Parents’ immediate reaction to enquiries, following a report to social services may well be negative, particularly if the police are involved. For carers the experience is stressful, frightening and raises anxiety levels. Moreover, families may struggle emotionally accepting the situation and the potential consequences. Consequently, practitioners may encounter disbelief, minimisation, confusion, shock and resistance as the families are likely to be wary of practitioners and the questions they are being asked. When this occurs, the parents may respond by taking one of the following approaches:
Fight mode. The response is to resist what is happening by being verbally or physically aggressive and hostile to enquires, for example physically preventing the practitioner from entering the home or being verbally abusive.
Flight mode. This response is to deny what is happening by distancing oneself by, for example, lying -‘I did not do this’; avoiding practitioners by physically running away; not keeping appointments and non-engagement.
Freeze mode. This response is to block out what is happening because there is an awareness that one is not powerful enough to fight this and the parent is too scared to run away. This can result in blanking out ‘I don’t know/Ican’t remember’ or clamming up and saying nothing.
Alternatively, the parent may be:
The report-taker can reduce anxiety levels by:
The way in which the initial engagement is managed has a direct impact on the quality of the subsequent worker-family relationship.
Further information:
Laird, S. E. (2013) Child Protection: Managing conflict, hostility and aggression. Bristol: Policy Press.
Ruch, G., Turney, D. and Ward, A. (eds) (2018) 2nd ed Relationship-based Social Work: Getting to the Heart of Practice London: Jessica Kingsley
Taylor, B. (Ed.) (2011) Working with Aggression and Resistance in Social Work. London: Sage.
Tuck, V. (2013) Resistant parents and child protection: Knowledge base, pointers for practice and implications for policy Child Abuse Review, 22(1), pp. 5–19.