Child Safety Week is the Child Accident Prevention Trust’s annual community education campaign. They help families build confidence and skills in managing the real risks to children’s safety and want all children to have the freedom to grow and learn, safe from serious harm.
The risks of rehabilitation
Advanced CCA work with the most vulnerable families in society, where children have often been harmed emotionally, or physically or are at risk of serious harm. When children are removed from their parent’s care, Local Authority’s and the Courts have a duty to do everything possible to reunify the child to their parents.
Assessments, monitoring, teaching, therapeutic input and the parents’ engagement with professionals all contribute to a plan for rehabilitation when it is considered that parents have made meaningful changes in their lives and can now safely care for their child. This decision, however, is never an easy one, nor is it risk free, as we have been reminded of very recently, with the death of little Finley Bowden, who died as a result of horrific injuries inflicted by his parents. Finley had been rehabilitated to his parents’ care. Finley was only 10 months old and has only been back with his parents for 39 days at the time of his death. Cases like these are a stark reminder of the very difficult decision-making process.
Risk Assessment
When children are removed from their parents, it can often be a powerful catalyst for change. Parents will work hard to address professional concerns and we see improvements in home conditions, abstinence from drugs and alcohol, the ending of unsafe relationships, parents accessing parenting courses and intensive therapy, all to demonstrate how committed they are to their children. Whilst these are all indicators of progress, that can be factored into a plan to return a child to their parents, it is important to recognise that these changes have been made whilst the parents have not had children to care for. There are very few parents who would deliberately harm their children however, issues such as mental health, domestic abuse, drug and alcohol misuse impact parenting practices considerably. Neglectful and abusive parenting can be attributed to stress and maladaptive coping mechanisms.
Any parent would attest to the fact that parenting is one of the most stressful occupations for an adult and removing children could offer an artificial measure of resilience for future parenting. Risk Assessments can only measure the progress that a parent makes and improvements observed during contact with the child, without observing the parents caring for the child full-time, a recommendation to rehabilitate the child could never be risk free and a degree of caution and professional oversight should always be an equal consideration. It would seem that for Finley, there were disagreements between professionals about the level of oversight needed. The balance between safeguarding and unnecessary intrusion into family life is again, difficult to measure in such cases.
24/7 In the Home Programme
Advanced CCA’s 24/7 In the Home Programme recognises the fact that parents who have previously struggled to care for their children and manage their own needs will be tested when their children are returned to their care. The initial elation from achieving a goal can soon give way to previous patterns of behaviours, when the stresses of parenting trigger the parents own emotional responses. The children themselves can present challenges for their parents as their internal survival tactics lead them to reject the new and improved style of parenting. All of this means that those previous risks, considered manageable, will be ever present.
Our experienced team of Parenting Practitioners understand that safeguarding the child is their first priority. They receive extensive training to prepare them specifically for this role. They will oversee all of the parents care of the child, offering prompts, support and guidance, so that learning can be reinforced and embedded. For cases with babies, we recommend a monitor, placed over the baby’s cot, so that when the baby wakes for a feed in the night, parents will transport the child to a room where the practitioner can support and monitor all care provided. The level of supervision is reviewed regularly and only reduced when evidence indicates that it is safe to do so.
We offer additional safeguards for children by signposting families to local resources. This serves two purposes, firstly, so that parents can continue to have support and secondly, so that there is increased professional oversight when supervision reduces.
The 24/7 In the Home Programme has a very high success rate and when that measures safeguarding of children, that rate is 100%. We believe it offers effective safeguards for children and a comprehensive and evidence-based understanding of whether a plan for rehabilitation is appropriate and safe.
To find out more about our 24/7 In The Home Programme click here, or get in touch with our team by clicking here.
