As described in Pointers for Practice: Managing Initial Parental Response to a Report Under the Children Act 1989 parents may respond in different ways, when they are informed of s47 enquiries. Those initial responses may continue throughout the assessment. Practitioners encountering hostility and aggression should consider how they are responding to this as it may be distorting the enquiries and deflect attention away from the child and their needs. Moreover, the family is getting particular messages if the practitioner / agency does not challenge them.
There are several different responses that practitioners make when encountering resistance and confrontation which include:
Colluding with the parent/s by avoiding conflict
- avoiding contact in person (home visits);
- using remote contact methods (e.g. telephone and email contact instead of visits to see the child);
- accepting the parent's version of events unquestioningly in the absence of objective evidence;
- focusing on less contentious issues such as benefits / housing;
- avoiding asking to look round the house, not looking to see how much food is available, not inspecting the conditions in which the child sleeps, etc;
- focusing on the parent's needs, not the child's;
- not asking to see the child alone.
Changing behaviour to avoid conflict
- Filtering out or minimising negative information;
- Conversely, placing undue weight on positive information (the 'rule of optimism') and only looking for positive information;
- Fear of confronting family members about concerns;
- Keeping quiet about worries and not sharing information about risks and assessment with others in the inter-agency network or with managers.
All practitioners involved in these types of assessments should ask themselves whether:
- they are relieved when there is no answer at the door;
- they are relieved when they get back out of the door;
- they say, ask and do what they would usually say, ask and do when making a visit or assessment;
- they have identified and seen the key people;
- they have observed evidence of others who could be living in the house;
- in cases of high need adults (e.g. domestic abuse, mental health, etc.) they only work with that adult (rather than both parents even when the other parent is a perpetrator of domestic abuse).
Professionals and their supervisors should keep asking themselves the question: what might the children have been feeling as the door closes behind a practitioner leaving the family home?
(The above has been adapted from London Safeguarding Procedures www.londoncp.co.uk, (accessed 14/7/2019))