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Improving Child Protection Services:

Australian Parents’ and Grandparents’
Perspectives on What Needs to Change
Heather D’Cruz & Philip Gillingham
Published online: 10 Jul 2014.

To cite this article: Heather D’Cruz & Philip Gillingham (2014) Improving Child Protection Services:
Australian Parents’ and Grandparents’ Perspectives on What Needs to Change, Practice: Social Work
in Action, 26:4, 239-257, DOI: 10.1080/09503153.2014.934797

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 PRACTICE: SOCIAL WORK IN ACTION VOLUME 26 NUMBER 4 (SEPTEMBER 2014), 239–257

Improving Child Protection Services:

Australian Parents’ and Grandparents’
Perspectives on What Needs to Change
Heather D’Cruz and Philip Gillingham

This exploratory, small-scale research aimed to understand parents’ and

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grandparents’ experiences and expectations of child protection investigations.

Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with nine participants.
The central theme, captured as ‘a domino effect’, crystallises the partici-
pants’ views of why it is important to improve child protection services: that
there were significant practical and relationship repercussions in families’ lives
beyond the immediate investigation. The sub-themes that emerged — support
within systemic complexity, policies in practice, intervention processes and
practices, and ‘it’s just a job to them’ — suggested how child protection ser-
vices contributed to ‘the domino effect’ in their lives. A final sub-theme indi-
cated participants’ awareness of the complexity and difficulty of child
protection as a job, notwithstanding their expressed frustrations. We have
made practical recommendations based on participants’ perspectives about
‘what needs to change?’, and suggestions for improvements to practise that
centralise social work as a profession which values the professional relation-
ship with service users. We also suggest that the professional relationship
should extend beyond the interpersonal to guiding service users within the
legal complexities in contemporary child protection. Being exploratory, this
study and its recommendations guide future research to contribute to improv-
ing child protection services.

Keywords: improving child protection; child protection policy; child protection

practice; service users’ experiences; policy and practice change

Introduction

Research that has sought parental perspectives of their experiences with child
protection services (Dale 2004; Ghaffar, Manby, and Race 2012; Harris 2012;
Johnson and Sullivan 2008; Klease 2008; Platt 2008) covers two intersecting
areas: (1) child protection processes and (2) qualities and roles of profession-
als. Child protection processes are improved if professionals attend to the
quality of the relationship during assessment, including the extent to which

Ó 2014 British Association of Social Workers

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09503153.2014.934797
 240 D’CRUZ AND GILLINGHAM

parents are consulted and involved in decision-making, and provide high-

quality information to parents about the investigation purpose and procedures.
Professionals’ personal qualities that are rated as important in their relation-
ships with parents include listening, reliability, honesty, courtesy, and empa-
thy, which are as important as the availability of preventive and supportive
services (Dale 2004; Ghaffar, Manby, and Race 2012; Johnson and Sullivan
2008; Klease 2008; Platt 2008). However, Dale (2004, 150–151) points out that
due to the ‘contentious and adversarial nature of child protection’, ‘parents’
… dissatisfaction … does not necessarily indicate … poor practice’ (Klease
2008, 23), and some parents may be unwilling to cooperate regardless of work-
ers’ skills and commitment to working constructively.
Professionals need to be aware of the dynamics of power fundamental to
their relationships with parents. Parents perceptions of professionals’ power as
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controlling or supportive may influence their responses as cooperative or resis-

tant (Dumbrill 2006). The loss of relationship-based practice (Platt 2008) is
attributed to increasing managerialism and proceduralisation of practice with a
heavy reliance on ‘assessment-compliance’ to collect forensic evidence (Harris
2012), and the pervasiveness and complexity of the legal system within which
contemporary child protection practice occurs (Douglas and Walsh 2009). How-
ever, Platt (2008, 313–314) found that ‘skilled workers developed good work-
ing relationships in a variety of procedural contexts’. This view may be
supported by Harris (2012, 187–188) who argues that parents’ ‘motivational
postures’ (citing Braithwaite 2009) may be other than ‘committed’, not
because of disputes about substantive concerns, but the way in which the
assessment/investigation is conducted (e.g. level of formality or a primary
focus on assessment/investigation procedures rather than the relationship with
parents and children).
Until recently, most of this literature has discussed what happens to
children and their parents during statutory involvement by child protection or
welfare services (de Boer and Cody 2007; Mudaly and Goddard 2006) or after
they are placed in care (Winter 2010; Yatchmenoff 2005). The emerging
interest in parents and children’s experiences of the investigation/assessment
stage (Dale 2004; Dumbrill 2006; Harris 2012; Ghaffar, Manby, and Race 2012;
Johnson and Sullivan 2008; Platt 2008) takes account of a consistent pattern
that many more people are subjected to ‘investigation’ than ongoing interven-
tion. For example, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW)
reported that during 2008–2009 there were 20,3225 investigations conducted
by child protection services in Australia, 66% of which were not substantiated
and did not lead to ongoing involvement (AIHW 2010).
As the literature reviewed above has shown, parents’ experiences of investi-
gation are substantial. The aims of the research discussed here are to improve
child protection services beyond professionals’ views, by listening to Australian
parents’ and grandparents’ experiences of child protection services, and what
needs to change; and communicating the insights of families to inform policy
and practice.
 IMPROVING CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES 241

While our participants reinforced much of what has emerged in previous

studies, they also offered insights into necessary changes that are systemic,
rather than solely the responsibility of child protection practitioners.

