Introduction
In 1985, as a newly qualified social worker, I was allocated work with a family with three young children under five years old who were all on the child protection âat riskâ register as a result of concerns from health visitors about the children being neglected. The family included mother, father, a baby boy aged almost one year, a toddler aged two years and a girl almost five years old. On my first home visit I was anxious that they might be angry to have a new social worker telling them that there were still ongoing concerns about the care of their children. Social Services had been involved with the family for around three years since concerns first emerged about the care of their first child. During that time they had a number of different social workers. I climbed the four flights of stairs, as I knew the lifts in that building were often foul smelling with urine and excrement, as well as sometimes having rubbish and drug paraphernaliaâincluding used syringesâin them. In addition, they fairly frequently broke down. As I climbed the stairwell I thought about how the visit might go and what kind of reception I would receive from the family. I knocked on the door of their council-owned flat and knew someone was home as I could hear a baby crying. When the father answered the door I introduced myself, asked if I could come in and explained why I was there. They were more sad than angry and I recall feeling a sense of relief, as I imagined I would be safe visiting them in their home on my own. It seems odd now, reflecting that as a newly qualified social worker I already had a feeling for the inherent and potential risk on home visits usually carried out alone. I met the children and their mother and could see that both parents had a close bond with their three children, although they seemed at a loss in terms of how to cope with the competing demands of their three children. They seemed exhausted and worn down trying to manage with their young family in a flat that was crowded and small for five of them.
Their flat had a strong smell of dirty nappies and the carpet was sticky. The air felt stale and oppressive. Glancing around, it seemed to be a chaotic and untidy house. The baby was crawling around on the floor without a nappy on; there were two cats in the room and it smelled as though they had also peed on the carpets. Being honest now, on reflection, my overwhelming sense was of wanting to leave the home and get out into the fresh air. As a newly qualified social worker still on probation (and hence a permanent contract was not yet confirmed), I was conscious of also being diligent and keen to do a good job and support them in what seemed like a desperately sad situation of social inequality and poverty. Being at the early stages of my social work career, this case was considered suitable as it was less high risk than some of the other cases I eventually moved into working on. Over those first few weeks I talked with them about how I could be supportive and ways that we could work together to improve their family situation so that ultimately the concerns about their childrenâs welfare would be lowered and their childrenâs names could be removed from the child protection register.
I worked with the family for almost two years and in that time I approached various charities to assist them with material goods, such as a new washing machine and some furniture for the childrenâs bedroom, and toys and clothes for the children. Eventually the family was re-housed into a less damp property, on the grounds of the ongoing and persistent respiratory ill health of the children. The parents were poor and unskilled, and after working with them a while and going through various form-filling for benefits, I realised that they both had limited literacy and numeracy skills. As a result of this they had difficulty with the process of claiming benefits that they were entitled to. Despite the concerns about the children I developed a strong sense that they were doing the best they could in difficult circumstances, without any wider family support to look after their three children. The referrals, with concerns being expressed by health visitors and school, continued to come in, usually escalating just before school holiday times, when the children would be at home more and professional anxieties increased.
I gradually built up a relationship with the parents, to the point where they were less cautious about talking with me about their difficulties and I was able to offer some practical help to the situation they were in, which was basically one of social inequality and poverty, together with the pressure of caring for three young children on benefits. I tried to build a relationship with the children, but reflecting on it now I realise that the parentsâ needs were so overwhelming that it was easy to get sucked into working with them rather than directly with the children. I think at the time I believed that if I helped and supported them I would indirectly be supporting the children. I always tried to see the children and I knew from social work training that this was important. After a few weeks of visiting I realised that the middle child rarely demanded anything or cried. The baby cried and usually had his needs met. The older daughter was shy and quiet but would ask if she needed something and would gradually be engaged in play or conversation. The middle son was withdrawn and seemed to expect not to get his needs met. I made a note of this in my case notes, recording that he was usually withdrawn and subdued during my visits. I read about learned helplessness, where a child learns not to expect or demand attention from a process of continual neglect. I thought about whether this was the situation for this child, but I also pondered over whether there was some other explanation. I discussed this with the parents and they seemed undecided on whether they felt there was any problem with their son. I talked with my supervisor about my concerns about the childrenâs welfare and wellbeing, and the family situation more generally. In particular I discussed the middle child. After further discussion with the parents, health visitor and family doctor, the child was referred for further tests in terms of his development. He was eventually assessed as having a developmental delay. He was referred to a nursery and had some speech therapy input, which helped him to catch up on his language and communication skills, and gradually he began talking. The child psychologists and speech therapist assessment confirmed that he was delayed in talking and this was probably due to him receiving low levels of stimulation and attention.
