National Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty To Children Research Articles

A thematic analysis of the involvement of children and families in Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews in England

AbstractThe need to involve children and families in Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews (CSPRs) is set out within the current statutory guidance. However, there remains limited guidance that sets out how this should be done and the available research indicates that children and families are often excluded or choose not to be involved. The aim of this study was to explore how children and families are currently being involved in CSPRs in order to support the development of best practice approaches. The study was conducted by undertaking a thematic analysis of the involvement of children and families in the CSPRs published on the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) repository since the implementation of the guidance in 2018. The analyses identified four themes: ‘reports do not mention family involvement’, ‘children and families were excluded’, ‘children and families were invited but were not involved’ and ‘children and families were invited and at least one member was involved’. The study concludes that there is a necessity for clearer guidance regarding how, when and who will engage with the children and families, taking an individualised approach that offers flexibility, provides support and addresses trauma.

Sympathy Education and the NSPCC’s League of Pity, 1891–1913

ABSTRACT This article assesses the evolving dimensions of sympathy education in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It focuses on the League of Pity, the juvenile branch organisation of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). In its early years the League sought to emphasise Christian service and self-denial, and aimed to help poor victims of abuse become useful members of society. After the turn of the twentieth century, however, images and descriptions of suffering children featured in its propaganda less frequently; they were increasingly supplanted by reports of the various fundraising events attended by League members. The NSPCC sought to promote a sense of community between the League’s children and those whom it helped, but there was little real connection across the gulf that separated them. The League of Pity was an imagined community, despite its successes as an organised philanthropic offshoot of the NSPCC.

Offenders' approaches to overcoming victim resistance in technology-assisted child sexual abuse

BackgroundPerpetrators of technology-assisted abuse use an abundance of strategies to manipulate and sexually abuse children online, however victim resistance during and post abuse has yet to be explored in detail. ObjectiveThis study aimed to explore the strategies perpetrators use to overcome direct victim resistance and the strategies victims use to resist perpetrators' demands. Participants and settingThe sample was recruited through Childline, National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP). This consisted of 10 semi-structured interview transcripts of 1 male and 9 female victims of technology-assisted sexual abuse, who were aged between 9 and 15 years old at the time of the abuse (M = 13.09, SD = 2.0). MethodThis study qualitatively analysed secondary data collected by Hamilton-Giachritsis et al. (2020). The interview transcripts were analysed using a thematic analysis. ResultsThe thematic map consisted of two key themes and six sub-themes. Results identified how all perpetrators appeared to adapt their strategies of overcoming victim resistance using a variety of approaches. These ranged from isolating victims and depriving them of sleep, to more extreme approaches such as threats to share sexual images of the victims. Victims also used a range of strategies to resist and de-escalate the abuse, such as feigning ignorance and complying with some but not all requests. ConclusionsThis study identified the key strategies used by offenders to overcome victim resistance, and the strategies young people used to resist, de-escalate and end the abuse.

