The emergency removal and safety placement of children at risk : a model for planning interventions

[摘要] Child abuse remains a major problem within communities, despite all efforts to dateto try to intervene with children and families. There have been countless policiesdrawn up which aim to protect children's rights and prevent child abuse including theUnited Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, African Charter, South AfricanConstitution, and the Children's Act 38 of 2005. Some cases of severe abuse resultin children being statutorily removed from their families in order to protect them fromfurther abuse. Internationally, there are policies in place which guide professionals inhow to go about this emergency removal and safety placement of children at risk.However, within a South African context, this model for practice within emergencychild protection situations appears to be greatly lacking.Without a model to guide social workers in these already difficult and challengingsituations, this leaves professionals separating children from their families withoutthe proper frameworks for practice. The removal of children from their families isoften traumatic and devastating for the children, family, and even social workprofessionals involved; and this situation is further aggravated by the fact thatprofessionals are not working from a standardised, evidence-informed, ethicallybased, and theoretically founded practice model.This study aimed to address this gap identified in literature and observed in practiceby means of developing a model for planning interventions for the emergencyremoval and safety placement of children at risk. Although emergency childprotection takes place immediately, it is important for professionals to be workingfrom a structured intervention practice model which sets out the necessary strategicinterventions which need to be followed, to ensure effective services are rendered tochildren and families.vThe study utilised the design and development model of intervention research,consisting of six phases. The first phase involved interviews and focus groups withdesignated and residential social workers and child and youth care workers, toexplore and describe the current intervention strategies used for the emergencyremoval and safety placement of children at risk. The findings showed that there aremany challenges in the field of social work which are contributing to the poorservices received by children and families, which included: lack of supervision, nomulti-disciplinary team approach to services, limited infrastructure and a lack ofresources, staff shortages and high caseloads. These challenges obstruct childprotection services, leading to an approach to child protection which is very rushed,chaotic, paperwork focused, and is deficient of an emotionally caring responsetowards children and families involved. Results from the first phase of this studyshowed that there was no practice model to guide social workers in how to removechildren and place them in safety. As there is no practice model, and a gross lack ofsupervision, participants from this study indicated that child protection practice isinstead guided by their gut instincts and cultural values.The second phase of this study consisted of interviews and discussion groups withparticipants who provided information on various social work theories and how thebest interest of the child standard should be incorporated into a model for planningchild protection interventions. Significantly, the findings showed that the best interestof the child standard is not applied as a whole principle throughout the childprotection process, but rather in a fragmented way whereby bits and pieces of thestandard are used to justify specific actions. The findings from phase two highlightedthe need for an integrated and holistic approach to incorporating the best interest ofthe child standard and social work theories throughout the child protection process.For phase three, the researcher developed an observational system (after the modelwas developed) as a means by which to observe and assess the implementation ofthe model to provide further insights into its effectiveness.In phases four and five, the knowledge, skills, and experience of designated socialworkers, residential social workers and child and youth care workers were used toinform the development of the model. The participants provided information onintervention strategies, procedures involved with the emergency removal and safetyplacement, and integrated the best interests of the child standard and social worktheories into the development of a model for planning interventions for theemergency removal and safety placement of children at risk.Based on all the data collected from the above-mentioned phases, as well as an indepthliterature study, phase five of this study involved the development of a modelfor the emergency removal and safety placement of children. The model wasdiscussed with and evaluated by social workers in the field of children protection aswell as a legal expert from the children's court. Feedback obtained from theevaluations was used to adapt and finalise the model.Phase six consisted of the writing up of the research findings within three journalarticles that will be submitted for publication in various academic journals.The results of this study have addressed the gap identified in literature and practice bymeansofdevelopingamodelforplanninginterventionsfortheemergencyremoval and safety placement of children at risk.

[发布机构] North-West University