Social Worker Child Abuse Prevention worker

Social Worker
Child Abuse Prevention worker
Student’s Details

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Child abuse as a social issue............................................................................................................2
Role and Responsibility...................................................................................................................3
Policies and Regulation...................................................................................................................4
Social changes and impact on professionals....................................................................................5
Success and downfall of profession.................................................................................................6
Recommendations............................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
Bibliography....................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
Social service is one of the best kinds of human services towards the wellbeing of people through
serving people or needier in interdisciplinary fields. Human services aim to meet the need of
people, through diverse knowledge, emphasizing on prevention of problems, remediation of
problems and promoting the health of people by quality services and improving the quality of
life of people (NOHS, 2020). Child abuse is a curse for any civilization and society. Child abuse
has a long history. Children were subject to abuse by their parents, mentors, caretakers and other
adults. Child abuse captured global attention by the early 1870s with some cruel child abuse
cases. In the year 1889 child abuse protection act passed namely “children's charter". This act
firstly created the involvement of state within child- parent’s relationship and by the 2005 many
regulations amended towards child protection and first child, protection minister had been
appointed. After the year 1960 feminist professionals started to raise their voices against child
abuse and child abuse protection professions to come into shape over time (Crane, 2018).
This discussion gives a brief outline of duties, responsibilities, and role of child abuse workers in
the society, along with literature discussion on the need and working pattern of child abuse
workers in the United Kingdom. Role of government in the elimination of child abuse in the
country through various policies and regulations, social changes and impacts on child abuse
prevention profession and success and downfall in this profession also has been covered in this
discussion. This discussion comprises some recommendations for the wellness of child abuse
professionals.

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Child abuse as a social issue
There is no legal definition on an evil practice namely child abuse, but in broad terms, it includes
any physical, emotional and sexual abuse, harassment, exploitation, and negligence of a child or
a person who is under the age of 18 and suffering from any significant harm. The term "harm"
includes the ill-treatment or malpractices which negatively impact to health or development of a
child (Gov.UK, 2020). Statistical data of the country shows that in the country the UK including
England and wales around one in five people in the age of 18 to 74 years has been experienced
child abuse at least once, whether it was physical abuse, emotional abuse, domestic abuse or
sexual abuse before the age of 16 years. According to this, around 8.5 million people have
experienced this ill practice at least once. Besides, several cases remain hidden. These data
further show that around one out of seven children has not told about their ill practice to anyone
before calling to National Association for People Abused in Childhood's (NAPAC's) (ONS,
2019). In addition, around 40 children died due to homicide in the year of 2016, in the same year
1300 had been found guilty in the crimes of child abuse and around 67 700 children had been
replaced in child protection data (Esposti et al., 2019). Moreover, adult people and children with
a history of prior victimization of child-abusing are on three times higher risks to experience
recurrence of abusing as compared to people and children who have been not experienced any
kind of abuse.
Hence, these numbers and statics are serious enough to show a concern towards child abuse
protection which is a major cause behind the need for child abuse protection workers in the
country.

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Role and Responsibility
A child abuse protection professional is responsible for various types of jobs to helps children
and their families through different types of difficulties and malpractices. These social workers
for child protection are most often work under state governments. These child protection
professionals have a wide range of roles to play daily. Although duties and responsibilities of
child abuse workers depend of the nature of their job as front-end or back-end however the core
responsibilities of social workers are Investigation, development of case plan, Counseling and
Psychotherapy, working as a coordinator between support services, children and family, and
Resource Connections and Navigation of the services (Louie, 2020).
A social child abuse professional evaluates to the instances of child ill-treatment and examines
the situation against to set a minimum standard. These workers collect the information from
Juvenile Dependency Court and Child Protective Service agencies. After investigation, these
workers develop the case plans with the collaboration of Child Protective Services agencies,
school staff, behavioral therapists, and other associated members. These workers also provide
emotional counseling to concerned children and in some requited cases they provide short term
psychotherapy to children and their families. These professionals play a role of conditioners
between the support services for needier children and their parents. Providing a comprehensive
support system to fulfill emotional, mental, social and academic needs to needier children also
comes under the reasonability area of child abuse protection workers (Kemoli & Mavindu,
2014). As discussed child abuse protection workers play crucial roles in the society for child
protection against physical, mental and sexual harms. These professionals hold reputed positions
and a respected position in society. People and children who are sharing their personal

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information must be confidential and not supposes to open up with everyone. Thus to be a child
abuse protection worker a person should be responsible, trustworthy, rational and disciplined.
Policies and Regulation
The government of the country and child welfare organization and agencies have some
regulations and policies to ensure quality, safety, and confidentiality of the information provided
by the people who are seeking help form child abuse protection workers. These policies and
regulations enable them to work ethically with child abuse professionals. There are some
educational bodies in providing and imparting social care skills in a social professional. Besides
this statutory professional regulation in 2001, the Children and Social Work Act 2017 and
recommendations of PSA in 2015 established minimum standards and protocols to follow to
achieve the overall well-being of children (Cromarty, 2018). Apart from these Human Rights
Act 1998, Health Act 2009, Welfare Reform Act 2009, Code of practice for social care workers
and Code of practice for employers of social care workers (2004), Common Assessment
Framework for adults (2010), Dignity in Care resources (2010) and Information-sharing:
practitioners' guide (2006) are some other regulations and policies. These policies and
regulations enforce to a healthcare professional in providing equal care and protection to all
children without any description and ensure the confidentiality of information provided by the
needier (NQSW, 2010). The Equality Act 2010 works towards the protection of children, young
people, and adults against discrimination, victimization, and harassment and concerning housing,
education, provision of work are any areas of living (CRAE, 2020).