Methodology

Conceptual Approach

Although we would prefer to describe our research as ‘participatory’ as that

was its original intent, we have been unable to meet the ideal procedural stan-
dards that define ‘participatory research’ (Biskin et al. 2013; Bourke 2009;
Clark et al. 2009; Karban, Paley, and Willcock 2013), due to organisational and
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resource constraints, also experienced by researchers with similar aspirations

to ours (Bourke 2009; David 2002). We have, however, aspired to value the
participants’ perspectives and experiential knowledge as a central principle of
participatory research (Clark et al. 2009). For this reason, we acknowledge
that participants’ perceptions may not be congruent with ‘facts’ about how
services are meant to operate or actually operate, and that they may have
views that differ significantly from the practitioners who worked with them.
However, as it is the perceptions of what is happening to them that colours
the overall experience, rather than objective facts of social institutions, we
have treated participants’ accounts as valid and complementary to official
knowledge of what ought to happen to improve child protection policy and
practice, including quoting them at length as needed. Finally, due to the range
of practical limitations related to access and recruitment that affected our
sampling process and sample characteristics (described below), we believe the
research is best described as ‘exploratory’.

Ethics

The project received ethics approval for three years (2009–2011) from the uni-
versity and also from the organisation that consented to refer participants to
us. All participants were sent a Plain Language Statement and a Consent Form
which they signed and returned. We have used pseudonyms and changed any
details to protect participants’ privacy and anonymity. Before we arranged an
interview, wherever possible, we met with each participant at a location they
chose, so that we could explain the research and establish some rapport. We
sought to avoid an intimidating process at the interview where participants
were being asked to tell relative strangers about personal and stressful experi-
ences. We undertook to send them progress reports and information about our
activities in disseminating their views, for example, copies of publications or
conference presentations.
 242 D’CRUZ AND GILLINGHAM

Recruitment and Sampling

Unlike most of the studies cited above (Dale 2004; Dumbrill 2006; Harris 2012;
Ghaffar, Manby, and Race 2012; Johnson and Sullivan 2008; Platt 2008), we were
unable to gain the approval and support of the key statutory child protection
organisation and affiliated/funded non-government organisations to recruit par-
ticipants. Although we had the support from practitioners and managers of the
Department of Human Services (DHS) regional office in our community, the DHS
Ethics Committee in their Head Office rejected our proposal. Within their ethical
and legal guidelines, we proposed that they might use their electronic database
to initiate contact on our behalf with families where an investigation had taken
place with no further involvement, advising these families about the research
and inviting them to make contact with us if they wished to participate.
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However, the Ethics Committee declined to assist, initially rejecting the

project on the grounds of methodology and our expertise. Although we
appealed against this decision, providing evidence of our previous research and
publications, we again received a refusal, this time as final. We were also
refused approval by non-government agencies that were affiliated/funded by
the DHS because they feared their funding would be compromised.
Organisational approval and support would have offered access to existing
databases with opportunities to recruit participants through ‘systematic’ (Dale
2004; Ghaffar, Manby, and Race 2012), ‘purposive’ (Johnson and Sullivan 2008;
Platt 2008) or ‘theoretical’ (Dumbrill 2006) sampling. Instead, we relied on
‘haphazard sampling’ (Neuman and Kreuger 2003, 209–210) through a poster
displayed at one non-government agency and an advertisement in a local, free
newspaper paid for by a small university grant. Haphazard sampling is associ-
ated with methodological caveats about the size and diversity of the group of
participants, and the claims that can be made. However, ‘systematic’ sampling
does not necessarily guarantee sample size and diversity: for example, Dale
(2004) and Dumbrill (2006) each with 18 participants, and Ghaffar, Manby, and
Race (2012) whose sample of 47 participants included a majority of mothers,
some fathers and three grandmothers.
Six adults responded to our advertisement, two of whom invited kin mem-
bers to participate: ‘Belinda’ invited her adult daughter ‘Bonnie’, and ‘Peter’
invited his wife ‘Fiona’. Two people responded to the poster, but one decided
not to proceed. The final number of participants was nine (see Table 1).
We are aware that ‘haphazard sampling’ (Neuman and Kreuger 2003,
209–210) involving self-selected participants can be problematic in regard to
participants’ perceptions of statutory services like child protection, as their
motivations may be questioned and the worth of their views thereby dis-
counted. However, our impression was that the participants’ main aim was
that, by telling about their experiences ‘others can get the help they need’,
rather than to complain about child protection services. Their commitment to
the research was also significant, in regard to their extensive preparations for
 IMPROVING CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES 243

