Remembering Steven
| Published date | 26 May 2010 |
| Pages | 2-5 |
| Date | 26 May 2010 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.5042/jap.2010.0290 |
| Author | Kirsty Keywood |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Sociology |
Guest editorial
2 © Pier Professional Ltd The Journal of Adult Protection Volume 12 Issue 2 • May 2010
10.5042/jap.2010.0290
This issue of The Journal of Adult Protection
adds to the published media on the abuse and
murder of Steven Hoskin (eg. Social Care TV,
2009; Flynn, 2007; Keywood, 2010) and seeks
to give effect to the desire of service users,
families, researchers, commissioners, managers
and frontline staff to learn lessons from
Steven’s death. The fall-out from Steven’s
murder – at a personal, organisational and
national level – has been immense. Indeed, the
Serious Case Review into his murder became
the focus for a host of concerns and misgivings
about the effectiveness of adult protection
procedures in England and Wales. While many
of these have received further articulation in
the Department of Health-led consultation
on the No Secrets guidance (Department of
Health, 2009) and have contributed to policy
development at national level (Department
of Health, 2010), these have not and should
not eclipse the call to disseminate credible and
effective strategies to tackle the neglect and
abuse of vulnerable adults. Such strategies, and
the challenges presented by them, are profiled
in this issue.
Personalisation, choice and adult
protection
Personalisation has the importance of
personal choice and self-determination in
the enjoyment of social care at its heart
(Social Care Institute for Excellence, 2010).
Choice, however, is a concept fraught with
challenges and requires significant unravelling
if we are to take it seriously. First, we have
to contend with the regrettable reality that
choices are almost always constrained by a
variety of factors, whether these are economic,
institutional, attitudinal or relational. As our
courts have acknowledged for decades now,
agencies cannot always deliver the services
that they may wish, being constrained by
their obligation to meet the needs of those
in its locality from an ever-diminishing pot
of money. Yet, there are other grounds on
which choice might, and arguably should
be limited. How, for example, should we
respond to a person’s choice to disengage
from services that have been put in place to
secure his/her well-being? Steven Hoskin did
just this, yet his ‘choice’ was not subject to
any significant inquiry. Belinda Schwehr, in
her article in this issue, offers the example of
a woman who ‘chooses’ to stay at home and
experience financial difficulty rather than
accept the (more financially prudent) offer
of services in care home. When we contend
with the notion of choice, we have to be
cautious about assuming that the articulation
of choice equates with a free, reasoned choice
by a person with the appropriate resources to
assume the consequence of that choice.
None of this is to suggest that choices
should only be given to the most able among
us, or that we should start from a presumption
that vulnerable adults are incapable of making
choices. Rather, we should acknowledge that
decisions that are likely to result in the neglect
of a person’s need require very careful scrutiny
Remembering Steven
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