Issues in Child Protection Practices, Reporting Procedures, Risk Assessment and Interagency Working

This article discusses the issues in child protection practices, reporting procedures, risk assessment and interagency working. It also outlines the standard reporting procedure that is being followed in cases of child protection concerns. The article highlights the need to re-focus on preventative and early intervention to safeguard vulnerable children and families from abuse and neglect.

Running head: PROTECTION OF CHILDREN
Protection of children
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1PROTECTION OF CHILDREN
As per 2016 WHO report, approximately 41,000 children below the age of 15 years were
victims of homicide that is incorrectly reported attributed to factors that are unrelated; similarly,
minor girls are also vulnerable to exploitation and abuse (who.int 2018). Child protection
practices are developed to target children who are subjected to neglect and abuse. According to
United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), ‘child protection’ is defined as prevention and
responding to exploitations, violence and abuse against children including trafficking and child
labour (unicef.org 2018). However, as reported by World Health Organization (WHO), child
abuse and neglect in all forms of physical, emotional ill-treatment is prevalent resulting in actual
harm to children’s health, wellbeing and dignity (who.int 2018). These practices are aimed at
creating a protective environment for the children ensuring their rights to survival, proper
development and wellbeing. However, there are issues witnessed and therefore, the aim of the
following discussion is to explore these issues in child protection practices, reporting procedures,
risk assessment and issues related to interagency working.
Numerous inquiries into child protection practices have concluded that there are
witnessed failures in the service responses attributable to rising demand of services, low morale
and ill-equipped workforce, lack of interventions for the families and rising number of children
population with lack of suitable placements. There are raising concerns about child welfare that
had been escalated by child protection departments’ workforce in terms of reporting, scale of
increase in child abuse and issues in absolute number of notifications. The departmental staffs’
responses are weak or rate of notifications per thousand in the children population is scarce
(Kempe et al. 2013).
The main critical issue in current practices of child protection is the lack of services.
There is lack of prevention services concerning the comprehensive range of child protection

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practices, as they are unable to fulfil the increasing demands of the child population. There is
increasing demand for child protection services in local areas likely to have serious
consequences. Various factors, both internal and external with structural and demographic
factors contribute to wide scope of crisis because of increasing responsibilities and diminishing
resources (Pelton 2015). Child protection services are inadequate for the children and their
families due to issues like poor housing, unmet health needs, racial discrimination and parental
incarceration challenging the child protection staffs ability to serve vulnerable children and their
families. The services need to be put into right place supporting vulnerable children and their
families in the first place.
Child protection system workforce is another issue facing critical challenges like staff
turnover, lack of training, inexperience and incompetent, high caseloads and inconsistency.
There is lack of sophistication and clinical skills that is required to engage the vulnerable
population. There are emerging issues related to worker satisfaction and retention that is
resulting in ineffective service delivery to vulnerable children and families. There are severe
workforce issues like high staff turnovers failing to meet the needs of children ensuring safety
and achievement of permanency for vulnerable children (McFadden, Campbell and Taylor
2014). Due to lack of qualified personnel, the hiring process is frozen and worker turnover are
some of the barriers to effective delivery of child protection services. Therefore, there is need for
management of workforce with proper recruitment, hiring, supervision and retention for effective
child protection services.
Any issue that is related to child abuse should be taken seriously and handled
appropriately that ensure to provide safety to the child with instant reporting. Any form of
physical abuse, neglect, sexual or emotional abuse is defined as child abuse. In Ireland, specific

