Children at Risk of Harm and Child Protective Services

For the purpose of this assignment the focus will be on children and young people who are placed on the Child Protection Register and the Integrated Children’s Computer System. It will look at the current legal, social and policy framework for the child protection register and the integrated children’s computer system and provide an analytical review on how they have been developed. Included for each of these three areas will be an evaluation of how and why they have evolved to contain a higher contribution from the service-user and carer and the effect these have had on the delivery of anti-oppressive services to a diverse range of individuals and service-user groups.
A child protection register is a confidential list of all children in an area who have been identified at a child protection conference as being at significant risk of harm (Parliament, 2012, section 30). The integrated children’s computer system is a computer-based framework used when assessing a child’s needs. It comprises three key elements a framework for assessment, a set of data requirements for children’s services and examples of case records that can be used to help practitioners and local authorities. According to National Statistics (2013) ‘The number of children becoming the subject of a child protection plan has continued to increase although at a slower rate than previous years. 52,700 children became the subject of a plan in 2013, a small increase of 1.1% on 2012’ and so would be on the integrated children’s computer system.
The field of child and family social work has been transformed over a number years. These changes have come about because of public perception, pressure and support groups, serious case reviews and revisions in government policy, w...

... middle of paper ...

... abandoned and to revert back to the child protection register and paper based files. Overtime, hopefully the system will become less complicated and the time it consumes will be decreased. The future could see other professionals like accident and emergency departments of hospitals accessing part of the database to help doctors and nurses identify children who are suffering from abuse or neglect and evade events such as that of Baby Peter. However, this could lead to innocent people being accused as these professionals will not have the same skills or expertise as the social worker. As time progresses and the integrated children’s computer system becomes more known within society then the original shame of the child protection register could return for those families in need of support. Only the passage of time will reveal the long term future of the new system.