Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- one Introduction
- two The significance of ‘information sharing’in safeguarding children
- three So, what is this thing we call ‘information’?
- four Understanding professional information need and behaviours
- five How is information shared in ‘everyday’ practice?
- six Putting pieces of the ‘jigsaw’ together to establish a ‘full’ picture
- seven Professional relationships with information
- eight Emotion information: working with hunches, concerns and uncertainty
- nine Conclusion
- Appendix 1 Children in need model
- Appendix 2 Multi-agency interview schedule used in phase two of data collection
- References
- Index
eight - Emotion information: working with hunches, concerns and uncertainty
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- one Introduction
- two The significance of ‘information sharing’in safeguarding children
- three So, what is this thing we call ‘information’?
- four Understanding professional information need and behaviours
- five How is information shared in ‘everyday’ practice?
- six Putting pieces of the ‘jigsaw’ together to establish a ‘full’ picture
- seven Professional relationships with information
- eight Emotion information: working with hunches, concerns and uncertainty
- nine Conclusion
- Appendix 1 Children in need model
- Appendix 2 Multi-agency interview schedule used in phase two of data collection
- References
- Index
Summary
Introduction
“Part of me, with the feelings I got from the visit with mum, it must have been something that was still niggling me and I suggested just to be on the safe side, just to be certain, just to make sure, that she was not returned to Manning’s.” (Senior professional in Haringey, cited in Laming, 2003, p 187)
In the previous chapter, professional narratives demonstrated how information relationships and inter-personal relationships are central in professionals’ work of safeguarding children. The very nature of child protection work means that it is relationship-based, reinforced by the mandate of ‘working together’ in which epistemologies of welfare, health, education, and law converge. However, there is an emotional dimension to child protection work that is highlighted very clearly in the opening quote from a senior social worker in Haringey, taken from the inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbié in February 2000. The social worker discusses a ‘niggling’ feeling about Victoria's situation and her potential return to the family home where Victoria lived with her aunt and her aunt's boyfriend, Carl Manning. Quite clearly we can infer that the senior practitioner was working from an emotional response that was difficult to define and set down in terms of ‘evidence’. Despite important ‘emotional signals’ such as those highlighted here, the emotional and relational aspects of social work practice have become increasingly marginalised (Morrison, 2007), with emotions only discussed in theoretical terms within the field of social work (Taylor and White, 2001 ;Cooper, 2005; Ferguson, 2007; Morrison, 2007). Arguably, a drive towards evidence-based practice has meant that feelings are not considered sufficient grounds on which to act, despite feelings being both an important source of information for the worker, and a trigger for action, as indicated in the Laming report (Laming, 2003) and the Munro review (Munro, 2011).
Information at the level of ‘feeling’, and what people do as a result of feelings, is increasingly lost through ‘technical-rational’ responses (Schon, 1983) that favour notions of ‘objectivity’ and ‘reason’. Wastell and colleagues (2010) point out that this can have unintended effects where practice becomes habitualised in meeting performance targets rather than the ‘proper’ work of social work.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Strengthening Child ProtectionSharing Information in Multi-Agency Settings, pp. 159 - 180Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2016