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grades within the Health Service Executive (HSE) and members of An Garda Síochána are
designated and authorized to receive reports of child abuse (tusla.ie 2018). If any staff or
member has a child protection concern, they must inform this Designated Person and use a
specific form so that the concerns are conveyed easily. If anyone suspects that, a child is being
abused or at risk, he or she has the duty to report the suspicions to HSE. The reporting should be
done immediately to Child Welfare and Protection Services in HSE at the local office that has a
social worker on duty. The reporting can be done through phone or by writing that remain
anonymous. The HSE does not reveal the names of the reporting individuals unless they are
permitted to do so. There is another option where an individual can report his or her concerns
outside the normal office hours (at night or weekends) to the Garda Síochána that is the Ireland’s
National Police and Security Service (Dcya.gov.ie 2011).
Under the Protection for Persons Reporting Child Abuse Act 1998, it is stated that
unless an individual do good faith or believe to be true, he or she cannot be sued for making a
malicious or false report. There are many policies and guidelines for guiding the reporting
procedure regarding child abuse. In 1999, the Children First: National Guidelines for the
Protection and Welfare of Children was published with an updated 2011 version that is aimed at
helping people with the identification and reporting of child abuse. Children First: National
Guidance for the Protection and Welfare of Children under Department of Children Youth
Affairs has standardized the reporting procedure in child abuse (Fhoilsiu and Hair 1999). The
HSE Children and Family Services should be informed when an individual suspects child abuse.
The concern posed by an individual even in cases of unidentified children, must report to this
particular service. After reporting, the child should not be left alone in that situation until HSE

4PROTECTION OF CHILDREN
intervention. In cases of emergency or immediate danger, the Gardaí should be contacted
through Garda station.
The Standard Report Form is used for reporting abuse or child welfare concerns to HSE
is used by staffs, professionals and volunteers in organizations working with children and in
cases of incomplete forms, HSE look up for referrals. During reporting, statutory and ethical
codes are maintained that is concerned with data protection and confidentiality intended to
prevent or limit exchange of personal information between professionals with a responsibility to
ensure welfare and protection of children. The data collected for one purpose should not be used
for other without the prior consultation of the person who gave the information. The legal
protection is undertaken under Protections for Persons Reporting Child Abuse Act 1998 protects
the person who has reported to HSE concerning child abuse (Brownell and Jutte 2013).
Therefore, the above section outlines the standard reporting procedure that is being followed in
cases of child protection concerns.
This section involves the outcomes of interagency participation against child abuse in
Ireland. The high-level international evidence suggested that interagency working for children
and families welfare face a number of challenges that hinder collaboration. It is widely
acknowledged that new collaborative working conditions development is not an easy task, takes
time and quite unrealistic to expect any significant change at the level of child protection
outcomes. A common issue is the evaluation of new initiatives before they are even implemented
in working practice and hence the implementation and assessment process are unable to identify
changes in children and families protection outcomes. A report published by Inter-agency Co-
operation in Irish Children’s Services: The Views of Some Stakeholders experienced barriers

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when engaged in interagency cooperation. It is categorized into four major areas, organizational,
information and resource barriers and barriers experienced from other services (Hood 2014).
Informational barriers can be explained in a way where interagency people witnessed
that services delivered by multiple agencies to children and families is in an uncoordinated and
unexplained manner. There is confusion among the families that affect the benefit that families
get from these services. The professionals are not fully aware of the roles and evolving nature of
these organizations that provide services for child protection. This lack of awareness and clarity
among the professionals about child protection services hinder collaborative working of inter
agencies. There is absence of collaboration and shared understanding that makes it difficult for
the inter agencies to operate making it time consuming and more challenging. Legislative
barriers hinder sharing of information across multiple organizations as confidentiality and data
protection is a huge concern in sharing information between multiple agencies (Caab.ie 2009).
Professionals also experience organizational barriers, as there is lack of purposes,
shared visions, objectives and values regarding service delivery. This results in confusion for the
professionals as how one organization fits to work with others in inter-agency. Earlier, inter-
agency cooperation was not necessary, however due to limited budgets; agencies were concerned
with their own remit. The lack of support and training, the staffs are unable to work in inter-
agencies due to varied work culture goals and unclear mandate undertaking inter-agency working
(Caab.ie 2009).
Nature of services also poses barriers for inter-agency working, as there are existing gaps
in service delivery and lengthy waiting lists that affect inter-agency working. The crisis
witnessed in nature of services resulted in limited levels of professional involvement in service