Table 1. Participants.
Mothers who were reported to child protection services (Bonnie, Daisy, Greta) 3
Mothers who reported their male partners (husbands or intimate partners) for sexual 2
abuse of their daughters (Anna, Esme)
Grandparents concerned about the care of their grandchildren and who reported the 3
children’s mothers to child protection services (Belinda, Peter, Fiona)
A mother who had reported her teenage daughter to child protection services as an 1
out-of-control child, and then reported her daughter due to concerns about care
of her baby son (Cindy)

the interviews. Some brought notes and one gave the researchers a detailed
written chronology of her involvement with child protection services.
Unlike other studies that have focused on particular groups of people who
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have been involved with child protection services, our ‘haphazard’ approach to
sampling meant that our participants represented a range of experiences:
mothers alleged to be responsible for child maltreatment, mothers who
reported male partners, concerned grandparents and a mother of a teenage
daughter who sought help. The number of participants was limited, but
the diversity of perspectives they represented was advantageous in what can
be considered as exploratory research.

Methods

The researchers jointly conducted the interviews in a private room at the uni-
versity, with lead and secondary roles planned before the interviews. We
began the in-depth interviews using an opening question/statement in the
form: ‘Would you please tell us about your experiences of child protection and
how it started’, to generate narratives. Drawing on our experiences as former
child welfare/protection practitioners, either researchers asked additional
questions in an ‘informal, conversational style’ (D’Cruz and Jones 2014, 113)
to explore further, the participants’ perceptions of what needs to change. The
interviews (90 min–2 h) were digitally recorded with consent and later tran-
scribed. Extensive handwritten notes were also taken. We sent each partici-
pant an electronic copy of their interview, except in one case where
unfortunately, the voice recorder malfunctioned. In that case, we sent word-
processed copies of handwritten notes taken during the interview. Belinda and
Bonnie (mother and daughter) were interviewed together at their request.
Peter and Fiona also participated in a single interview.

Data Analysis

The interview transcripts and our notes were read thoroughly. Because the pri-
mary purpose of the analysis was to identify themes to contribute to policy
 244 D’CRUZ AND GILLINGHAM

change, we generated analytic memos (Neuman and Kreuger 2003, 440–442)

with ‘an emphasis on what [participants] said rather than how it [was] said’
(Riessman 2004, in Bryman 2008, 553). These sections of the interviews were
collated into a Word file, along with the questions that were asked by inter-
viewers to give context to the responses from participants. The extracts were
read to identify particular themes. The themes were given a category that was
placed as a page header under which common themes and verbatim extracts
from the interviews were grouped, along with anonymised identifiers of partici-
pants and line numbers for easy attribution. The extracts were read again and
sub-themes identified and listed under the category heading. The extracts were
grouped under sub-theme headings so that particular responses could be related
to the emerging conceptual framework. Throughout the analysis, we have used
participants’ language and concepts as that is more evocative than our words.
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Parents’ and Grandparents’ Experiences of Child Protection

Investigation

Despite the diversity of the group, there was a central theme common to par-
ticipants’ perspectives: that ‘it was a domino effect: there are people with
lives at the end of all this’ (Belinda, Anna). This theme captures and crystallis-
es the participants’ views of why it is important that things need to change in
child protection services: that there were significant practical and relationship
repercussions in the lives of the families beyond the immediate investigation
or contact with child protection services. The sub-themes that participants’
raised (1) support within systemic complexity, (2) policies in practice, (3)
intervention processes and practices, (4) ‘it’s just a job to them’, suggested
the range of ways in which they were affected by and from the immediate
contact with child protection services, and that contributed to ‘the domino
effect’ in their lives.

Support Within Systemic Complexity

We have used the concept, ‘support within systemic complexity’, to represent

participants’ views about (1) the need for support and help, and (2) extensive
processes and paperwork related to the legal system which underpins child
protection policy and practice.

Support and Help

Nearly all participants whether as mothers caring for children (Anna, Esme,
Bonnie, Greta, Cindy), or grandparents on behalf of mothers caring for children
(Peter and Fiona) argued that support and help were necessary.
 IMPROVING CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES 245

For Anna and Esme who reported men sexually abusing their daughters:

… ongoing support for as long as it’s needed is vital. And I think if support is
given earlier on and they are shown to be believed … (Anna)

… I think they should have found us somewhere to stay. Even if it was just for
the interim, just somewhere we were safe and we were not relying on other
people because friendships can become strained through this sort of thing …
(Anna)

… I understand that … once the Family Law Court is mentioned to DHS [Depart-
ment of Human Services], DHS just go we don’t want to know and walk away …
(Esme)

For grandparents Peter and Fiona, instead of the child protection worker being
a ‘buddy’ to Elaine’s mother, Mary, she
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… should have organised family support’, ‘domestic support to organize the

household’, ‘practical support’, ‘nutrition advice’, ‘opportunities to increase
parenting skills’, ‘a family conference’.