Editor's Introduction

Editor's Introduction Linda Mahood The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth (JHCY) explores the development of childhood and youth cultures and the experiences of young people across diverse times and places. We are keen to publish original articles that embrace novel historical methodologies as well as interdisciplinary scholarship that shares a historical focus on children and young people. Many issues also include an "object lesson" on the material culture of childhood, contemporary policy pieces, and reviews of books. This issue begins with Shurlee Swain's "An Imperial Mission? The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and the International Dissemination of Ideas around Child Protection prior to World War I." Swain traces the transmission of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), dissemination of their ideas throughout the colonies, and the factors that led to the success, failure, or local adaptation of the NSPCC's child-saving mission. She shows that within ten years of its foundation, the NSPCC was reporting on kindred societies in India, South Africa, New Zealand, and several of the Australian colonies, although none was able to completely replicate the original model. The next three articles deal with political and missionary movements. In her article, "Better Off with 'Their Own People': Basque Refugee Children, Catholic Anti-Communism, and the Geopolitics of Compassion in FDR's America," Anita Casavantes Bradford details how, in 1937, at the height of the Spanish Civil War, the autonomous Basque government organized the evacuation of 25,000 endangered Basque children. At the same time, American anti-fascists launched a program to bring Basque refugee children to the United States. Opposed by a restrictionist State Department and powerful anti-communist Catholic leaders, they were ultimately unsuccessful. Bradford argues that close examination of the failed program reveals how foreign policy and domestic political interests have long interacted with changing notions of race and religion to determine which unaccompanied children were seen as deserving of asylum in the United States. Divya Kannan's article focuses on children in India and [End Page 185] how missionary literature for young British readers drew upon a hierarchy of colonial childhoods premised on racial differentiation. In "'Children's Work for Children': Caste, Childhood, and Missionary Philanthropy in Colonial India," Kannan states that in the colonial field, such literature colluded with existent dominant caste biases, perpetuated through violent means. Kannan shows how Othering of low-caste children destabilized missionary notions of sentimentalized childhood even as periodical literature represented them as objects of pity. These children were not "voiceless victims," but their lived realities impinged on missionary practices and literary representations. In "Celebrating Violence? Children, Youth, and War Education in Maoist China (1949–1976)," Orna Naftali looks at the role of children's education in the creation of Chinese war culture in the Mao era (1949–1976). Analyzing school textbooks as well as pedagogical and media publications, Naftali highlights the existence of competing visions of children's roles in military violence. The findings challenge the thesis that childhood in Maoist China was ultra-militarized and the assumption that during the Cold War era, countries on different sides of the divide held starkly contrasting notions of the young. The final two articles deal with children's relationship to the natural world. Chris Rasmussen looks at the Children's International Summer Villages (CISV). His article, "A Whole Network of Friends: Doris Twitchell Allen's Children's International Summer Villages and American Peacemaking in the Cold War," examines a post–World War II effort to harness applied psychological expertise for the cause of world peace. Psychologist Doris Twitchell Allen believed that the American summer camp had the potential to break down national barriers and unite eleven-year-olds in "friendships without frontiers." The ambitious vision to engineer a lasting peace was characteristic of postwar psychology, and the history of the early CISV demonstrates how the Cold War made it an impossible goal. Finally, Joe Goddard examines three mid-twentieth-century Walt Disney short cartoons. His article, entitled "Celluloid Cityscapes: Kids, Cars, and Cartoons in the United States, 1938–1965," argues that initially, Disney cartoons were aimed at a mixed adult and child audience, but over...

An intervention to improve the quality of life in children of parents with serious mental illness: the Young SMILES feasibility RCT.

An intervention to improve the quality of life in children of parents with serious mental illness: the Young SMILES feasibility RCT.

Children's missed healthcare appointments: professional and organisational responses

AimThis National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) funded UK study sought to examine organisational and professional responses to children's missed healthcare appointments.Design/methodsThe study comprised two parts:...

Self reported experiences of therapy following child sexual abuse: Messages from a retrospective survey of adult survivors

• Summary: This article explores retrospective accounts of childhood sexual abuse survivors’ experiences of therapeutic support received before the age of 18 in the United Kingdom. The survey formed part of a broad programme of research on therapeutic interventions for children affected by sexual abuse, by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) under the Rebuilding Childhoods programme. The primary aim of the survey was to explore what was helpful in young survivors’ experiences ( n= 299) of therapy to inform the development of a new NSPCC service. Of these 299 respondents (aged 18–35), only 52 reported receiving formal therapeutic provision following the abuse and this article relates to this smaller subset. • Findings: Respondents revealed that therapeutic factors such as therapist characteristics and interpersonal communication were crucial in informing their perceptions of therapy received. However, pre-therapy factors such as high level of need and unstable personal circumstances at the time of accessing support also influenced respondent ability to engage in the therapeutic process. Although the types of therapy accessed differed for respondents, there were common elements reported relating to therapist characteristics and skills which were important in determining respondent views. • Applications: The findings suggest that while there is no one-size-fits all approach, there are key characteristics of the relationship between child and therapist that must be considered and that assessment and on-going professional judgement is key to engaging children and maximising their therapeutic experiences. The findings also suggest the importance of listening to children’s preferences and keeping children informed.

