PRACTICE


Fresh response needed in child safeguarding


Better-targeted support is vital if social workers are to tackle child maltreatment effectively in times of budgetary constraint, writes Carol Long


F


irst the good news. It does appear that the prevalence of some forms of child maltreatment is declining in the UK. There has been, for instance, a decrease in physical and sexual abuse


in recent decades, matching trends in the US. Less encouraging is the fi nding that


one in fi ve children today has experienced serious physical abuse, sexual abuse or severe physical or emotional neglect. The conclusions come from the NSPCC


report How Safe Are our Children?, which gathered data on children in the four UK nations. It found that children today are safer from abuse and neglect in some ways than those of previous generations. Moreover, fewer children are dying as a result of assault or suicide in England, Wales and Scotland. But, as every child protection professional


will recognise, the extent of child abuse and neglect in our society remains deeply worrying. Diff erent kinds of threats are emerging, particularly with the increasing time children spend in the digital world. Although parents are used to equipping their children to deal with real or potential threats to their safety, they are much less confi dent when dealing with the online domain.


18 SOCIALWORKMATTERS JULY13 Faced with budget constraints, child


protection services are already working in overdrive. Despite this, the NSPCC report indicates that, for every one child subject to a child protection plan, eight others have suff ered a form of abuse or maltreatment. It would cost an additional estimated £500 million in funding to reach just 25 per cent of these children. Many of us, as social work professionals,


Investment in supporting


good parent-child relationships is critical, as is timely decision-making for children when things go wrong


believe things need to change. We can’t keep doing the same things; they are not working and they are not reaching enough children. The economic climate makes it even more important that we focus on innovation and identifying new ways to reach more children earlier and to eff ect change for them more quickly. The debate about prevention


and addressing this is not new but it remains an important one. But how do we fund the development of


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