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delivery. In addition, lack of planning and traditional focus on activities rather than fulfilling of
service users’ needs acted as barriers in inter-agency working as well as service provision. There
is also lack of focus on funding and investment in preventative, early interventions and family
support services that act as barriers in inter-agency working (Caab.ie 2009).
Resource barriers are another challenge faced by professionals, as there is lack of
resources for making an initial investment in participation of inter-agency. There are funding
issues, as mechanisms are not set up that enable inter-agency working and co-operation. The
services lack frontline staffs and insufficient funding that hinder inter-agency professionals
working and operation. Concisely, insufficient resources act as biggest obstacle and there is need
for delivering preventative, early and family support services to achieve positive delivery of
services for families and children (Caab.ie 2009).
Risk assessment is focused on determining the risk of harm to child that is carried out
through validated tools that assist in professional judgment. It is not only limited to tools, but
also consists of checklists and matrices that guide proper understanding and reliable to determine
the levels of risk that is faced by children. If an organization is offering child protection services,
Children First Act 2015 guide in risk assessment. The risk of abuse is measured through an
exercise that is intended to identify potential risks, development of procedures that minimize risk
in a timely manner and reviewing of precautions that reduce or eliminate these risks (Dcya.gov.ie
2017).
In step 1, there is identification of potential risks where the possible cause of harm is
recognized. The professionals ensure that all individuals including children are involved in this
service. In step 2, there is ranking of risk in terms of low, medium and high and likelihood of risk

7PROTECTION OF CHILDREN
and consequences are considered. In step 3, control and management of risk is undertaken where
risk owners are recognized. For reducing the risk, current controls, future actions and other
available options are considered. In the last step, there is monitoring and reviewing where the
efficiency of actions and actions are considered. Although, there is no possible way to eliminate
complete risk, however, risk can be reduced through proper management (Dcya.gov.ie 2017).
After completion of risk assessment, child protection organizations are required to
develop Child Safeguarding Statement outlining procedures and policies for management of
identified risks. The Risk Management Policy is the policy statement that is committed to
safeguard vulnerable children and families. The management staffs are responsible for managing
risk meeting needs of vulnerable children and families and communicating with the managing
team (Earlychildhoodireland.ie 2016).
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that child protection services support and
promote vulnerable children and families who meet them. However, there are issues related to
current practice in terms of child protection workforce and lack of services that affect service
delivery. There is specific reporting procedure informing the HSE or A Garda Síochána in
Ireland about child abuse taking the confidentiality and data protection into consideration. In
addition, there are challenges being faced by professionals in terms of collaboration, delivery of
services and lack of funding that hinder in inter-agency working. The risk assessment and
management is undertaken by professionals who communicate regarding meeting of needs
through risk management policy in Ireland. Therefore, there is a need to re-focus on preventative
and early intervention to safeguard vulnerable children and families from abuse and neglect.
References

8PROTECTION OF CHILDREN
Brownell, M.D. and Jutte, D.P.,(2013). Administrative data linkage as a tool for child
maltreatment research. Child abuse & neglect, 37(2-3), pp.120-124.
Caab.ie. (2009). Inter-agency Co-operation in Irish Children’s Services: The Views of Some
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117fa3e45350/IAC-Full-Report.aspx [Accessed 25 Feb. 2018].
Dcya.gov.ie. (2011). Children First: National Guidance for the Protection and Welfare of
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[Accessed 25 Feb. 2018].
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[Accessed 25 Feb. 2018].
Fhoilsiu, A. And Hair, S.A., 1999. Children First National Guidelines for the Protection and
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McFadden, P., Campbell, A. and Taylor, B., (2014). Resilience and burnout in child protection
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tusla.ie (2011). Child Protection and Welfare Practice Handbook. [online] Available at:
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