Managerial Discourse, Child Safeguarding, and the Elimination of Virtue from In Loco Parentis Relationships: An Example from Music Education

In response to high-profile cases of child abuse and heightened public concern, the safeguarding agenda in England seeks to reform relationships between in loco parentis adults and children or young people across a range of settings, applying managerial methods to regulating conduct. Referring to material relevant to many such settings, this article considers the way in which the application of managerialism has imposed particular approaches to moral issues, specifically by reframing moral distinctions (e.g. ‘right’ and ‘wrong’) in terms of technical language and pro/prescriptions of practice. Policies and practices premised on the imperative that touch between adults and children should be avoided at all costs are considered in particular, and the managerial approach is contrasted with ideas derived from MacIntyre's account of practice based on virtue ethics. To exemplify these issues a video campaign, Keeping Children Safe in Music, devised and promoted by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) and the Musicians' Union, and one episode in particular, is analysed. The focus is on how moral (and musical) issues are sidelined and replaced by managerial and defensive instructions, based on the notion that children will be protected from harm if even well-intentioned adults avoid touching them.

‘Liable to Very Gross Abuse’: Murder, Moral Panic and Cultural Fears over Infant Life Insurance, 1875–1914

The belief that infant life insurance policies provided working-class parents with a direct incentive for the deliberate starvation and neglect of their children was widespread in late nineteenth-century Britain. Newspapers, medical periodicals and the newly formed National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) regularly claimed that, though almost impossible to prove, cases of lethal child abuse were endemic across the United Kingdom. These anxieties appear to have reached their zenith in the 1880s and 1890s, yet despite the regular (albeit not unchallenged) repetition of this claim in the press and before Parliament, actual cases of child homicide where it was alleged that infant life insurance had been the motivation for the crime seem to have been few and far between. Nor did critics of the practice ever succeed in banning it outright. By 1908 politicians felt able to assert that this idea was utterly without foundation, and the once persistently repeated rhetoric of malevolent wor...

Global points of ‘vulnerability’: understanding processes of the trafficking of children and young people into, within and out of the UK

Within the UK, trafficking of children and young people into, within and out of the country has become an increasingly important and debated issue over the past decade. Although not a new phenomenon, human trafficking has risen up the policy agendas of many countries since the end of the Cold War. This type of forced migration is inextricably linked to the promotion and protection of human rights – be they civil, political, social, economic or cultural rights – and as such it is important that the broader social processes involved are understood and researched by sociologists. This contribution draws upon qualitative research into practitioner responses to trafficking of children conducted by the University of Bedfordshire and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) in the UK. A key finding of this study was that trafficking of children is often viewed as a one-off ‘event’ by those who have a duty to care for children and young people. It is argued that viewing trafficking as a broader sociological process rather than an event enables a greater understanding of the environmental backgrounds of individual children and the human rights contexts within countries of origin as well as subsequent migration trajectories. It is suggested that this may lead to an enhanced ability to identify children as having been trafficked by those with a duty to care for children. The literature from the multidisciplinary fields of refugee studies and forced migration is drawn upon where applicable.

Practitioners’ views and experiences of participating in a school counselling evaluation study

AbstractIntroduction: This study documents and describes practitioners’ views and experiences of the process of implementing an ‘impact evaluation’ of the independent school counselling service provided by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) in Northern Ireland. Method: Data was gathered from practitioners (n=18) across the duration of the evaluation process; at the pre, mid and post implementation stages of the evaluation process. Data‐gathering methods included consultation focus groups, records of training meetings, minutes of strategic advisory group meetings, a practitioner internet based discussion board and a structured questionnaire. A thematic analysis was carried out using Nvivo software. Results: Practitioner reflections confirmed the evaluation process as challenging yet with considerable benefits for recognition, self‐reflection and practice development. Discussion: Recommendations for integrating outcome evaluation within school counselling practice are presented.

The contribution of group work programmes to early intervention and improving children’s emotional well‐being

Recent government policy has emphasised links between the acquisition of social skills by children and young people and their educational attainment. This study aims to fill a gap in the literature about the contribution of school‐based group work programmes to developing children’s social skills. National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) Children’s Services Practitioners ran four groups for a total of 38 Year Seven children from mixed ethnic backgrounds in two high schools in the North of England between 2004 and 2007, designed to improve children’s self‐esteem, social skills and behaviour. Parents were involved in identifying objectives and evaluating outcomes. The NSPCC’s aim was to deliver programmes jointly with non‐teaching staff and to train them to take responsibility for delivering future programmes. Pre‐intervention and post‐intervention Behaviour Rating Index for Children questionnaires identified small but significant improvements in teachers’ and parents’ assessments of children’s behaviour. Qualitative data referred to improvements in children’s self‐esteem. However, evaluation data showed that the groups struggled to cope with children with very disruptive behaviour, for whom a wider range of interventions and continuing support were required. Key variables included the quality of liaison between the NSPCC and school staff and the provision of suitable venues. Challenges included harmonising education and social work perspectives and expectations, and avoiding disruption to school curricula.

