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Although numerous international studies point to large variations in child welfare interventions, comparative analysis has tended to focus either solely on England or the UK as a whole, discounting differences across the four UK countries. This paper compares trends in national statistics relating to the operation of child protection systems across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland between 2004/5 and 2013/14. Despite a number of legislative, operational and definitional differences between nations, a number of trends are apparent. All systems show an increasing orientation towards child protection as evidenced by rising rates of child protection investigation and children subject to child protection planning. Increasingly, this relates to emotional abuse and involves younger children aged 0-4 years. However, the way cases are processed can differ with only one in ten referrals resulting in a child protection investigation in Northern Ireland compared to one in five in England. Potential reasons for these differences are discussed and questions raised as to why, more than quarter century after the introduction of the Children Act 1989, we still have no clear picture of the circumstances of families who come into contact with social services or the services provided to support them.

La investigación en personas jóvenes por personas jóvenes es una tendencia creciente y se considera una aproximación democrática para explorar sus vidas. La investigación cualitativa también es vista como una forma de redistribuir el poder; con la investigación participativa posicionada por muchos como un paradigma democrático de investigación cualitativa. Aunque la investigación participativa puede otorgar una visión de otro mundo, está lleno de una variedad de relaciones que requieren negociación y que necesitan constante auto reflexión. Al basarse en narraciones experimentales de investigación participativa con jóvenes, este documento explorará la relación de poder desde la perspectiva de un investigador adulto, del joven investigador par y también de los investigados. Explorará el cambio de poder autoconsciente y describirá como se renuncia a él y es reclamado con grados crecientes de obediencia en tanto se desarrolla la confianza y la seguridad. Co-escrito por el investigador par e investigadores adultos, el artículo ilustrará una variedad de ejemplos prácticos de investigación participativa con jóvenes, decodificará la lucha del poder y considerará las implicaciones. Argumentará que a pesar que los pasos iniciales del proceso de la investigación son artificiales, auto consientes y antidemocráticos, se concluye que el fin puede justificar los medios con la creación de agencia social de conocimiento, realidad y experiencia.URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs120192 ; Ein Trend in der Jugendforschung findet sich in Studien, die von jungen Menschen selbst durchgeführt werden und einem demokratischen Selbstverständnis entsprechen. Qualitative Sozialforschung kann dabei als eine Möglichkeit betrachtet werden, den Machteinfluss innerhalb des Forschungsprozesses umzuverteilen, wobei Peer-Involvement-Modelle von vielen als ein demokratisches Forschungsparadigma angesehen werden. Obwohl Peer-Involvement-Modelle eine Sicht auf die Welt der anderen eröffnen können, sind sie geprägt von sozialen ...

Research in young people by young people is a growing trend and considered a democratic approach to exploring their lives. Qualitative research is also seen as a way of redistributing power; with participatory research positioned by many as a democratic paradigm of qualitative inquiry. Although participatory research may grant a view on another world, it is fraught with a range of relationships that require negotiation and which necessitate constant self-reflection. Drawing on experiential accounts of participatory research with young people, this paper will explore the power relationship from the perspective of the adult researcher, the young peer researcher and also that of the researched. It will explore the self-conscious exchange of power; and describe how it is relinquished and reclaimed with increasing degrees of compliance as confidence and security develops. Co-authored by a peer researcher and adult researchers, this paper will illustrate a range of practical examples of participatory research with young people, decode the power struggle and consider the implications. It will argue that although the initial stages of the research process are artificial, self-conscious and undemocratic it concludes that the end may justify the means with the creation of social agency knowledge, experience and reality.

Ein Trend in der Jugendforschung findet sich in Studien, die von jungen Menschen selbst durchgeführt werden und einem demokratischen Selbstverständnis entsprechen. Qualitative Sozialforschung kann dabei als eine Möglichkeit betrachtet werden, den Machteinfluss innerhalb des Forschungsprozesses umzuverteilen, wobei Peer-Involvement-Modelle von vielen als ein demokratisches Forschungsparadigma angesehen werden. Obwohl Peer-Involvement-Modelle eine Sicht auf die Welt der anderen eröffnen können, sind sie geprägt von sozialen Abhängigkeiten und Beziehungen, die kontinuierlich (neu) verhandelt werden müssen und eine andauernde Selbstreflektion vonseiten der beteiligten Forscher/innen erfordern.Auf der Basis von Erfahrungsberichten über partizipative Forschungsprojekte versuchen wir in diesem Beitrag, die Machverhältnisse im Forschungsprozess aus der Perspektive aller Beteiligten – d.h. von akademischer Forscher/innen, Peer-Forscher/innen und Forschungsteilnehmer/innen – zu analysieren. Wir untersuchen den selbstreflexiven Umgang mit Machtverhältnissen im Forschungsprozess und beschreiben, wie im Projektverlauf parallel zur zunehmenden Entwicklung von Selbstbewusstsein und sicherheit aufseiten der Jugendlichen die Ausübung von Macht und Einfluss auf den Forschungsprozess von den Forscher/innen zurückgefordert wurde. In gemeinsamer Autor/innenschaft von zwei Sozialforscher/innen und einem jugendlichen Peer-Forscher illustriert dieser Beitrag an einer Reihe von praktischen Beispielen von Projekten mit Peer-Involvement-Modellen die Bemühungen um den Transfer der Einflussnahmemöglichkeiten auf die Gestaltung des Forschungsprojekts und dessen Konsequenzen. Wir argumentieren, dass, obwohl die Anfangsphase solcher Forschungsprozesse oft artifiziell und undemokratisch ist, das Ergebnis – namentlich die Erhöhung von Sozialkompetenz, sozialen Erfahrungen und sozialem Realitätssinn – diese Mittel rechtfertigen kann.

