Andrew, You have been in Holland last year to do a workshop has there been developments in you work for instance how does your method respect the prescription that is so common nowadays to protocolise and to systematise the work so that quality can be tested and controlled? Or don’t they bother so much about those things in Australia?"
Yes they do. Systematic Risk assessment is a defining motif of child protection casework, since child protection workers must make assessments of risk in every case they are involved with – In fact workers constantly reassess their risk assessments during and after every contact they have with their cases. Over the past 15 - 20 years the task of developing structured and systematic approaches to assessing risk has received increasing attention in the child protection field, during that time a multitude of risk estimation tools and systems have been developed around the world. It is my contention that this attention to risk assessment has primarily focused on indicators of danger and harm and that safety – family strengths and resources, times of good enough parenting, existing and envisaged safety - have been in large measure left out of the risk assessment equation. Over the past four years I have been involved in creating two formal risk assessment protocols that are used in two Australian states that make makes child protection assessments in exactly this manner.
Danger and risk assessment is what child protection work is all about isn’t it?
It is but it is not the whole story. This primary focus on danger and harm has many consequences. For example, it is not unusual for CPS workers to say that while the risk assessment protocols they utilize assist them in arriving at judgments about the severity of past abuse and the likelihood of re-abuse, they are often left wondering "what do I do to reduce the FUTURE risk to the child?" Faced with this sort of question and risk assessment processes that are often "problem saturated", as White calls it, some statutory agencies have attempted to integrate strengths based assessments within their risk assessment procedures. This development in its turn often sees practice workers wondering how do they interpret the strengths they discover in relation to the abuse the child has suffered? In our own work we have faced these challenges and also struggled with the question how can child protection professionals know when there is enough safety to reunite the family or close the case?
It is our view that the safety side of the equation should always be actively canvassed. Where strengths, times of good enough parenting and safety at times when abuse/neglect might have occurred and parents own ideas about building safety are elicited this automatically changes the assessment of risk toward greater likelihood of safety. On the other hand where these positive aspects are actively sought and little of value is found the risk estimation worsens. In both instances the risk assessment is more comprehensive and complete.
Yes but where does listing and admiring the strengths of the parents take you if they keep hitting/abusing/neglecting their child?
As one senior CPS administrator we know commented, when he sees long lists of family strengths in his agency’s assessments, it sometimes feels to him like "we’re all in there working with the family but no one’s actually minding the shop" (i.e., focused on protecting the children). The point is not to try and argue that a balanced focus - on what is problematic and what is constructive in a family and its network and also focussing in what needs to be achieved to provide enough safety to close the case - will always result in a successful outcome. That is a huge trap. It is the trap we often fall into in child protection to think somewhere there is a magic bullet – an answer that will solve every case – there is no such easy answer. Child protection professionals work with inevitably some of the poorest most vulnerable people in our societies – it is always going to be hard work to get successful outcomes with people and families in these circumstances. I would say it like this: These cases are too worrying to not systematically explore every possible strength and possibility for future safety. These cases and families are so worrying that to always focus on everything that is wrong and dysfunctional in their lives makes everyone more dispirited and then the likelihood of positive change will lessen. So in summary I’m not looking for happy endings rather I’m wanting professionals to open their minds to the possibility that there are meaningful strengths in these families and that we can work with them to improve the situation of their children this makes more likely - but in no way guarantees - will be able to create positive change.
Have you been trying to systematize that strengths and safety assessment?
There is an extensive body of sound research that informs child protection professionals regarding danger/harm factors that increase the likelihood of re-abuse. However little research exists regarding factors which increase safety relative to these indicators of danger and harm. It is therefore important to realise given the field’s current knowledge of risk assessment, that when assessing the significance of safety factors the professional is relying almost entirely on professional judgment. This makes it all the more important that descriptions of safety factors be specific, detailed and behavioural descriptions, and that they be carefully considered regarding how they relate to the indicators of danger and harm. Without this clear identification and grounding in the actual danger and harm, a strengths based, safety focused approach is at risk of fostering naïve practice and/or professional dangerousness.
Faced with need to be rigorous and clear about the significance of strengths relative to danger and harm Collegues in Victoria (a state of Australia) came uo with the following definition of safety: Safety is strengths demonstrated as protection over time.