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Social changes and impact on professionals
Social factors such as decreasing moral standards, broken marriages, and families, nuclear
families, social exclusion and isolation, unrealistic expectations of families and academic
supervisor's, intellectual disability, mental stress and illness, lack of parenting skills, lifestyle
changes including consumption of drugs and alcohol are the major social factors which are
directly hitting to the well-being of children. Besides, the habit of gambling, multiple sex partner
and past childhood experiences of parents also negatively affects the well-being of children
(Antai et al., 2016). Besides, increasing industrialization and economic changes are also leading
to child abuse in the form of physical as child labor and mental as stress. Hence, these numbers
of social causes are increasing the number of victimization of abusing, thus it is leading and
emerging needs of social workers specifically child abuse protection workers (Mahi, 2013).
Success and downfall of profession
Although, social workers especially child abuse protection workers are supporting or helping out
millions of children and improving their well-being and development. However, social,
economic, and personal changes are influencing the roles of social workers positively and
negatively. Some research studies revealed that opting for social work as a profession may give
satisfaction however people are enabled to have family and work-life balance which is a leading
cause of stress in child abuse workers. Besides, the excessive workload is also challenging to the
physical ability of child abuse worker which is the biggest cause of losing people's interest in this
profession (Jones, 2014). Some other downfall also exists in this profession. Although this
profession required unbiased and impractical behavior of the professionals towards children's
welfare and well-being, yet some shorts fall-related to race and ethnicity, culture, religion, and

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economic social status also found. Black African ethnicity is more sensitive to child abuse and
for biased and impartial behavior of child abuse prevention professionals (Bingham et al., 2016).
Recommendations
Even though the number of cases of victimization of child abuse is increasing in the country, but
decreasing people's interest in social work is a major hindrance to the movement and healthcare
department of the country. Various research studies suggest that increasing pay and various
benefits, providing growth and career opportunities, providing a supportive work environment
and empowerment can increase the satisfaction of social workers or child abuse protection
workers. Besides adequate and required resources, recognition and job role clarities also increase
and attract people to be social workers.
Conclusion
Many people seek social work as their best career opportunity due to several reasons. But serving
the people or helping to needier is the best kind of satisfaction people receive from social work.
Child abuse is a serious illness in the world including a country like the UK. There is a
significant number of people or children who are experiencing or had been experienced child
abuse one in a lifetime. Thus, child abuse protection worker is great hope for these people. Child
abuse protection worker is a great profession that plays various roles and responsibilities such as
counselor for child and family, therapists and coordinator between various welfare agencies,
children and their families. The government of the country and welfare agencies developed
various policies and regulations for quality and safety in this profession. This discussion also
covered some recommendations to increase the standard of social workers as child abuse
protection workers.

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Bibliography
Antai, D., Braithwaite, P. & Clerk, G., 2016. Social determinants of child abuse: evidence of
factors associated with maternal abuse from the Egypt demographic and health survey. Journal
of Injury and Violence Research, 8(1), pp.25-34.
Cromarty, H., 2018. Social Work Regulation (England). [Online] Available at:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7802/ [Accessed 11 March 2020].
Esposti, D.M. et al., 2019. Long-term trends in child maltreatment in England and Wales, 1858–
2016: an observational, time-series analysis. The Lancet, Public Health, 4(3), pp.148-58.
Gov.UK, 2020. Report child abuse. [Online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/report-child-
abuse [Accessed 11 March 2020].
Jones, R., 2014. The Best of Times, the Worst of Times: Social Work and Its Moment. the
British Journal of social work, 44(3), pp.485-02.
Kemoli, M. & Mavindu, M., 2014. Child abuse: A classic case report with literature review.
Contemporary Clinical Dentistry , 5(2), pp.256-59.
Louie, K., 2020. Introductory Guide to Child Welfare Social Work. [Online] Available at:
https://www.onlinemswprograms.com/careers/types-of-social-work/guide-to-child-welfare-
social-work.html [Accessed 11 March 2020].
Mahi, E.T., 2013. Family and child welfare in relation to urbanization. Sudanese Journal of
Paediatrics, 13(1), pp.96-106.
NOHS, 2020. Natioanl Organisation for Human Services. [Online] Available at:
https://www.nationalhumanservices.org/what-is-human-services [Accessed 11 March 2020].

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NQSW, 2010. Newly Qualified Social Worker: Legislation and policy. SCIE.
ONS, 2019. Child abuse extent and nature, England and Wales: year ending March 2019.
[Online] Available at:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/
childabuseextentandnatureenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2019 [Accessed 11 March 2020].