Your Shout! Looked After Children's Perspectives on the Children Act 1989

Ten years after the implementation of the Children Act 1989 in England and Wales, a review of how its main provisions were working out in practice was undertaken by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). This article reports on a survey of the views of 735 children and young people who were looked after by UK local authorities and discusses some of the implications for policy and practice as the Adoption and Children Act 2002 and the Children Act 2004 are in the early stages of implementation. Information was sought on children's involvement in court processes and care planning, on whether being in care helped these children to feel safe and on contact arrangements with family and with others who were important to them. The authors conclude that there is much support in the responses of these young people for the principles on which the Children Act 1989 is based. The authors also draw out implications for policy and practice.

Getting Closer at a Distance

In general it is very hard to document clear applications of the content of psychological theory. While deconstruction reveals the binary organization and contingency of accounts of theory and application in psychology, nevertheless there is a desire to be useful to the organizations that we engage with as researchers. This dilemma is illustrated through a personal narrative of my involvement as a researcher with a UK charitable organization—the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). As the research has developed it has become an attempt to explicate and make visible current practice on the NSPCC helpline. This move will be illustrated using the example of extreme emotion, and in particular callers' crying. In terms of utility the research emerges as an attempt to turn practices into strategies, where the kinds of embodied, untheorized, practices in which people engage in a highly occasioned and finessed way are explicated, allowing them to be turned into strategies, for example of good practice or communication breakdown. These traces will help to interrogate simple stories about theory and application.

Size matters: Constructing accountable bodies in NSPCC helpline interaction

The focus on body size or weight has become an increasing source of concern in western society, yet few studies have looked at how people invoke body size in various settings, and the practices to which such talk might be related. Hence this study examines instances in everyday and institutional interaction in which body size is treated as a relevant concern for speakers. A discursive psychological approach is used to examine five extracts from telephone calls to a National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) helpline. The analysis focuses on how the weight or body size of others is constructed and managed, and how these descriptions can be involved in various activities. Three analytic themes emerge – the focus on how formulations of size and embodiment are drawn upon in practice; the relationship between issues of size and issues of knowledge; and the activities in which different size descriptions are enrolled, in particular, the way these activities relate to the institutional practices of the NSPCC helpline. The empirical claims about the data are also related back to basic theoretical questions, raising profound issues about the way traditional psychology has constructed eating and embodiment.

'You can hear a lot through the walls': Noise formulations in neighbour complaints

In this article, we explore noise formulations as they are played out in two institutional contexts: neighbour dispute mediation and neighbours' calls to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) helpline. The data were transcribed and analysed using a discursive psychological approach. Our interest was in the salience of 'noise' description in our data and its formulation as a participants' concern. We found that establishing legitimate complaints or accusations was done partly through establishing 'noise' as a non-normative breach of everyday neighbour or family activity. We examined the epistemic orientations of participants (including clients, callers, mediators and Child Protection Officers) in telling whatand howthey know about their neighbours' business, and the discursive strategies used to position the account-giver as disinterested, reasonable, irritated or concerned. Our contrasting materials provide an opportunity to explore the detailed ways in which descriptions of events, persons and sensory formulations are coordinated together to perform particularly delicate actions. Overall, we consider what an interactional approach can add to our understanding of 'noise' as a social phenomenon as well as to contemporary notions of neighbouring.