The relationship between deprivation and health and educational inequalities has been well evidenced in the literature. Recent UK research has now established a similar social gradient in child welfare interventions (Bywaters et al. 2018) with children living in the most deprived areas in the UK facing a much higher chance of being placed on the child protection register or in out-of-home care. There is an emerging narrative that poverty has become the wallpaper of practice, "too big to tackle and too familiar to notice" (Morris et al. 2018) and invisible amid lack of public support and political will to increase welfare spending. This paper will examine poverty-related inequalities and how these affect families. It will discuss the importance of recognising that poverty is a social justice issue and a core task for social work and outline the range of supports that may be available for families to help lift them out of poverty. Finally, it will describe the development of a new practice framework for social work in Northern Ireland that challenges social workers to embed anti-poverty approaches in their practice. The framework emphasises that poverty is a social justice issue, seeks to provide practical support and guidance to re-focus attention, debate, and action on poverty in times of global economic uncertainty and give social workers the tools to make it central to their practice once again. It reinforces the need for social workers to understand and acknowledge the impact of poverty, and to advocate for and support those most in need. It aims to challenge and empower professionals to tackle poverty and inequality as an aspect of ethical and effective practice.

The relationship between deprivation and health and educational inequalities has been well evidenced in the literature. Recent UK research has now established a similar social gradient in child welfare interventions (Bywaters et al., 2018) with children living in the most deprived areas in the UK facing a much higher chance of being placed on the child protection register or in out-of-home care. There is an emerging narrative that poverty has become the wallpaper of practice, "too big to tackle and too familiar to notice" (Morris et al., 2018) and invisible amid lack of public support and political will to increase welfare spending. This paper will examine poverty-related inequalities and how these affect families. It will discuss the importance of recognising that poverty is a social justice issue and a core task for social work and outline the range of supports that may be available for families to help lift them out of poverty. Finally, it will describe the development of a new practice framework for social work in Northern Ireland that challenges social workers to embed anti-poverty approaches in their practice. The framework emphasises that poverty is a social justice issue, seeks to provide practical support and guidance to re-focus attention, debate and action on poverty in times of global economic uncertainty and give social workers the tools to make it central to their practice once again. It reinforces the need for social workers to understand and acknowledge the impact of poverty; and to advocate for and support those most in need. It aims to challenge and empower professionals to tackle poverty and inequality as an aspect of ethical and effective practice.

This theoretical paper addresses fundamental questions raised by a four nation comparison of child welfare interventions in the UK, the Child Welfare Inequalities Project, which has highlighted differences between and within countries. The Project analysed administrative data to examine the relationship between deprivation and state intervention. This Project builds on research by Coventry University which established both a social gradient in child welfare interventions and an inverse intervention effect similar to the inverse health law (better health care in more affluent areas). These empirical findings raise, but do not fully answer, whether such inequalities in child welfare interventions should be addressed. In order to consider this complex question this article aims to explore theoretical ideas from other disciplines to provide important perspectives on such inequalities. These perspectives include ideas from political theory, psychology and moral philosophy. They suggest that child welfare should be: structured in a fairer way (based on Rawls' work on justice); that people think society is more equitable than it is and would prefer it to be more equally distributed (based on Norton and Ariely's work on attitudes to inequality); and that it is ethically irrational not to address this (based on Singer's work on moral distance).

The practice of extended family and friends helping to care for children when their parents are unable to is an enduring tradition in many cultures. Kinship care provides the largest proportion of out of home care in Western society but many of these carers experience poverty and deprivation, and do not receive comparable levels of support, financial or professional, to other placement types. This study provides UK evidence for the relationship between kinship care and deprivation and examines how the welfare state frames kinship care in policy and practice.

Comparative child welfare administrative data from each of the four jurisdictions of the UK (Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales) was analysed over a ten-year period to examine rates and patterns of public care. Scotland followed by Wales has the highest rates of children in out-of-home care followed by England and NI with similar lower proportions. Despite strong links between deprivation and higher chances of becoming looked this national variation appears more a reflection of differing legal and operational practice than higher levels of need for public care. Notwithstanding differing devolution settlements, a convergence in the direction of policy across the UK towards early intervention, extensive use of kinship care and adoption as an exit route from public care is apparent. This convergence is most apparent in the increased entry of very young children to public care in Scotland, NI and Wales. The lack of any systematic collection of data by governments on the social and economic conditions of children reflects a missed opportunity to examine separately their influence on rates of children in public care.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected people's physical and mental health. Quarantine and other lockdown measures have altered people's daily lives; levels of anxiety, depression, substance use, self-harm and suicide ideation have increased. This commentary assesses how international governments, agencies and organisations are responding to the challenge of the mental health impact of COVID-19 with the aim of informing the ongoing policy and service responses needed in the immediate and longer term. It identifies some of the key themes emerging from the literature, recognises at-risk populations and highlights opportunities for innovation within mental health services, focusing on the published academic literature, international health ministry websites and other relevant international organisations beyond the United Kingdom and Ireland. COVID-19 has challenged, and may have permanently changed, mental health services. It has highlighted and exacerbated pre-existing pressures and inequities. Many decision-makers consider this an opportunity to transform mental health care, and tackling the social determinants of mental health and engaging in prevention will be a necessary part of such transformation. Better data collection, modelling and sharing will enhance policy and service development. The crisis provides opportunities to build on positive innovations: the adaptability and flexibility of community-based care; drawing on lived experience in the design, development and monitoring of services; interagency collaboration; accelerating digital healthcare; and connecting physical and mental health.