No Further Action: Contextualising Social Care Decisions for Children Victimised in Extra-Familial Settings
| Author | Jenny Lloyd,Carlene Firmin |
| DOI | 10.1177/1473225419893789 |
| Published date | 01 April 2020 |
| Date | 01 April 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles |
893789YJJ0010.1177/1473225419893789Youth JusticeLloyd and Firmin
research-article2019
Special Issue Article
Youth Justice
2020, Vol. 20(1-2) 79 –92
No Further Action:
© The Author(s) 2019
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Contextualising Social Care
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1473225419893789
DOI: 10.1177/1473225419893789
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Decisions for Children Victimised
in Extra-Familial Settings
Jenny Lloyd and Carlene Firmin
Abstract
England’s child protection system is intended to safeguard young people at risk of significant harm – physical,
sexual, emotional abuse and neglect. When young people are physically assaulted, stabbed or groomed
into drugs trafficking they experience significant harm. To this extent they are entitled to support from
statutory child protection services. Using findings from one component of a mixed method multi-site study,
data from referrals and assessments into children’s social care is examined to identify the extent to which
the right support and protection is realised. Such analysis indicates that despite being at risk of significant
harm, young people abused in community or peer, rather than familial, settings will most likely receive a ‘no
further action’ decision from social workers following referrals for support. This article suggests that to a
certain extent no further action decisions are aligned to the legal and cultural parameters of social work and
child protection practice, thus raising questions about the sufficiency of such for safeguarding young people
abused in extra-familial settings.
Keywords
assessments, criminal exploitation, serious youth violence, social work, youth violence
Introduction
Referral after Tom was arrested in Brighton for possession with intent to supply of class A drugs
(large quantity of heroin and crack cocaine)[. . .] Tom’s involvement with supply of illicit
substances is currently considered to be the result of poor decision making, with no information
to suggest he is currently affiliated to gangs. Whilst it is considered to have a huge implication
for him given the risk of him being provided with a custodial sentence, such implications are not
considered to present any safeguarding risks for Tom. (Case closure, 15, male – all names and
locations have been changed)
Corresponding author:
Jenny Lloyd, University of Bedfordshire, University Square, Luton LU1 3JU, UK.
Email: jenny.lloyd@beds.ac.uk
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Youth Justice 20(1-2)
Internationally policymakers, practitioners and parents are faced with the question of
how to prevent and respond to the harm young people experience outside of their families.
In the United Kingdom, there is growing concern for the risks young people face from seri-
ous youth violence, gang-related violence and criminal exploitation (YVE). In 2019, the
UK National Health service reported a 60 per cent increase over 5 years in young people
aged 10–19 treated for knife wounds (Campbell, 2019). In figures published by the National
Crime Agency, drugs trafficking into England’s counties, sometimes named ‘county lines’,
more than doubled from 2018 to 2019 (ITV, 2019). And research by the Children’s
Commissioner (2019) identified 34,000 children in England, who either identify as in a
gang or on the periphery of a gang, who were the victims of violent crime in a 1-year period
– with only a fraction known to children’s services. While such harm manifests in different
ways: from young people being stabbed by their peers on school journeys (Vulliamy et al.,
2018), or like Tom, groomed and exploited to traffic drugs (Hudeck, 2018), it is predomi-
nately extra-familial. Young people affected by these issues experience significant levels of
harm, including sexual exploitation, serious injuries and in a minority of cases, fatal vio-
lence. As such, this is a form of harm that constitutes child abuse, warranting a response
from statutory child protection services. Yet, in England and many countries worldwide,
where child protection systems have been developed with a focus on harm within families,
we are now faced with the question of whose role it is to protect children from harm in
extra-familial contexts?
