Book review
Title: Proactive Child Protection and Social Work
Authors: Liz Davies and Nora Duckett
Year: 2008
Edition: 1
Number of pages: 208
Publisher: Learning Matters
ISBN: 9781844451319
Price: £17.00
Reviewer: Dionne Howells, Children's Services Practitioner, NSPCC
Review date: 13/02/2009
Table of contents and more information
Proactive Child Protection in Social Work is a very useful book for social work students and qualified social workers alike. The book is structured in such a way that the reader can read it from cover to cover but can also dip in and out of the relevant chapters as and when needed. At the beginning of each chapter, there is a list depicting the ways in which that chapter will help to meet the National Occupational Standards requirements for achieving a social work degree. The Introduction covers legal safeguards and protective processes. This chapter includes a very useful flowchart, enabling the reader to follow through the child protection processes, from referral, to Section 47 investigation (CA1989), strategy discussion, strategy meeting, child protection conference and action taken to protect the young person. Also included within this chapter is a helpful layout of the legal safeguards available and where they come from, along with a useful set of questions which need careful consideration before and during any intervention.
Chapter 1 covers emotional abuse. It starts off by looking at how to protect children from emotional abuse and how to identify that this type of abuse is occurring. It is understood that emotional abuse is a difficult category to understand. This chapter is helpful in that it helps the reader to consider and differentiate between the different types of emotional abuse which a young person can experience, for example: grooming, bullying, witnessing domestic violence, as well as many other instances. It also lays out some behavioural and psychological indicators that a young person may be subject to emotional abuse.
Chapter 2 covers sexual abuse. The chapter begins with a recount of a child’s experience of being subject to sexual abuse and leads the reader to begin to understand what the child survivor of this type of abuse must be feeling inside. Included within the chapter are definitions of sexual abuse including non-contact activities such as viewing sexually explicit materials online as well as encouraging children to behave in sexually inappropriate ways. Sexual exploitation is also discussed in this chapter and, although not a new phenomena itself, it has often not been included in some of the (recent) textbooks on child protection. However, I feel that it uses the term “child prostitution” at one point when referring to child sexual exploitation and given that the Sexual Offences Act 2003 makes the legal age of consent 16 years of age, I feel that this is a misleading reference.
Chapter 3 is on neglect and Chapter 4 is on physical abuse. Both chapters begin with definitions of the specific type of abuse and make it easier to understand how these types of abuse can occur. Included in the chapters are flow charts which enable the student and/or practitioner to follow through the procedures for considering the wider impact of abuse on the young person involved and the protective actions and procedures required to ensure their safety.
In conclusion, I feel that Proactive Child Protection and Social Work should be required reading for students and experienced practitioners alike. Each chapter includes very helpful case studies which challenge the reader to consider all aspects of the given case and to think about which procedures should be followed. Given today’s climate of mistrust in social services, I feel that all practitioners would be better off “brushing up” on their child protection knowledge and this book is a great place to start.