Greta who had been reported to DHS, had two different experiences of ‘help’,
neither of which seemed to be satisfactory:

They offered a bit of help but I didn’t really feel like I needed like twenty peo-
ple and having to tell the same story, you know, the kids telling the same story
to twenty different people.

On the other hand, Greta did find that because

… they didn’t do much, it was not as bad as I thought it would be, because I
was thinking are they going to be here every day. … They pretty much left me
alone.

Bonnie, whose mother Belinda reported her concerns to DHS, replied to our
question about what she would like to tell child protection workers:

… actually showing things that I did do right and things I didn’t do right and
they show me what I have to do. They tell me if I done something wrong and I
said yes fair enough, I’ll do it the way they did it.

For Cindy, who was seeking help to ‘manage’ her teenage daughter Alice,

… the first time I rang them they were fantastic on the phone but then nothing
beyond that. What is the next step … there is no next step.

… the police were quite good … but they would only give you a bit of advice.

Cindy was seeking ‘a helping hand’ in the form of ‘an authority, to get [her
daughter] back on track’. She wanted fairly strong, direct action that she
described in an example where she contacted ‘community policing’ when her
daughter was 14 and was at a party where there were ‘24 year old guys’ and
 246 D’CRUZ AND GILLINGHAM

‘alcohol’. Cindy challenged the police view that ‘there’s nothing we can do’,
by telling them to ‘knock on the door and scare the hell out of these boys’.
Cindy also wanted some sort of self-help support group, ‘for people not to
be alone, not to be isolated and hear what other parents are doing …’ She also
felt that ‘the girl’ [child protection worker] who had initially assisted her when
her daughter was a teenager was ‘fantastic’, as she had ‘spent a long time,
probably twenty minutes … saying, that happens quite a lot, you are not
alone’. Although she was also assured that ‘with most kids it is a temporary
thing’, she believed that ‘with Alice it is not …’, hence the desire for ‘an
authority’ described above.

‘We got caught up in the paperwork’: The Legal System

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‘We got caught up in the paperwork’ is a quote that captures the entangle-
ment in the legal processes and procedures that dominated participants’ lives.
Everything that happened to them during the child protection investigation
and afterwards and what they were required to do was framed within the legal
system. Participants found the processes complex, confusing, protracted,
extremely daunting and pointless. They also found the legalistic nature of the
process destructive of family relationships, when all they were seeking was
help to attend to problems in the care of their children or grandchildren that
they believed were beyond their own capacity.
Anna expressed her frustration with the complexities of restraining orders
and their effects on families:

… I just felt that we got caught up in the paperwork. You know a restraining
order, if we’re expected to go to court and get a restraining order against
these people and they’re not served and … that has got to change. … (emphasis
added)

For Belinda, the protracted legal process was frustrating and time-consuming
before her granddaughter Kate was placed in foster care:

… Going back to court every three months was a pain in the neck. And it should
have been finalized, had it not been for the solicitor who had an argument. It
should have been finalized I think about twelve months before. … And that was
partly because he and I had an argument on the phone. They had forgotten
that this was about a baby and needed a safe place. He was about signing for
money for legal aid. But it just seemed that nobody was there for the baby for
a while when I just said this has got to stop … (emphasis added)

Daisy’s understanding about court processes affecting her suggested a great

deal of confusion, that required the researchers to tease out the facts of the
intervention, drawing on their own professional knowledge of the child protec-
tion system:
 IMPROVING CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES 247

Researcher 2: then DHS decided to take you to the Children’s Court,

because there was no Family Law Court anymore.
Daisy: yes. Why I think they were the bit slack I think they
thought we’ve got so much work to do that it is in the
lap of Family Court. … they can take care of it, with
the intervention order and the Family Court order
against me.
Researcher 2: they can’t intervene if the Family Law Court is involved
unless there are very exceptional circumstances.

For Cindy, the help available to ‘manage’ her teenage daughter’s behaviour,
and later, her daughter’s care of her infant son, did not really seem like ‘child
protection’.

… I see child protection as a legal body. Like they do you know legal stuff basi-
cally they don’t do case management, really, do they, … child protection? They
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do legal stuff and so now I am doing legal stuff. … (emphasis added)

… I just didn’t want my daughter on the streets so I wanted to prevent that … I

think she still struggles and I can’t help her anymore. Maybe I never did but. I
just think it’s sad as well that I have probably lost her. Because of the court
stuff I don’t think it can never return from that. … (emphasis added)

Peter and Fiona as grandparents believed that the system is

… All too legalistic. Nothing about the rights of children to maintain relation-
ships—should be a CP issue that they do something about.

