Child protection and social distancing: Improving the capacity of social workers to keep children safe during the COVID-19 pandemic

Building on our existing research on effective child protection (Ferguson, 2011, 2016, 2017, 2018; Ferguson et al, 2020; Disney et al, 2019) and on the use of digital technology in everyday life (Pink et al, 2015; Pink et al, 2017), we will identify areas of concern, as well as opportunities that the changed conditions for practice have created and advise on effective responses. To achieve this the research will focus on the work of four (anonymous) local authorities in England and we will work with our project partners Research in Practice and the British Association of Social Workers. .

The picture of how the pandemic is affecting social work and child protection is fast-moving, but a common approach being taken is for those children considered to be at medium and high risk of harm to receive either ‘virtual home visits’ via video calls, or in-person home visits, or both.    

The key aims of the research are to: 

1. Ascertain how the pandemic is impacting upon the ways practitioners are relating to children and parents and their capacities to keep children safe and help parents.
2. Identify the innovative digital methods being adopted to make virtual home visits, assess their effectiveness in keeping children safe and advise on how they can be most productively used during and after the pandemic.
3. Identify how social work organisations are coping with the new definitions of accountability and risk that arise from social distancing and the implications for government inspection and assessments of good practice.
4. Ascertain the effects of COVID-19 on social worker’s well-being and practice, including the availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) and what it is like for staff working almost exclusively from home, the quality of emotional support and case direction being provided.
5. Ascertain service users’ experiences of social work during the pandemic and the extent to which parents' needs and rights are understood and being responded to. 

The study will last for 15 months during which the experiences and practices of a sample of social workers and managers based in four local authorities in England will be explored through interviews and other digital ethnographic methods (Pink, et al 2016). We will focus on how children and families are being worked with through in-person and virtual home visits during the pandemic, including the availability and use of personal protective equipment (PPE).

The research will also explore social worker’s experiences of their organisations and maintaining social distancing by working almost exclusively from their own homes.  Using a qualitative longitudinal approach (Ferguson, et al 2019), detailed data will be gathered on social work with selected families, which will draw out the challenges involved in sustaining relationships and effective child protection over the longer term during COVID-19. We also plan to interview a sample of parents to establish the family’s experience of social work practice, both in-person and virtual, during the pandemic. 

Professor Harry Ferguson (PI)

Harry Ferguson is Professor of Social Work at the University of Birmingham. He has taught and researched widely in the areas of social work and child protection, domestic abuse, fatherhood, masculinities and men's lives, mobile research methods, ethnography, and the social science of social work.

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Professor Sarah Pink 

Professor Sarah Pink is Director of the Emerging Technologies Research Lab at Monash University in Australia, which undertakes critical interdisciplinary and international research into the social, cultural and experiential dimensions of the design, use and futures of new and emerging technologies.

Her research focuses on emerging intelligent technologies, automation, data, digital futures, safety and design for wellbeing. Sarah is also a world leading Design Anthropologist, known for her development of innovative digital, visual and sensory research and dissemination methodologies.

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Dr Laura Kelly

Dr Laura Kelly (Research Fellow) is a sociologist with experience of researching work with children and young people in a number of settings. She has also explored how practitioners navigate working in an environment of rapid policy change.

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Project collaborators

• Research in Practice
• British Association of Social Workers

The research will seek to inform understandings of the impact of the pandemic on children families and child protection practice while it is ongoing through regular research briefings on emerging findings.

The scaling up of the research impacts and dissemination will be achieved through working closely with our collaborators on the project, Research in Practice and the British Association of Social Workers. Webinars will be provided to summarise the findings and their implications for social work staff, managers, policy makers and service users at the mid-way point and end of the research. Practice guidance will be produced, as well as insights and recommendations for the future regarding what can be learned from how practice adjusted and innovated during the pandemic, for instance with respect to the uses of digital technology. Theoretical and empirical papers will be published in open access academic journals.  

Ferguson, H., Kelly, L. and Pink, S. (2021) Social work and child protection for a post-pandemic world: the re-making of practice during COVID-19 and its renewal beyond it. Journal of Social Work Practice. Advance Online Publication. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02650533.2021.1922368

Pink, S., Ferguson, H. and Kelly, L. (2021) Digital social work: Conceptualising a hybrid anticipatory practice. Qualitative Social Work. Advance Online Publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/14733250211003647

Ferguson, H., Pink, S. and Kelly, L. (2021) 12 lessons for children’s social work from practising under Covid. Community Care. Available at: https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2021/02/05/12-lessons-childrens-social-work-practising-covid/

Pink, S., Ferguson, H. and Kelly, L. (2020) Child protection social work in COVID-19: Reflections on home visits and digital intimacy. Anthropology in Action, 23(3): 27-30. https://doi.org/10.3167/aia.2020.270306

Ferguson, H., Kelly, L. and Pink, S. (2020) Social workers' efforts to protect children in lockdown have gone unnoticed. The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/nov/11/social-workers-efforts-to-protect-children-in-lockdown-have-gone-unnoticed

This section contains research blogs, published in partnership with Research in Practice. These highlight key messages from emerging findings that are explored in more detail in regularly published research briefings. 

Child protection and social distancing: Improving the capacity of social workers to keep children safe during the pandemic

Child protection and risks from COVID-19: Home visits and the challenges of social distancing

How social work and child protection are being creative and helping children and families during COVID-19 and can do so beyond it

This section contains research briefings, which share emerging findings from the project. It is hoped that sharing findings while the COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing will help social workers and social work organisations respond effectively to rapidly changing conditions.

• Research Briefing One: Child protection, social distancing and risks from COVID-19
• Research Briefing Two: Disruption and renewal of social work and child protection during COVID-19 and beyond 
• Research Briefing Three: Digital social work - the emergence of hybrid practice during the COVID-19 pandemic

4 November 2020: Hosted by Research in Practice. 

Watch the recording on the Research in Practice website. 

The COVID-19 crisis is presenting governments, social work leaders, managers and child protection practitioners with unique challenges. This webinar will draw on research that has been studying how social work and social care practices that have relied on achieving closeness to keep children safe and help families have been managing social distancing and other challenges at a time of increased stress and risks of harm within families.

This webinar shared emerging findings about how COVID-19, lockdown and the ebbing and flowing of restrictions has disrupted child protection work. It considered how the risk of infection and constraints of social distancing have introduced new barriers to safe and effective practice. It also shared learning from lockdown about what can best be achieved when significant local and national restrictions are re-introduced. This included emerging findings about how these challenges have led children’s social care practitioners to improvise in creative ways, integrating a variety of modes of in-person and digital communication and ways of relating that have been helpful to children and families.

8 December 2020: Research in Practice Leaders Forum

This short presentation considers how practices that have relied on achieving closeness can keep children safe and help families during a period of institutionalised social distancing. It draws on early findings from the Child Protection and Social Distancing research project. 

21 January 2021: Hosted by BASW. 

The Re-making of Social Work and Child Protection during COVID-19 

A recording will soon be made available here.

The webinar shared emerging findings about how COVID-19, lockdowns and the ebbing and flowing of restrictions has not only disrupted child protection work but  led children’s social care practitioners to improvise in creative ways, integrating a variety of modes of in-person and digital communication and ways of relating that our data show have been helpful to children and families.

The research is funded for 15 months by the Economic and Social Research Council as part of the UK Research and Innovation call for studies that can contribute to understanding and alleviating the social impact of the pandemic.