Neglect Strategy and Action Plan 2015-17
1. Definition of neglect
Definition of child
In the UK there isn’t a law that defines what the age of a child is.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that a child “means every
human being below the age of eighteen years unless, under the law applicable to the
child, majority is attained earlier”. This was ratified by the UK government in 1991,
which means they agree to be legally bound by it.
Working Together to Safeguard Children 2014 describes neglect as: ‘The persistent
failure to meet a child’s basic physical and/or psychological needs, likely to result in
the serious impairment of the child’s health or development. Neglect may occur
during pregnancy as a result of maternal substance abuse.
Once a child is born neglect may include failing to:•
provide adequate food
•
provide clothing or shelter (including exclusion from home or abandonment)
•
protect a child from physical and emotional harm or danger
•
ensure adequate supervision (including the use of inadequate caregivers)
•
ensure access to appropriate medical care or treatment.
It may also include neglect of, or unresponsiveness to, a child’s basic emotional
needs.
In addition it is important to have regard to the specific needs of children who may
suffer:
• medical neglect
• nutritional neglect
• emotional neglect
• educational neglect
• physical neglect
• lack of supervision and guidance
Neglect and emotional maltreatment are chronic conditions that persist over many
years. These two types of maltreatment often overlap, but children who are singled
out for emotional maltreatment and rejection are sometimes physically well cared for.
All the recent research into neglect confirms the pervasive and cumulative harm on
children and young people of living with neglectful parents and carers. Neglect is
also a serious factor in the majority of serious case reviews (60%) and for children of
all ages, not just younger children. In these cases, domestic abuse, mental ill health
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and/or parental substance misuse were common, resulting in neglectful parenting
patterns that caused serious harm to children and young people living in these
homes including for some contributing to death. The reviews also provide us with
evidence that for professionals working with children, young people and families this
is one of the most challenging areas of their work.
Studies and research papers on child neglect have outlined that working with
families is complex and simple approaches to intervention are likely to be insufficient.
It can then become difficult to maintain focus, to measure progress, or to measure
decline in functioning in the whole family. Action for Children conducted a 4 year
longitudinal evaluation of neglect, ‘Outcomes for children, families, Action for
Children and the UK’, 2012, and describe a ‘bulging threshold’ phenomenon where
levels of intervention have not escalated despite significant deterioration in the
child’s situation. The professional support group can begin to accommodate a
higher threshold as the child’s needs become eclipsed by the families’ problems.
This is compounded by attempts at defining neglect and common definitions for
support and intervention.
Neglect can overlap with other forms of abuse, such as physical or sexual, which
makes it particularly hard to focus on one area of problem. In addition the
safeguarding system was originally designed to measure acts of commission not
omission. Assessing neglect therefore requires measuring complex series of acts of
parental omission – provision, protection and emotional availability. Thresholds for
intervention by local authorities are geared to investigating incidence and as neglect
does not always present in this particular way it is challenging to then gauge the
impact on the child from the an absence of parental basic care. The true impact
does not always become evident until much later in a child’s life. The other
significant challenge to helping and supporting children and families is that
interventions are geared to ‘short-sprints’ and not to longer term inputs. Neglect,
often requires repeated inputs and sometimes with long term support. Resources,
from statutory services, have enormous strain on them to service an increasing
number of vulnerable children and the focus can then become on managing volume.
To that aim we want to ensure that early signs of neglect are responded to effectively
and ensure the quality of our interventions when cases become chronic result in
change and improved outcomes for our children and young people. We want to
ensure that we provide a strong partnership response that effectively meets the
assessed needs for those children and young people supported by child protection
plans in Knowsley including those impacted by neglect. We recognise that there is
scope for improvement in our assessments and planning when working with neglect
through listening to the voice of children and young people and reflecting on their
lived experience.
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To that end we will:
 seek to provide focused strategic leadership to deliver this strategy
 will monitor the effectiveness of work undertaken through KSCB.
By promoting practice that focuses on parents taking responsibility and being
empowered to make sustainable positive changes to their own and their children’s
lives, improving the understanding of early signs of neglect, short-term and long-term
neglect, to determine the most appropriate course of action and developing the
ability to measure and quantify outcomes for children and the impact of neglect on
their development this will allow us to establish clear and consistent thresholds for
progression to care proceedings
Priority Actions
1. Raising and sustaining awareness of the impact of neglect on children
and families.
2. Ensuring practitioners and managers are able to recognise and respond
to early indicators of neglect
3. Ensuring that practitioners and managers are able to respond to, and to
work purposefully with, families where neglect is causing significant
harm
4. Developing and sustaining a multi-agency response to neglect which
ensures multi agency partnership working
5. Ensuring that effectiveness of service provision, in respect of neglect, is
evaluated including the voice of the child being seen and heard
1.