Policies in Practice

This category encapsulates fundamental policy and legal tensions underlying

child protection practice, that of attending to the child’s best interests as an
individual in need of care and protection and that of the family’s interest in
the child and the child’s relationship to family and kin.
Belinda, Peter and Fiona, and Cindy, all grandparents concerned about the
care of their grandchildren, were most forthcoming about these tensions, par-
ticularly as they disagreed with a seemingly preferred policy of ‘keeping the
family together’. They also believed that a related policy about parental rights
to privacy was not in the child’s best interests.

… I suppose not dithered as much … keeping the family together and they
should have had more emphasis on what was best for the baby. I just
remember at one stage Kate ended up in hospital for a week because she
was not flourishing … she was only a tiny tot, just a baby. So she ended up
in hospital for about ten days. So you can’t keep doing that all of the time.
The baby is paying the price for that stupidity … (Belinda) (emphasis
added)

… Parental rights of privacy over-riding children’s rights. … while at the same

time, it is not OK for grandparents to receive any information about what
might be happening yet they are closest to the child. … (Peter and Fiona)
 248 D’CRUZ AND GILLINGHAM

Peter and Fiona also believed that the emphasis on family maintenance tended
to err on the side of the parents, to the detriment of the child. In their view,
there were

… no consequences for mother throughout involvement with CP so she thinks

she can do whatever she likes. … [They] leave the perpetrator in charge
—family support as separate from protection dilutes authority to intervene.
What is Mary’s responsibility for her children? What are the consequences for
her lack of cooperation?

At the same time, Peter and Fiona said that the assumption by child protection
workers that the family as extended kin will have power to intervene, to offer
help, is unrealistic as this is seen by the parents as ‘interference’, and
resented or rejected.
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Peter and Fiona, and Cindy believed that while child protection services were
quick to ask what help concerned grandparents had offered to the child’s family,
they were less interested in involving grandparents in decisions about the ongo-
ing care of the children. They felt that they were not taken seriously and were
not given information about action being taken in safeguarding the children.

Researcher 2: you said that it would have been better if child protec-
tion had taken that role. What role did you expect them
to take? Can you explain a bit more?
Cindy: to validate my concerns I think, to have more of an
input into James’s needs I think.

However, while grandparents were actively involved in seeking DHS help in

ensuring the care of their grandchildren and were emphatic about ‘the child’s
best interests’, they also indicated a reluctance to become responsible by
default for the care of the children simply because they were seen as con-
cerned and competent adults, with formal protective and supportive services
regarded as unnecessary.

Intervention Processes and Practices

While professionals recognise the assessment and information gathering pro-

cess that is fundamental to ‘investigation’ of allegations, the participants also
identified an ‘information sharing’ process as essential to proper assessment.

Information Gathering: Investigation/Assessment

Participants, both as ‘reporters’ and ‘reported’, expressed the necessity for

constructing ‘the whole picture’ as part of a ‘history’ in the care of a child as
context when a report is made. Grandparents in particular, as reporters felt
that they were not properly consulted about their particular knowledge and
 IMPROVING CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES 249

that ‘different stories’ meant that their view could be dismissed rather than
properly investigated.

Proper procedures … CP [child protection] should interview the people who are
making the complaint. Only had one phone conversation with CP about this
—they are best placed to know what is happening to the child. … the mother
tells a different story. (Peter and Fiona)

Professional arrogance – CP could have found out relevant information of net-

work as ‘precautionary action’ being taken. Professional arrogance that they
can better assess a situation than those intimate with it: ‘you have not inter-
viewed me or the school’. [It is] ‘not our responsibility’. (Peter and Fiona)

… One of the reports, there is a long history here, at one time I sought their
support when Alice was ill and I had to take yet another week off work to look
after James … So they would not take the whole picture into consideration
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—child protection … (Cindy) (emphasis added)

Greta, a mother who was reported to child protection, responded to our ques-
tion about ‘… what sorts of things people could learn from your experience,
what sorts of things would you say? How could things be better?’

I just think my whole situation could have been handled different, I don’t know
how different, but not even to investigate anything, even come and get my
side of the story and just leaving me hang. I was an excellent mother. My kids
were my whole life and just to take them away from me like that put them in
the hands of the arsehole and for them to sit down and talk for ten minutes
and know that he is good for my kids. I think there needs to be a better inves-
tigation into whether the kids …

… they didn’t come and talk to me to get his history or get anything. …
nothing. (emphasis added)

Information Sharing: ‘Nobody knows the whole thing’

Participants expected that if they made a referral as persons intimately con-

cerned, they would then be given information in return about the outcomes of
their reports and what decisions were made about the child’s ongoing care.
The importance to participants of being told what is going on at all stages
of the process was stated by those reporting incidents and those being
reported.