This is a working definition that is used in the two statutory risk assessments mentioned earlier, the “Victorian Risk Framework” is utilized by the Victorian statutory child protection agency the department for Human Services (Vitcoria is an Australian state with a total population off 7 million). And the risk analysis and the risk management framework (RARM)which is used in Western Australia. Most recently I habe also been involved in using this balanced way of thinking about risk and the broader practices of the Signs of Safety approach in several jurisdictions in the USA – this is very interesting because in America they used an actuarial or statistical model of risk assessment so the integration task is even harder.
You developed the Signs of Safety method in the field is it not?
Yes, our work in developing risk assessment procedures has been undertaken in close collaboration with many statutory child protection workers and we have continually monitored the manner in which the frameworks we have been involved in developing have impacted on direct casework. Most theory and protocol developments aris from so called experts – usually policy makers and academics and the front-line staff are simply there to implement these developments. We have reversed this process – our practice models have been developed from the direct lived experience of front line practitioners and then we developed the theory and the frameworks out of that practice. In social theory terms this is called action research or collaborative inquiry. In this way the ideas, practices and protocols we have developed in Australia have been refined and modified in many ways to localise them to other international settings where the Signs of Safety model is being used. Thus for example in Minnesota, social workers there have created their own protocol that integrates the actuarial assessment requirements with the principals of the Signs of Safety. They have also developed an extraordinary procedure for undertaking professional-Family conferences where the family get to speak first, describing how they see the problems and their strengths and what they want to do to solve the problems. The families are given the opportunity knowing that if they want their children back/professionals out off their lives they need to convince the professionals in the room. This is a complete turn around to how we usually do professional-family conferences.
These frameworks are examples of what we regard as comprehensive risk assessment which overtly integrates the assessment of current and future safety alongside the evaluation of danger and harm and also seeks to integrate both professional knowledge and local family knowledge and expertise within the assessment process.
The VRF seeks to further utilize this definition and further operationalize clarity of thinking regarding strengths and protection by considering these aspects as they directly relate to each of the framework’s essential information gathering categories.
Within both the Signs of Safety approach and the VRF safety is also defined pragmatically as the behaviour that the statutory agency needs to see to be willing to close the case. This provides the worker with a way of thinking and language that usually makes good sense to both themselves and to service recipients (since service recipients very commonly describe getting CPS out of their lives as their primary goal).
Is that what you teach in your training, the assessment and planning protocol?
Yes and above all it is important to underline that good risk assessment also requires the best possible working relationship between the worker and the family members, for example; where a relationship is hostile the information gathered will be less than ideal. We know that safety and best outcomes for children in child protection cases correlates with a working relationship, or partnership existing between the family and worker. That is also an important issue in all my training sessions and workshops.
Over Andrew Turnell
Andrew Turnell is an Independent Social Worker of 19 years experience, from Perth, Western Australia. He is a brief and family therapist, who works primarily with families where child maltreatment has occurred or is suspected. Andrew has published papers and one book (co-authored) on the subjects of brief therapy and child protection. His most recent publications being: Turnell A. & Edwards S. (1999). Signs of Safety: A solution and safety oriented approach to child protection casework. WW Norton, New York; Turnell A. & Lipchik, E. (1999). "Empathy in Brief Therapy: The Essential but Overlooked Aspect". Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy. 20(4): 177-182. With his colleague Steve Edwards and in conjunction with over 100 CPS workers Andrew has developed the Signs of Safety approach to child protection casework, which has won two local social service awards for innovative practice. Between 1997 - 2001 Andrew was closely involved in the development of statutory child protection risk assessment frameworks in Victoria and West Australia that are collaborative and participatory, integrate best professional knowledge, alongside local family and cultural knowledge and balance information regarding danger/harm alongside strengths and safety. Andrew is presently working with child protection teams utilizing the Signs of Safety approach in the UK, Sweden and Finland and on a 5 year system wide implementation project at Olmsted County, Minnesotta, USA.
Andrew’s work is becoming increasingly known internationally and he regularly gives lectures and workshops in Australia, Europe and the US. Andrew is also completing his PhD at Curtin University in Australia in Safety-focused Child Protection Practice, and as part of this study is preparing two co-authored books; one entitled "Constructive Social Work in Child Protection" (with Professor Nigel Parton from Huddersfield, UK and Julie Boffa from Melbourne) and the other on working with serious child abuse cases where the parents are "in denial" (with Susie Essex from Bristol, UK).
Andrew Turnell gives a two-training on 15 and 16 september. Info www.octir <http://www.octir/> .nl
Turnell, A. & Edwards, S. (1999). Signs of safety: A safety and solution oriented approach to child protection casework, New York: WW Norton.
Walter Oppenoorth, juli 2003