England: A review has been published about serious incidents involving babies who have been harmed or killed by their fathers or other males in a caring role, and recommendations have been provided.
The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel is an independent body set up to identify, commission and oversee reviews of serious child safeguarding cases in England. Their most recent report, "The Myth of Invisible Men: safeguarding children under one from non-accidental injury caused by male carers”, looks at the circumstances of babies under the age of one who have been harmed or killed by their fathers or males carers.
The review was informed by: fieldwork/interviews with 8 male perpetrators, research into 23 cases, a literature review, roundtable discussions, and one-on-one meetings with key stakeholders, as well as psychologists’ reports.
Key Findings
The research identified several potential factors leading to abuse:
- Men whose own parents were abusive, neglectful or inconsistent, resulting in poor attachment and inappropriate responses to the needs of children
- Men who have histories of impulsive behaviour and low frustration thresholds
- Men who abuse substances which decrease their mental health
- Men who have low self-esteem or other issues around mental or emotional health
- Men who become parents at a young age, including care leavers
- Men who mitigate their difficulties with others through violence, control, and anger
- Men experiencing external pressures
The review also found the abuse was commonly triggered by normal infant behaviour, like crying or illness, and occurred in the context of heightened stress as a result of: relationship problems, negative cycles of drug abuse, deterioration of mental state, poor decision making, and low frustration thresholds.
A lack of information sharing prevents practitioners from seeing and responding to the needs of the abused child: lack of patient record integration across health services and lack of communication between different health service actors.
The review identified a four-tiered approach to improving the engagement and assessment of fathers:
- Understanding men’s lives and their experiences
- Engaging and assessing men and their parental strategies with the help of practitioners
- Supporting best practices through frontline staff
- Service designs needs to be improved to work with fathers
Recommendations
- Government funding for research, practice set-up
- Pilot areas identified and funded to develop holistic work
- Engagement of fathers should be integrated into current programs
- Future inspections to be carried out by Ofsted, CQC, and HMICFRS to assess the extent to which agencies are responding to the findings of the report
