Race Equality Foundation - Social care

Safeguarding black and minority ethnic children: Development of safe practice

Background

Evidence shows that mainstream support for black and minority ethnic families has often been of poor quality (O'Neal, 1999) or non-existent (Butt and Box, 1998) and that they are more likely to be dissatisfied with the support that they do receive (Audit Commission/SSI, 2003) In relation to child protection practice specifically, the evidence suggests: either an over-reaction leading to over-representation of some groups of black and minority ethnic children for child protection referral statistics (Brandon et al, 1999; Thoburn et al, 2000), or under-reaction leading to deaths of black and minority ethnic children, with the death of Victoria Climbie being one of the latest of high profile cases of child deaths. The reports into the deaths of Jasmine Beckford (1985), Tyra Henry (1987) and Sukina Hammond (1991) all identified racism as one factor that influenced practice. While in the Inquiry report in to the death of Victoria Climbie Lord Laming concluded "This was not an inquiry into racism" he also went on to say "Several times during this inquiry I found myself wondering whether a failure by a particular professional to take action to protect Victoria, may have been partly due to the professional losing sight of the fact that her needs were the same as those of any other seven-year-old girl, from whatever cultural background." (Laming, 2003)

It was this context, and the knowledge that practitioners often feel that they lack the skills and knowledge to work with black and minority ethnic families that prompted Race Equality Foundation to seek funding to undertake work with front-line staff and managers/supervisors, to support them to develop and embed better practice in safeguarding black and minority ethnic children, promote their development and their social exclusion. Funding has been received from DfES, under the safeguarding Children and Supporting Families grant scheme to carry out this work.

Aims

The overall aim is to support front line practitioners and supervisors/managers to support to develop better practice in safeguarding black and minority ethnic children.

This will involve:

The development of practice and knowledge base of front-line practitioners so that they are better able to engage and provide support to black and minority ethnic children and families;
Developing the supervision and managerial skills of front-line supervisors/managers so they are better able to support front-line staff to meet the challenges of working with a diverse group of families as well as develop safe practice;
Collecting and collating the learning from this work and disseminate the messages through a two-part guide to good practice.

How will we do this work?

The project will run from 2005 until March 2008. We will work in six local authorities: three authorities in the first year and three in second year.

We will use a programme of Action Learning with front line practitioners and managers. Action learning sets are a recognised tool in the development of staff and are based on the concept of 'learning from doing'. Action learning sets usually involve a group of workers meeting regularly to consider problems they face in providing a service. With the aid of a facilitator, the 'sets' explore the problems that they are facing and develop solutions. These solutions are tried out and reported back to the group, and further refined (if necessary). The advantage of action learning sets include: finding solutions to real problems; sharing learning across a range of work settings; supporting a collaborative and empowering approach to problem solving; longer term impact; providing a safe environment to deal with challenging and complex problems; and creating reflective practitioners.

We will run two groups of action learning sets in each local authority.

One for front-line staff and the other for front line supervisors and managers. We intend for the groups to be mixed in terms of ethnicity and race. Each learning set will run on structured themes. For front line staff the focus will be on best practice development in assessment of safety and welfare needs, as well as responding to the developmental needs of black and minority ethnic children and their families. For front-line supervisors/managers the focus will be on developing monitoring triggers to help them manage safe practice by front-line staff.

Outcomes

This project has three main outcomes:

Front line staff will demonstrate greater confidence and competence in working with a diverse range of children and families;
Managers will show greater competence in supporting and supervising frontline staff in the delivery of support to black and minority ethnic children and their families;
A guide to best practice in working with black and minority ethnic children. The guide will include the summary of learning and tool-kit for safe practice with black and minority ethnic children.

For further information contact Ratna Dutt on 020 7619 6228 or email ratna@racefound.org.uk

Useful Race Equality Foundation publications

The role of the black voluntary sector in Child Protection by Pat Joseph and Ratna Dutt
It takes a whole village to raise a child by Pat Joseph and Ratna Dutt
Discussion paper 1: Black and minority ethnic families setting the context by Leandra Box, Jabeer Butt and Tracey Bignall

Click here to see all Race Equality Foundation publications.