Peer Violence in Children's Residential Care

Children, Youth and Environments Vol. 15 No. 2 (2005) ISSN: 1546-2250 Peer Violence in Children’s Residential Care Barter, Christine and Renold, Emma and Berridge, David (2004). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan; 249 pages. $75.00 (hard). ISBN 1403935599. The advent of this book is particularly timely as it coincides with the conclusion of a landmark British court case, thought to be the first involving peer abuse in a United Kingdom boarding school. In the book there is no statement about the intended audience but it can be presumed that it specifically includes not only practitioners but also researchers and administrators. It is potentially of general use for all those concerned with any aspect of residential and boarding education and care. The four authors are experienced researchers linked variously with Cardiff University, Luton University and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). While all have had long associations with research, none has been a practitioner. 443 The book describes the main results of a research program funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) under the Violence Research Programme. There are eight chapters and a conclusion. The inventory of summary points at the end of each chapter is of great value. There are also a detailed bibliography and three appendices of which Appendix A, “Researching Violence” and Appendix B, “Analysing the Data,” are relevant in assessing the research. Chapter One sets out the background to the program with a detailed discussion on violence, including abuse and bullying, and how these can be considered together if the focus is upon the overall impact. Residential child care is equated solely with children’s homes. This is perplexing in that there is also in this chapter a good survey of violence in other sectors including custodial care and boarding schools. The point is made that transfer of practice from non-residential settings such as schools can be dangerous but surely there is a very good case for transfer among different types of residential environment. Work was undertaken in 13 residential homes chosen to reflect the national balance between local authority, private and voluntary homes. Interviews were conducted with 71 children and young people and to these were added interviews with staff and observations by the researchers. Given these numbers, results must be taken as indicative rather than definitive of the state of violence in children’s homes. Most of the research involved semi-structured interviews but, in attempting to elicit the views of the young people, use was made of four vignettes. Of these vignettes, one was essentially discarded as it proved relatively incomprehensible to the young people. In summary, the research provides a privileged view inside a number of children’s homes and a unique focus upon peer violence. Chapter Two makes a distinction between high- and low-level violence and includes a good section on bullying. Following the discussion, the homes could be placed into one of three categories, according to the level of violence. This violence continuum provides the model for the research. In assessing 444 the homes, the main input was from interviews with the young people. The researchers also rated the homes but exactly how this was achieved is not mentioned. Appendix A sets out in detail the intentions of the research with regard to the young people and the potential emotional distress that might be occasioned during interviews. This is illustrated clearly in Chapter Three which provides a compelling look at the perspective of young people. Among a wide variety of interesting points, the distinction between micro- and macro-cultural codes is made. Also, highly relevant in all forms of residence for children is the section on the pecking order including insights into “positioning” and “acting out.” Useful distinctions are made in the field of physical violence between what are taken to be the masculine and the feminine approaches, while the subdivision of retaliation into spontaneous and planned provides material for thought. Many readers and practitioners will find the comments by staff in Chapter Four enlightening. The key factors in violence are set out as: (i) peer group; (ii) gender; (iii) race; (iv) age; and (v) background. For many staff the peer...

Training teachers to safeguard children: developing a consistent approach

Earlier work on the preparation of student teachers to deal with child protection concerns had indicated that initial teacher training (ITT) providers were often struggling to determine what to include on the subject and who should provide the input, as well as coping with the difficulty of trying to fit it into an overfull curriculum. In an attempt to support this work, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) developed a course for this group of students. Although an evaluation indicated the need for the materials to be redrafted, the views of both those involved in the exercise and a subsequent survey of ITT providers not only contributed to the redraft but also to the debate around the most effective approach to training professionals to protect children and young people. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Beyond borders—protecting children on the Island of Ireland

The article sets out a policy agenda for safeguarding children on a cross-border basis developed by Barnardos Northern Ireland, Barnardos Ireland, the Irish society for the prevention of Cruelty to children (ISPCC) and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). The agenda was presented at a major conference organised by the four organisations in Dundalk in September 2002 entitled ‘Protecting children on the Island of Ireland’. The article sets the conference theme in a wider context and draws on the conference speeches and workshops to develop the argument for the importance of cross-border co-operation in the four key areas of child protection, vetting, management of sex offenders and improved structural arrangements.

Full Stop: an extraordinary appeal for an extraordinary aspiration – putting leadership theory into practice

AbstractThe National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC)'s Full Stop campaign was launched in March 1999 with one single aim—to end cruelty to children. The Full Stop Appeal was designed to ensure that sufficient financial resources would be in place to support such an extraordinary aspiration. It is the biggest charitable appeal ever attempted in the UK and aims to raise £250m. This paper outlines how the charity applied the leadership model of fundraising to its strategy, the lessons it has learned over the past four years, and how successful it has been. Having already raised more than £100m, Full Stop has broken new ground in its sector, revolutionised the NSPCC's fundraising capacity and, more importantly, has had far‐reaching consequences for its mission to end cruelty to children. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications