IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jscscx/v11y2022i8p353-d882987.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Parental Partnership, Advocacy and Engagement: The Way Forward

Author

Listed:
  • Simon Haworth

    (Department of Social Work & Social Care, School of Social Policy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK)

  • Andy Bilson

    (School of Social Work, Care and Community, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2HE, UK)

  • Taliah Drayak

    (Independent Researcher)

  • Tammy Mayes

    (Independent Researcher)

  • Yuval Saar-Heiman

    (Department of Social Work, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham TW20 0EX, UK)

Abstract

This article, written with parents as co-authors, has two aims: (1) to provide a critical view of the English child protection system based on parents’ views and to locate these views within contemporary child protection studies and (2) to present the transformative value of co-production in the context of child protection studies both as a form of critical scholarship and as a means to influence policy and practice. The current children’s social work system in England does not achieve good outcomes for families, and many children and parents frequently experience it as stigmatizing, inhumane, and harmful. The article presents the experience and recommendations for change produced by parents with a broad range of experience with child protection services in England. The Parents, Families and Allies Network worked with five allied organizations in which parents identified the extensive range of problems that the current system presents and ways forward to achieve more supportive, humane, and inclusive practice with families. Seven main themes emerged: a better definition of need and response to need; partnership, participation, and humane practice; improving legal representation and support in legal proceedings; better support in care proceedings; permanence that maintains links; a better response to domestic violence; and the lack of support for disabled children. The article discusses five features of the project that supported meaningful co-production: taking a political stance, choosing clear and feasible aims, incorporating a range of knowledge, the participation of parents with lived experience throughout all phases of the project, and not settling with just knowledge production.

Suggested Citation

  • Simon Haworth & Andy Bilson & Taliah Drayak & Tammy Mayes & Yuval Saar-Heiman, 2022. "Parental Partnership, Advocacy and Engagement: The Way Forward," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-16, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:11:y:2022:i:8:p:353-:d:882987
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/11/8/353/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/11/8/353/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Summers, Alicia & Wood, Steve M. & Russell, Jesse R. & Macgill, Stephanie O., 2012. "An evaluation of the effectiveness of a parent-to-parent program in changing attitudes and increasing parental engagement in the juvenile dependency system," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 2036-2041.
    2. Bilson, Andy & Munro, Elizabeth Hunter, 2019. "Adoption and child protection trends for children aged under five in England: Increasing investigations and hidden separation of children from their parents," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 204-211.
    3. Ian Hyslop & Emily Keddell, 2018. "Outing the Elephants: Exploring a New Paradigm for Child Protection Social Work," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 7(7), pages 1-13, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Saar-Heiman, Yuval & Gupta, Anna, 2024. "Beyond participation: Parent activism in child protection as a path to transformative change," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chambers, Jeff M. & Lint, Sandy & Thompson, Maggie G. & Carlson, Matthew W. & Graef, Michelle I., 2019. "Outcomes of the Iowa Parent Partner program evaluation: Stability of reunification and re-entry into foster care," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 1-1.
    2. Haight, Wendy & Marshall, Jane & Woolman, Joanna, 2015. "The Child Protection Clinic: A mixed method evaluation of parent legal representation," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 7-17.
    3. Bilson, Andy & Bywaters, Paul, 2020. "Born into care: Evidence of a failed state," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    4. Jane Fenton, 2021. "The “Undeserving” Narrative in Child and Family Social Work and How It Is Perpetuated by “Progressive Neoliberalism”: Ideas for Social Work Education," Societies, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-13, October.
    5. Bywaters, Paul & Scourfield, Jonathan & Webb, Calum & Morris, Kate & Featherstone, Brid & Brady, Geraldine & Jones, Chantel & Sparks, Tim, 2019. "Paradoxical evidence on ethnic inequities in child welfare: Towards a research agenda," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 145-154.
    6. Shirley Lewis & Geraldine Brady, 2018. "Parenting under Adversity: Birth Parents’ Accounts of Inequality and Adoption," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 7(12), pages 1-14, December.
    7. Pope, Natalie D. & Jay Miller, J. & Benner, Kalea, 2020. "Cultivating resilience in new foster parents through mentoring: A dyadic analysis," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    8. Lalayants, Marina & Wyka, Katarzyna & Saitadze, Inga, 2021. "Outcomes of the Parent Advocacy Initiative in child safety conferences: Placement and repeat maltreatment," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    9. Soffer-Elnekave, Ruth & Haight, Wendy & Jader, Bailey, 2020. "Parent mentoring relationships as a vehicle for reducing racial disparities: Experiences of child welfare-involved parents, mentors and professionals," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    10. Susan Young & Margaret McKenzie & Cecilie Omre & Liv Schjelderup & Shayne Walker, 2020. "‘Warm Eyes’, ‘Warm Breath’, ‘Heart Warmth’: Using Aroha (Love) and Warmth to Reconceptualise and Work towards Best Interests in Child Protection," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-20, April.
    11. Tonino Esposito & Johanna Caldwell & Martin Chabot & Anne Blumenthal & Nico Trocmé & Barbara Fallon & Sonia Hélie & Tracie O. Afifi, 2022. "Childhood Prevalence of Involvement with the Child Protection System in Quebec: A Longitudinal Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-15, December.
    12. Clara Siagian & Sandra Arifiani & Putri Amanda & Santi Kusumaningrum, 2019. "Supporting Children, Blaming Parents: Frontline Providers’ Perception of Childhood’s Adversity and Parenthood in Indonesia," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-20, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:11:y:2022:i:8:p:353-:d:882987. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.