but said: “Through this specific lens, we have been able to highlight the urgent need for everyone involved in safeguarding children to address some of the stubborn challenges which have bedevilled much child protection practice”.

Risk assessment failings

The report included examples of initial risk assessments not being updated, for example, when parents formed new relationships or an adult joined the household after being released from prison. In other cases, it said, assessments did not take sufficient account of, for example, the risks associated with parental mental health or the “risk trajectory” for adolescents who had experienced trauma or neglect in early childhood.

The report called for “respectful uncertainty” during assessments and ensuring that information self-reported by parents was “triangulated” with evidence from other practitioners.

It also noted that high case numbers and limited capacity “can lead to a practice culture of working norms that are outside procedures, with reluctance to escalate concerns”.

Understanding a child’s daily life

The panel’s report identified other cross-cutting themes that those involved in safeguarding should address, including understanding what the child’s daily life was like and working with families whose “engagement is reluctant and sporadic”.

Understanding a child’s experience went beyond listening to their views, to reflecting on what they were trying to communicate through their behaviour, interactions with others and physical presentation, the report said.

“‘Reading between the lines’ of what children and families say and communicate (as well as what they do not say) involves time, imagination and the most proficient of relational skills. We all have responsibility for creating the conditions in which the talents and resources of practitioners can prioritise understanding what life is like for children,” Hudson commented in the foreword.

Unprecedented year

Panel chair Annie Hudson said that effective information sharing, risk assessment and decision making had become even more important in the past year due to coronavirus, while the pandemic had led to unprecedented levels of challenge for the safeguarding system.

“It is vital therefore that government departments work together, and with the panel and local safeguarding partners, to tackle these challenges in what is always very challenging and difficult but potentially lifesaving work.”

Read more about evidence gaps, inequality in system and other items discusted on panel on this link

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