Eventually, after almost two years, the concerns for the family reduced enough for a multi- professional case conference to agree to take the childrenâs names off the child protection register, although there continued to be some low level concerns about them. I had done all I could to form relationships of trust with the parents and the children, and to some extent I had managed this because they always let me into their home and usually talked frankly and openly with me about how they were coping or not, and the frustrations of their situation, family life and any difficulties, some of which I was able to offer some advice on. Gradually they agreed to let Social Services and the childrenâs centre help and advise them on various aspects of parenting and child rearing. I helped them fill out forms for additional benefits and supported the father with referrals for training and job-seeking. In addition, both parents attended some parenting classes at the local family centre and started to be able to provide their children with stimulation, reading books and playing games with them.
Much of the work I carried out with this family would not now be undertaken by a social worker but more likely would be by a family support role worker. This practice example comes from the era when social work was generic and community based. It took place within a London Borough which had a particularly strong ethos relating to inter-agency- and neighbourhood-based social work practice. I worked within a neighbourhood-based office, which included housing, environmental health and welfare benefits advisors. It was effectively a one stop shop for all local services within the estate I worked on. This co-location of services made it easy for me to liaise with the housing and estate services staff about the problems relating to the family housing conditions and the damp in their flat.
Afterwards, when I sometimes thought about their tiny overcrowded flat with damp walls, I wondered how I would cope bringing up children in that context. One thing I can still recall vividly is the smell of practice (Ferguson 2004), or more accurately in this particular case, the smell of damp, poverty and social inequality. It is something that has stayed with me ever since from those years of social work practice. It is this powerful but less theorised aspect of the way the sensory dimension of smell, fear of contamination, and emotional atmospheres of practiceâincluding shame and guiltâare present within many aspects of social welfare work with children and families. I will explore further the discomfort in acknowledging unease in home visits to sometimes smelly, dirty homes. I will return to this within the book in Chap. 4 to explore further the emotional and sensory aspects related to what I, following Ferguson (2004), will refer to as this smell of poverty and inequality.
With twenty years experience of working with children and young people in a range of settings, including play and youth work, childrenâs residential settings and social work with children and young people, I have thought deeply about the lived experiences, child protection, safeguarding, and the dilemmas faced by professionals working with children and families similar to the one above. I have also thought about the difficulty for some families who are living in intolerable and shameful conditions. Bearing witness to poverty, social inequality, neglect and abuse as a professional leaves its stain.
As an academic for the last twenty-four years I have taught students about the social policy contexts in which professional work with children and families is carried out. I have reviewed the literatures and policy frameworks that inform policy and practice in working with children and young people. As part of my research I have interviewed professionals working with children and young people in a variety of settings, including social work, childrenâs rights work, and counselling roles with children. I have also interviewed and consulted with a wide range of children and young people who are either in care or at risk of significant harm. Some of these children were disabled, or had impairments which made it difficult for them to gain independence. Some of the children had experiences beyond their young years of fleeing violence and war in their home countries and being displaced into a country where they had to learn the language and find new friends and family. Their stories have inspired the passion and commitment to continue to work and think about this important area of social and welfare work with children and young people. This book stems from reflections on those diverse and wide-ranging experiences, and reflects upon possible new directions for childrenâs welfare for professionals, policy and practice.
Reflective Writing and Practice
As a researcher, academic and former practitioner, I am conscious that my reflections are partial, subjective and incomplete. They are situated within my own personal experiences, as well as being affected by my own upbringing and background within a loving Northern working class and often (particularly in the early years) poor family. I remember being poor as a child and the stigma attached to relying on charitable assistance, including clothes and shoes, from a church-based organisation which offered parcels for poor families. This experiential and situated knowledge helps me to untangle the complex relationship between poverty, social inequality and child neglect, and the importance of not making essentialist assumptions that one necessarily leads to the other. As a result of my own experiences growing up, as well as my social work training and practice and work with children in a variety of settings, I am determined to avoid pathologising the poor. By this I mean blaming the poor and making assumptions that all poor people will have difficulty raising their children. I am clear that this is not the case and I know that many children raised within poor families are loved, cherished and nurtured. Often this love and care is provided within an environment that most families would find difficult, including living in poor quality housing stock, having to rely on benefits or earning the minimum wage in unstable employment. Conversely, I have also worked professionally with families from wealthier, materially comfortable backgrounds, who have suffered from abuse of various kinds, so I know implicitly that child abuse is a cross-cutting wider endemic issue within all societies, cultures, social classes and diverse family formations. Given that the focus of so much social work is with poor families, this context is important to remember as we reflect deeply on social work theory, policy, and practice.
I wish to acknowledge, situate and manage my own emotionality as the practitioner, academic and researcher. Gunaratnam and Lewis (2001) discuss how, during their research into âraceâ and social work, they similarly had to ma...