Critical reflections on communicating with children: Making the tactics of training and intervention in child protection explicit

Abstract

AbstractIn this paper I explore current understandings about child abuse and child protection in order to contribute to the on-going development of critical frameworks for assessment, intervention and training. My aim is to critically advance current statutory approaches to child protection that locate children’s needs within their specific family and environmental context in order to promote child-centred, empowerment and partnership-based practices. Through describing some key elements of a training programme aimed at enhancing practitioners’ communication with children in need, I demonstrate how communication and understanding are enhanced through being specific. I illustrate the practical benefits of making the various behavioural, intellectual and emotional processes of assessment and intervention open and transparent. I argue that more sensitive approaches to assessment and intervention are enabled through addressing both explicit factors associated with the child and implicit factors associated with the worker. A social constructionist framework is drawn on to explicate the multiple factors that shape our understandings about child abuse, child welfare and communication in respect of these issues. The paper demonstrates the benefits of adopting a more socially complete and reflexive approach to understanding child abuse and the processes involved in child protection.