Paul Bywaters Coventry University Evidence Base Project 1: - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Child protection and children ‘looked- after’: The role of socio-economic inequalities Paul Bywaters Coventry University

Evidence Base

Project 1: Deprivation and Children’s Services’

• Outcomes. What can mapping Looked After Children

and children on Child Protection Plans tell us? 2013-14. Nuffield Foundation. Project 2: Identifying and Understanding Inequalities in Child Welfare Intervention Rates. 2015-17. Nuffield Foundation. Project 3: Understanding the Relationship between Poverty and Child Abuse and Neglect. A literature

• review. Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Nuffield
• Foundation. 2015-16.

Looked After Children Rates in Wales and England 2015

2015 2015 Wales 89 England 60 Pembrokeshire 46 Wokingham 20 Ceredigion 62 Camden 43 Caerphilly 70 Newham 52 Denbighshire 83 Bury 69 Swansea 109 Coventry 79 Neath Port Talbot 156 Blackpool 158

Why do child welfare inequalities matter?

The economic argument The human rights argument The social justice argument

Inequities in Child Welfare

• 1. In who receives children’s services

interventions: chances

• 2. In how services respond: experiences
• 3. In childhood and adult outcomes

Do children’s services reflect, reproduce, reinforce or reduce social inequities?

Problems with the evidence

• 1. No data collected about family circumstances
• 2. No official data on incidence or prevalence of

maltreatment, have to use CPPs as proxy

• 3. No data at a level of geography below LA
• 4. Limited data on ethnicity

2 Studies

• 1. West Midlands study: 10% of all UK children;

13 LAs.

• 2. Four Nations Study (CWIP):

13% of English children in 18 LAs 100% of Welsh (22 LAs) and NI children (5 HSCBs) 50% of Scottish children (10 LAs)

4 key concepts

• 1. Relationship between social determinants

and intervention rates

• 2. Social gradient
• 3. Intersectionality
• 4. Inverse care law

Relationship between social determinants and intervention rates

Social gradient

Intersectionality

CIN, CPP and LAC Rates per 10,000 Children at 31.3.12 (Midlands Sample). White Mixed Asian Black Other All CIN 253.7 351.5 109.4 226.7 298.9 235.8 CPP 39.5 62.9 21.6 34.1 37.7 37.7 LAC 64.4 122.7 17.7 71.9 51.6 60.5

Distribution of Child Population by Ethnic Group

Table 7: Percentage of West Midlands children aged 0-17 by ethnic category and deprivation quintile (5 is most deprived). Quintile 1 2 3 4 5 N WBRI 15.3 19.9 18.3 19.3 27.2 824553 MWBC 4.9 12.8 11.4 18.6 57.6 35204 MWBA 6.8 21.8 11.5 18.9 51.6 4845 MWAS 10.1 26.9 13.6 17.8 46.1 18224 MOTH 8.1 18.3 12.3 17.8 52.2 10938 AIND 8.8 23.0 15.3 19.0 46.3 49772 APKN 1.5 2.9 5.6 12.3 78.3 89318 ABAN 1.4 2.2 4.5 8.0 84.3 22016 AOTH 4.6 10.1 10.0 17.7 61.5 22031 BAFR 1.7 3.7 5.5 12.1 77.8 22978 BCRB 1.5 4.7 8.2 14.4 72.4 17210 BOTH 1.2 2.8 5.1 11.8 79.7 12355

Intersectionality: Broad Categories

Table 10: West Midlands LAC rates (per 10000 children) overall and by ethnic category in the most disadvantaged quintile (Q5) Numb er of Childre n on LACs LAC Rate Overall LAC Rate All Q5 White LAC Rate Q5 Mixed LAC Rate Q5 Asian LAC Rate Q5 Black LAC Rate Q5 All West Midlands Sample 7138 60.5 91.2 122.1 N=2893 159.6 N=589 20.8 N=260 78.3 N=310

Intersectionality: Multiple Categories

Table 12: LAC Rates by Ethnic Category and Deprivation Quintile, where the number of children is greater than 10. 1 2 3 4 5 All N = WBRI 17.6 26.1 44.7 76.6 125.4 64.9 5355 MWBC 69.1 57.4 111.3 126.1 107.4 378 MWBA 164.1 84.0 86.7 42 MWAS 64.5 77.3 204.7 124.0 226 MOTH 124.4 96.5 179.9 245.0 185.6 203 AIND 10.6 14.3 10.4 52 APKN 11.9 20.9 18.8 168 ABAN 21.0 20.4 45 AOTH 46.3 31.0 30.9 68 BCRB 72.9 172.4 142.9 246 BAFR 50.5 39.1 40.5 93 ALL 17.9 26.7 42.7 69.4 91.2 60.5 7138

Inverse Intervention Law

Overall a child’s chances of an extreme child welfare intervention is much greater at higher levels of deprivation. But for any given level of neighbourhood deprivation, a child in a local authority with low overall deprivation is more likely to be on a CPP or to be a looked after child than a child in an equivalent neighbourhood in a very deprived local authority.

Inverse Intervention Law

Impact of IIL: Comparison of two LAs

County County actual numbers, 2012 sample Projected with Borough Rates Difference % Difference CPP 525 143

• 382
• 72.7

LAC 605 333

• 272
• 44.9

Total 1130 477

• 653
• 57.8

Impact of Inverse Intervention Law: comparison of two LAs, funding.

Expenditure per head, All 0-17, £, 2015 % of all aged 0-17 living in Quintile 5, 2014 Borough 822 55.1 County 537 3.8

Intervention rate model

Key question

Are higher rates or lower rates better for children?

Does poverty cause child abuse and neglect? Can social workers do anything about family income and wealth?

Implications of an inequalities perspective

• 1. Data
• 2. Policy
• 3. Finances
• 4. Locus and focus of services
• 5. Practice
• 6. Inspection
• 7. Training
• 8. Research

To join the Child Welfare Inequalities Network

• n jiscmail go to

www.jiscmail.ac.uk/childwelfareinequalities To become a stakeholder in the Child Welfare Inequalities Project contact Sophie Blackmore ac0672@coventry.ac.uk

References

Bywaters, P., Bunting, L. , Davidson, G. , Hanratty,J. , Mason, W. , McCartan, C. and Steils, N. (2016) The relationship between poverty, child abuse and neglect: an evidence review. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation. https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/relationship-between-poverty-child-abuse- and-neglect-evidence-review Bywaters, P., Brady, G., Sparks, T., Bos, E., Bunting, L., Daniel, B., Featherstone, B., Morris, K. & Scourfield, J. (2015) Exploring inequities in child welfare and child protection services: explaining the ‘inverse intervention law’, Children and Youth Services Review, v. 57, October, pp. 98-105 doi: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2015.07.017 Bywaters, P. (2015) Cumulative jeopardy? A response to Brown and Ward. Children and Youth Services Review, online, doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2015.03.001 Bywaters, P. (2015) Inequalities in child welfare: towards a new policy, research and action agenda. British Journal of Social Work, 45 (1): 6-23 doi:10.1093/bjsw/bct079 Bywaters, P., Brady, G., Sparks, T., and Bos, E. (2014) Inequalities in child welfare intervention rates: the intersection of deprivation and identity, Child and Family Social Work, doi:10.1111/cfs.12161 Bywaters, P., Brady, G., Sparks, T., and Bos, E. (2014) Child welfare inequalities: new evidence, further questions, Child and Family Social Work, doi:10.1111/cfs.12154