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NEGLECT
Neglect – 1 or 2 day course.
This course is available for qualified
practitioners as a Two-Day course or as multi-agency LSCB training
one-day option.
The Bridge
Consultancy Definition of Neglect:
“The
persistent failure to meet a child’s developmental needs by omitting basic
parenting tasks and responsibilities in spite of parents having the economic
resources to meet these needs at a basic level.”
Neglect
can be and often is the most serious form of child abuse.
However, unless coupled with some other abusive incident (most usually
physical but sometimes sexual) it is notorious for being the subject of casework
“drift”. Neglect suffers a similar fate to the assessment of emotional
abuse. People tend to agree that it is present but because the negative
“risk” (e.g. unacceptable significant harm) is not going to appear next
week, next month, or even next year, provision of “support” continues and
nothing actually changes very much.
Neglect is often concomitant with emotional
harm. Emotional harm often takes between 3 and 7 years before it shows as
“significant harm” (e.g. oppositional defiance disorder, conduct disorder,
aggression, violence, criminal offending, early stages of mental ill health). In
the case of Neglect, the research shows that by the time the child is aged 5,
every single one of the developmental dimensions can be markedly impaired to the
point of Global Developmental Delay. What
is worse is that this impairment tends to be permanent. The child can never recover its
potential and its “life chances” remain diminished forever.
The course involves the application of
detailed Osiris Risk Assessment Tools to "live" cases (cases held by
participants). These Tools will not work with one dimensional Trainer
constructed "case scenarios".
Some Key Feature to consider in Neglect
cases:
- Research
shows that children neglected during the first 5 years of life are likely to
have ALL facets of development impaired. Compare this with the our Note on
“emotional abuse” and age 3 being the upper limit on radically improving
outcomes. Neglect often involves emotional harm and what the age 5 neglect
research finding is showing is that by this age the level of harm done to
all aspects of child development is irrecoverable.
- Neglecting
parents show repeated failure to attend to the physical and developmental
needs of children, to provide warm clothing, nutritional food and consistent
quality of care, including attending to medical needs.
- Neglected
children often are “failure to thrive” children and often appear
malnourished and suffer constant colds and other such ailments.
- Neglect
is not “single incident” abuse – it is the repetition of neglecting
parental behaviour which causes incremental damage to child development. It
is often the case that what you see today is the same as what you will see
tomorrow. As in the case of emotional harm the damage done is cumulative.
- Instances
of neglectful behaviour can occur in any family – from families exhibiting
excellent parenting skills through to the grossly inadequate.
- The
issue of Neglect should be approached not from an adult perspective focusing
on acts of omission or commission by parents, but through a child centred
– IMPACT ON THE CHILD perspective in terms of the child’s unmet
developmental needs. This must also take into account future projection -
what will the impact be months, 1 year, 2 years, 4 years and so on down the
line right up to adulthood.
- The
benchmark testing of judgement re Neglect should be centred on the needs and
rights of the child in terms of the child’s normal (or comparative
optimised development – the “similar child” test of Section 31
Children Act - and this should also apply in the case of disabled children)
development. This should be measured along the Assessment Framework Child
Development dimensions.
- In
a case of suspected possible neglect, the concept should be framed as a
hypothesis open to DISPROOF (to avoid confirmation error - see Osiris Error
Theory course)
- It
is vital to obtain a threshold BASELINING (the "now" set of
outcomes) of corroborated facts re the child’s development along the
Framework childhood developmental dimensions.
- It
is critical to adopt and practice an effective method of framing outcomes
(including the baseline outcome – what is happening now) which are
publicly accessible and testable. It is vital that ALL agencies use the same
method of framing outcomes. A model for outcome baselining (where is the
child now?) and for
specifying the future which is testable and verifiable – the Well-Formed
Outcome Model. See Osiris course on Outcomes.
- A
multi-agency approach is essential – differences of opinion and judgement
must be tested against the observed and agreed facts.
- Both
unwarranted optimism and “case drift” bedevil working with neglect
cases. Assessment and Intervention Timescales must be set at an early stage.
The Analysis of information has to be of top rate quality. See Osiris Analysis
and Assessment course.
- Practitioners
need to fully understand both the time and impact dimensions of risk –
both neglect and emotional harm result in long-term serious harm which is
not fully recoverable. A broken arm mends quite quickly; neurological harm
caused in the first 2 years of life does not mend. In the longer run,
serious neglect and serious emotional harm are (leaving aside death or
disabling injury) the most serious forms of child abuse resulting in massive
personal and societal costs.
- Measuring
the effects of intervention (outcome setting at the assessment stage) is
vital, whether the intervention is material (new fridge leads / does not
lead to observably better nutrition) or therapeutic in terms of parental
behaviour.
- Assessing
Motivation and Cooperation. Often neglected or confused and especially in
neglect cases. The two do NOT mean
the same.
See our Motivating Motivation
training.
 
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