In England, one response has been to incorporate the requirement for child protection
systems to respond to harm outside the home. In 2018, the statutory guidance for agencies
working to safeguard children in the England Working Together was revised (Department
for Education, 2018), stating that extra-familial risks were child protection issues. Most
explicitly through the inclusion of a new section on Contextual Safeguarding, defined as
‘an approach to understanding, and responding to, young people’s experiences of signifi-
cant harm beyond their families’ (Firmin, 2017: 3):
As well as threats to the welfare of children from within their families, children may be
vulnerable to abuse or exploitation from outside their families. These extra-familial threats
might arise at school and other educational establishments, from within peer groups, or more
widely from within the wider community and/or online. [. . .] Assessments of children in
such cases should consider whether wider environmental factors are present in a child’s life
and are a threat to their safety and/or welfare. Children who may be alleged perpetrators
should also be assessed to understand the impact of contextual issues on their safety and
welfare. Interventions should focus on addressing these wider environmental factors.
(Department for Education, 2018: 23)
While this development is welcomed, in practice, this raises questions as to the capac-
ity of social work systems, and the legislative framework that governs them, to success-
fully address extra-familial risks. Referrals into children’s social care are increasing yearly
within England (Department for Education, 2017), and in 2018, a survey of teachers found
that the majority of referrals they made into social care regarding cases of exploitation
were not progressed (ITV, 2018).
Lloyd and Firmin
81
In this article, we present findings from one component of a mixed method multi-site
study to understand and advance child protection responses to YVE. The component focused
on here regards the decision-making processes of social workers regarding the level of sup-
port or further investigation needed for young people experiencing extra-familial risk –
whether these cases are progressed towards a statutory child protection investigation and
plan or receive a ‘no further action’ (NFA) decision in the form of step-down from statutory
services. Understanding this is critical to advancing local responses and tracking impact.
Child Protection Systems and Thresholds
The systems that governments use to organise their response to child abuse vary globally
and, in many countries, have developed for over a century (Wilkins et al., 2019). Child
protection systems in the United Kingdom are principally built to protect children from
abuse. In England’s legislative framework (Children Act, 1989), this is referred to as ‘harm’
defined as
‘Harm’ means ill-treatment or the impairment of health or development including, for example,
impairment suffered from seeing or hearing the ill-treatment of another (e.g. domestic abuse);
‘Development’ means physical, intellectual, emotional, social or behavioural development;
‘Health’ means physical or mental health; and
‘Ill-treatment’ includes sexual abuse and forms of ill-treatment which are not physical’. (Section
31(9) p111 of the Children Act, 1989 as amended by the Adoption and Children Act, 2002)
The severity of harm informs the response that a child can expect. Children experienc-
ing ‘harm’ are defined as ‘children in need’ and their families may be offered support that
they can engage with voluntarily. Those at risk of, or experiencing ‘significant harm’ can
expect statutory intervention, where social workers may conduct enquiries under Section
47 of the Children Act to ascertain whether the child in question is to be made subject of
a child protection plan, and should this not reduce risk may be taken into the care of the
state. Significance of harm is defined as follows:
Where the question of whether harm suffered by a child is significant turns on the child’s health
and development, his health or development shall be compared with that which could reasonably
be expected of a similar child. (Section 31(10) p111 of the Act)
Since the 1990s, the UK Government has also made varying attempts to offer ‘early
help’ or ‘targeted support’ to young people and families prior to such ‘harm’ occurring;
with the intention of preventing later social work involvement should risks escalate.
Child protection responses to extra-familial risks
Despite recent additions to statutory guidance Working Together suggesting social work-
ers have a role to safeguard children in extra-familial contexts, there are limited policy or
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Youth Justice 20(1-2)
practice frameworks that support this shift. Children’s services in England have seen their
budgets reduced by 50 per cent since 2010, resulting in cuts to preventive services such as
youth provision and school-based programmes (Association of Directors of Children’s
Services (ADCS), 2018). Simultaneously, there has been a rise in first-time referrals for
adolescents into social care presenting more complex needs (ADCS, 2018). It...
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