Researcher 2: just to clarify DHS made some promises …

Anna: yes they did. Up until they discovered that Susan was
not physically harmed those promises were in place. It
was only when they discovered that Susan was not physi-
cally harmed that they changed their minds—well we
did not hear from them. … And I did try to call them
many times to find out what was going on and I got the
same response- it’s a police matter none of your busi-
 250 D’CRUZ AND GILLINGHAM

ness, be grateful she is still alive blah blah. (emphasis

added)

Being fully informed validated the participants who had expressed concerns
about the care of children who were related to them. Participants felt listened
to. However, they were aware that different people were told different things
so that ‘nobody knows the whole thing’. The official, legal concern for confi-
dentiality and privacy was less important to participants than the building of
‘the whole picture’ of what was going on in relation to the child.

Parental right of privacy. Not OK for grandparents to receive any information

about what might be happening yet they are closest to the child. Family mem-
bers and people making referrals do not get feedback on action taken by DHS,
not consulted or interviewed in an investigation. (Peter and Fiona)
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Cindy: so why did they not refer to Family First? Why did no
one case manage Alice? Because there doesn’t need to
be a child protection order. Why was something else
not done or suggested? It might have been but Alice
might have said No.
Researcher 2: you would not know that though.
Cindy: No.
Researcher 2: because they would not tell you.
Cindy: No.

Some participants mentioned informal means of finding out what they were not
told officially, for example, through ‘the grapevine’ or mutual sharing of infor-
mation between interested parties, for example, grandparents and foster carers.

… you don’t learn a lot of things with DHS. They tell you what they want you
to know. Because when I compared notes with the foster mother later she
knew things that I didn’t and I knew things that she didn’t. And we both should
have been in the mix and we both should have known. (Belinda) (emphasis
added)

… put all the facts on the table and to have a discussion on is this best for the
child being in the family or is this just going to repeat itself … (Belinda)

[…] And maybe they all get together and discuss things instead of one knowing
this and that and another knowing this and that. So that nobody knows the
whole thing. (Belinda) (emphasis added)

‘It’s just a job to them’

This category of what needs to change not only encapsulates the problems of
process and purpose that the participants expressed, but also is the flip side of
the central theme, that of ‘people with lives at the end of all of this’.
 IMPROVING CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES 251

[…] I just think that their way of reacting that it was 9 to 5 and we did the job
and we don’t think about it. (Belinda) (emphasis added)

… a little bit of compassion would not go astray. […] I think they need to sort
of treat people as people, not as a case file number. And I know that it’s diffi-
cult but if they just think occasionally it’s a person and there are people with
lives at the end of all of this. (Belinda) (emphasis added)

On being asked how things could be better, Greta said,

… it couldn’t be worse … Maybe more human because they don’t seem to have
any sort of feelings about anything. It is just so robotic. They have got no con-
nection to the people. It is like they don’t understand life. I don’t know where
they come from. Yeah I don’t know. (Greta) (emphasis added)

In keeping with an expectations of common courtesy and natural justice, Esme

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who reported her husband for alleged sexual abuse of their daughter, and
Daisy, a mother who was reported to DHS, suggested that the assessment/
investigation process ought to have ‘an option of taped interviews’, and/or for
parents to be able ‘to receive a photocopy of contemporaneous notes’. Daisy
also believed that parents should be able to view any other professional’s
notes, for example, the child health nurse, and that a phone call before a
home visit would be appreciated.

‘I would not like the job’: Complexity and Difficulty of the Job

While participants expressed their dissatisfaction and displeasure with the pro-
cedures and processes in child protection, they also acknowledged that the job
as a child protection worker was complex, difficult and stressful. There was a
perceived gap between ‘rhetoric’ and ‘resources’.

… DHS don’t justify why they are no longer involved. Best interests of the child
does not match their behaviour. … (Peter and Fiona) (emphasis added)

Participants perceived the workers as often young and inexperienced with

human limitations, trying to meet apparently contradictory policy agendas,
such as ‘keeping the family together’ and ‘the child’s best interests’. Another
contradictory expectation was that of maintaining confidentiality and privacy
of various parties with an interest, for example, parents, children, grandpar-
ents, foster carers, practitioners from various organisations and reporters to
child protection authorities. At the same time, various parties wanted to know
all of what was happening in their case.

Researcher 1: well I suppose sometimes the policy about keeping

families together has become the thing that says this is
best for a child best for the baby … and workers can be
criticised for not removing or removing a child. …
 252 D’CRUZ AND GILLINGHAM

sometimes you can only go on hindsight as to whether

you have actually made the right decision.
Belinda: Yes. Yes I would not like the job … And let’s face it I
mean they are all humans so therefore and I think and I
have the feeling of times some of them were quite
young, the workers … I know they have to start some-
where but I don’t think they had enough experience to
be in that sort of job. It is a pretty stressful sort of job.
(emphasis added) […]
Researcher 1: I suppose sometimes it becomes a problem with confi-
dentiality, you know, what people are allowed to tell
other groups. Some people get together and tell each
other things and that is one thing sometimes people
think it is about protecting privacy.
Belinda: Yes. As I said I would not like the job. (emphasis
added)
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What Needs to Change?

