Acknowledge the complexity
Working with families where there is domestic abuse is very complicated. Both for the families themselves and also for the professionals working with them. Social workers with statutory responsibility for protecting children can struggle with these issues. They may sometimes feel that their focus on the child’s welfare prevents them from being able to respond to the mother’s needs too.
Protecting mothers protects children
Being child-focused and aware of how damaging living with domestic abuse can be for a child does not mean that you have to ignore or neglect the needs of the child’s mother. In many cases, addressing the mother’s needs will support her to care for and keep her child safer too. As a social worker, you are committed to promoting the child’s best interests. Helping the child’s mother to be as safe and secure as possible, and that her practical and emotional needs are also met, is likely to be in the child’s best interests. She may be the most effective resource for protecting her child.
It is a key principle of the Children Act 1989 that the best place for a child to be brought up is in their own family, provided it is safe, with reasonable support from the State when needed. Therefore, providing support which helps the mother and child to be safe and stay together, where this is in the child’s best interests, is good practice.
Think advice, advocacy and specialist support
Do encourage the mother to access advice and information. Specialist advice can help her:
- feel listened to;
- be given information about what the law says;
- understand what procedures should be followed; and
- help her to consider her options and make realistic choices.
She may benefit from speaking to a specialist Family Rights Group adviser. Or she could contact a solicitor for legal advice.
Remember too that government guidance (Working Together 2015) strongly recognises that parents should be given information about advocacy services. They should be allowed to bring an advocate to child protection meetings. The more vulnerable a mother is and the more serious the child protection measures your department is considering, the stronger the argument that you should provide advocacy. This would help her participate more effectively from an informed position.
Research shows that advocacy can help families work in partnership with social workers. This is especially so where advocates are professionally trained and have good knowledge of child care law. Be positive in your approach to advocacy as it may result in better and more informed participation and help keep the child safe.
For more information about this see FRG advice sheet on advocacy for families.
You may not be able to provide all the support that the mother needs. But you may be able to assist and encourage her to access specialist services where she can get the right help. She may need your encouragement or practical help, though, to take up services. So do think about how you can work alongside her to support her through the process. See where to get further help.
Dilemmas
Social workers must maintain their focus on the child’s developmental timescale. They must also comply with statutory and judicial timeframes for assessment and court proceedings. This can cause a dilemma when the mother (and/or the father) needs more time and ongoing support to address the concerns or maintain changes and where decisions need to be made for the child’s future.
Plans made may impact on the child throughout their life. So you will need to ensure that the family has been offered support to resolve concerns wherever possible. It is also important to consider providing continued support to enable the mother and child to remain together. And to consider exploring alternative care options within the family as early as possible. This could be done through offering the family a family group conference (unless this would be too risky).
Where a mother has lost care of her child because of domestic abuse it is still very important to consider offering her follow up support to maintain her relationship with that child. It may also assist her to safely care for any future child she may have.