This section has two strands, drawing on research discussed in the introduction,
that has sought parental perspectives of their experiences with child protection
services in two intersecting areas: (1) child protection processes and (2) quali-
ties and roles of professionals. First, we represent the participants’ perspec-
tives about ‘what needs to change?’ drawing on their experiential knowledge
and their responses to a specific question from us. Second, we reflect on how
these perspectives may inform and improve professional practice.

Representing Participants’ Perspectives

Despite the diverse group of participants, there are common perceptions that
support existing research findings and offer insights missing from literature
critical of contemporary child protection services, although some perceptions
are differentiated between parents and grandparents.
In terms of child protection processes, instead of expected complaints of
excessive intrusiveness (see Dale 2004), most participants considered that
practitioners interpreted their roles too narrowly within legal definitions of
harm to be properly helpful. By this they meant that the narrowly defined con-
struction of someone causing harm to a child limited practitioners’ broader
engagement, whether to offer help or explain a complex system, or even to
conduct an in-depth investigation of reported harm. Mothers who were
reported expressed views in keeping with Platt (2008, 313–314) and Harris
(2012, 187–188): they did not object to being investigated, but they have
criticised the lack of simple courtesy, due process and being kept informed.
Grandparents were more inclined to comment on policy tensions related to the
child and family’s interests, especially where they were concerned about the
care being provided by mothers of young children.
 IMPROVING CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES 253

Finally, while participants were critical of the lack of humanity in how

services are provided, most of them recognised the complexities and difficulties
of doing child protection work. Their nuanced understanding suggests that they
were not objecting to child protection intervention per se or not getting what
they wanted, but to the processes by which they were engaged (or not) by prac-
titioners. This perception was encapsulated in the metaphor of ‘a domino effect’
with effects on ‘people’s lives’. Drawing on the childhood game of dominoes
that are lined up and topple sequentially as one domino falls, one participant’s
metaphor captured other participants’ concerns that practitioners need to
appreciate that the quality of their relationships with service users has implica-
tions for family members beyond the immediate child protection focus on those
who are reported, those doing the reporting and the children of concern.
Participants’ recommended changes are summarised in Table 2.
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Implications for Professional Practice

Clearly, no firm recommendations can be made based on the findings of this

research due to the diversity of the group. However, despite the diversity of
the group, there were shared themes that prompt us to make the following
suggestions that relate to the second area: the qualities and roles of profes-
sionals. The central theme captured as ‘a domino effect’ highlighted the
necessity for high-quality relationships between child protection workers and
family members, particularly within a complex legalistic and procedurally dri-
ven system that had significant consequences for children, parents/carers and
kin. Most literature critiquing child protection practice recommends employ-
ment of social workers with appropriate professional ethics and practice skills,
rather than technicians who are expected to follow procedures (see Munro,
2011). Our findings add to this existing literature in the following ways.
First, child protection services need to be re-professionalised by employing
social workers. This aspect of child protection practice is recognised in child
protection jurisdictions in most of the Anglophone world (such as Canada, most
states in the USA, Great Britain and New Zealand) which only recruit qualified
social workers for child protection positions. However, Australian State and
Territory governments (except South Australia) will accept a wide range of
degree-level qualifications that frequently do not provide any preparation for
working with children and families. In light of our findings, a specific recom-
mendation for Australian child protection jurisdictions is that, as a prerequisite
to improving professional relationships with service users, the standard of quali-
fication required for employment as a child protection practitioner be raised.
Secondly, that child protection practitioners maintain their professional values
and ethics especially that related to the quality of professional relationships
with service users (children, parents and extended family), the characteristics
of which we have summarised above, citing Dale (2004); Ghaffar, Manby, and
Race (2012); Johnson and Sullivan (2008); Klease (2008); Platt (2008).
 254 D’CRUZ AND GILLINGHAM

Table 2. What needs to change? Participants’ recommendations.

 Provide practical and emotional support services even once the legal aspects of
the case are completed.
 Provide information about the outcome of the investigation (whether you are a
person who has been reported or have made a report), and what action is being
taken.
 Work within principles of natural justice and common courtesy that get lost in
legalistic approaches to investigation.
 Explain the complexities of the various legal institutions involved in child
protection, including the child protection organisation, family court, criminal
court, related legal and support services.
 Guide and support parents and grandparents through the complexities of the
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various legal institutions involved in child protection, including the child

protection organisation, family court, criminal court, related legal and support
services.
 Case management is preferred to legalistic approaches.
 Take extended family seriously for their ‘inside knowledge’ of what is
happening in the family and community in which the family is located.
 Involve extended family in discussions about planning for the child’s care and
protection and possible help they can provide.
 Ensure that extended family involvement does not amount to dumping of state
responsibility for the care and protection of children onto them, simply because
they are available and concerned persons.
 Ensure that child protection professionals understand appropriate ethical
conduct and recognise in their practice that ‘there are people’s lives at the end
of this’.
 Explain and discuss policy complexities and the uncertainties, for example,
‘family maintenance and reunification’ or ‘out of home care’; confidentiality/
privacy and sharing of information widely.

However, we wish to extend the essentially interpersonal dynamic of profes-

sional–client relationships encapsulated in characteristics of such relationships,
to take account of the significant systemic changes for much social work prac-
tice, including in child protection, over the past 20 years. Contemporary prac-
tice that is legalistically framed has attracted scholarly critique (Douglas and
Walsh 2009; Harris 2012; Klease 2008) and was a significant issue identified by
the participants in this research, who felt ‘caught up in the legal system’ which
they struggled to understand and negotiate. Hence, while we fully endorse the
literature on the central importance of a social work professional relationship,
we wish to extend how this may take account of the contemporary emphasis on
legalistically framed practice as critiqued in the literature (Douglas and Walsh
2009; Harris 2012; Klease 2008) and supported by participants’ descriptions of
professional practice as legalistic.
 IMPROVING CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES 255

We recognise the current role of child protection practitioners as primarily

‘legislators’ (enforcing laws and regulations through proceduralised practice),
and suggest instead a professional role as ‘interpreters’ (to bridge and inter-
pret between the different ‘worlds’ of professional practice and family life)
(Bauman 1987, 4; D’Cruz 2004, 258–261). This is especially important to guide
children, parents and kin through the legal system that now contextualises
child protection practice, as well as the contradictions and ambiguities of poli-
cies that have to be negotiated in practice, so that ‘the system’ of which
social workers are a part does not violate service users’ rights to natural jus-
tice. Such practice would not preclude continuing to advocate for change from
heavily legalistic approaches to those that promote the broader well-being of
children in the care of their families and communities than punitive ‘protec-
tive’ and policing of families (Lonne et al. 2008).
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Our study is consistent with the literature arguing that it is possible to meet
obligations to ensure the care and protection of children while doing so in
ways that are not oppressive and regulatory of their parents and family mem-
bers. However, our study also shows that limited interventions due to narrowly
defined child protection mandates can be oppressive because apart from legal-
istic forms of investigation, no other help and support is available.
In keeping with the aims of exploratory research, the findings can be used
to inform both the nature and focus of future research with the recipients of
child protection services. For example, further research is required to explore
the organisational context for child protection practice, which, according to
our participants, appears to constrain the abilities of practitioners to provide
help and support in line with community expectations. Further research is
required that will more fully analyse what our participants found to be a com-
plex legal system which did not, at times, appear to prioritise the needs of
children over its own requirements for procedural justice. We need appropri-
ate ways of encouraging parents and extended family – and children – to par-
ticipate in research about events that directly are about families’ and
children’s daily lives and well-being. Lastly, our findings suggest that research
that goes beyond those most directly involved with child protection services,
such as mothers and children, to include grandparents and fathers, can provide
insights which, in an expanded project, could provide firm recommendations
for improving child protection.

Conclusions

This article has sought to represent the voices of a small group of parents and
grandparents who have either been reported to, or have reported family mem-
bers to child protection services. The article has advanced the recommendations
made by participants informed by their personal experiences of child protection
investigations, consistent with scholarly literature. These recommendations
challenge practitioners to reflect on the importance of the working relationships
 256 D’CRUZ AND GILLINGHAM

between practitioners and the close and extended family members of children.
More generally they provide stimulation and guidance for future research which
aims to contribute to the improvement of child protection services, using partic-
ipatory approaches to both research and practice.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge that Deakin University, Australia, provided

funding to support this research. A version of this article was presented at the
conference, Social Work Social Development 2012: Action and Impact,
Stockholm, Sweden, and submitted as a report to the Centre for Excellence in
Child and Family Welfare, Melbourne, Australia.
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Heather D’Cruz is an Honorary Fellow, Deakin University, and Consultant:

Research and Professional Education in Victoria, Australia. She has nearly 35
years’ experience, first in child and family welfare policy and practice, and
later, as a social work educator at five Australian universities. She has
authored and edited several scholarly texts and peer-reviewed journal articles.
Correspondence to: Heather D’Cruz, School of Health and Social Development,
Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria 3220, Australia. Email: hmdcruz@iprimus.
com.au

Philip Gillingham is a Senior Research Fellow at the School of Social Work and
Human Services, University of Queensland. He has extensive experience as a
child protection practitioner in the UK and in Australia. More recently, he has
been a social work educator at Deakin University and the University of
Queensland.