Raising and sustaining awareness of the impact of neglect on children
and families
We recognise that assessments are essential to ensuring risks in neglect cases are
identified and reduced. In Knowsley we will use the Early Help Assessment
Frameworks to ensure neglect is identified early as well as the use of the Initial
Assessment when statutory intervention is needed. In completing these
assessments it is important to recognise the following factors:
•
•
•
•
•
the importance of historic information
consideration of attachment and the child’s emotional and physical, and
maturational development (particularly in the case of adolecents).
presenting behaviour must be considered within the context of neglect.
the child’s views, wishes and feelings and the impact of neglect on each child
within a family is properly identified and explored in the assessment
assessments must address the cumulative impact and likelihood of sustained
change
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Staff across the children’s workforce will be expected to undertake training, so that
there is consistency of practice and application of thresholds. The training will deliver
a focused understanding of the impact of neglect on child development and
attachment from 0-18 years. The training will also include a working understanding of
the KSCB Threshold Document and the KSCB Escalation Policy. Each agencies’
Board Member will be expected to ensure that staff within their agency has accessed
the training.
Training will include:






2.
recognising early signs of Neglect
recognising the cumulative nature and impact of neglect on adolescent/ teen
behaviour & coping
supporting families with the right help
focusing on child’s timeframe
monitoring impact of interventions on reducing risk & promoting protective
factors
using identified tools to assess risk
Ensuring practitioners and managers are able to recognise and respond
to early indicators of neglect
Research evidences that practitioners that use theoretical models, standardised
approaches and comprehensive frameworks to support robust assessments of risk in
neglect cases in order to systematically monitor change over time achieved the best
outcomes.
3.
Ensuring that practitioners and managers are able to respond to, and to
work purposefully with, families where neglect is causing significant harm
Assessments will be strengthened by the use of methodologies that assess key
areas of risk in relation to neglect to enable practitioners to apply structure and
systematic analysis to very complex situations. Having a clear focus on different
aspects of neglect enables practitioners to effectively analyse the cumulative impact,
which in turn informs better planning of intervention to support and protect the
children and young people. Effective work with parents can take time. However it is
critical that practitioners consider all work with parents within the context of the
child’s timeframe. It may be that change can be made by parents, but if this cannot
be made within a timescale that ensures the child or young person is not harmed,
the child’s needs must come first. Professionals must always maintain a focus on the
child or young person’s timeframe. There is only a short timescale in which changes
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to parental behaviour can be achieved if there is not to be potential lifelong damage
to children and young people.
4.
Developing and sustaining a multi-agency response to neglect which
ensures strategic multi agency partnership working
There are currently no tools promoted to assist practioners to undertake this work in
a systematic manner, as a result KSCB will identify tools and ensure their availability
and training in their use.
A framework (such as the Graded Care Profile or Signs of Safety) will be identified
and adopted within Knowsley in order to achieve consistency in standards of practice
in neglect cases.
The use of these tools will enable practioners to provide evidence to Public Law
Outline (PLO) and Court Proceedings of the cumulative and pervasive impact of
neglect in cases where interventions are not reducing risks.
6. Ensuring that effectiveness of service provision, in respect of neglect, is
evaluated including the voice of the child being seen and heard
•
•
•
•
•
•
Multi-agency audits must be regularly undertaken by the KSCB Audit
and Review group to inform on the effectiveness of work and this
increase in the number of early help assessments
Effective joint working between the KSCB and Knowsley Safeguarding
Adult Board to influence the delivery of services to work together to
support parents and to ensure risks to children and young people are
reduced
Practitioner attendance on training
Effective use of agreed standardised tools and frameworks to support
early help assessments and those of significant harm.
The use of such tools to secure evidence in PLO and legal proceedings
to be monitored.
Assessments must include the ‘voice of the child’ in order for their
needs not be eclipsed by those of adults.
Research used to inform this strategy
The Ofsted thematic review “In the child’s time: professional responses to neglect:
March 2014
The Ofsted thematic review “What about the children? Joint working between adult
and children's services when parents or carers have mental ill health and/or drug and
alcohol problems: March 2013
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Practitioner feedback from an audit of 10 cases involving neglect that included
practitioner forums and the Audit and Review Group.
Learning lessons from Serious Case Reviews’, 2010,
Working Together to Safeguarding Children-HM Government 2013
Frank Field Review, 2010, ‘The Foundation Years: preventing poor children
becoming poor adults, London: Cabinet Office’.
Graham Allen, MP, Early Intervention-Next Steps, 2011.
Horwath, J (2007) Child Neglect: Identification and Assessment, Basingstoke,
Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Action for Children, Outcomes for children, families, Action for Children and the UK’,
2012.
Action on Neglect– A Resource Pack- Action for Children, 2013.
The Graded Care Profile was developed as a practical tool to give an objective
measure of the care of children across all areas of need by Drs Polnay and
Srivastava. The profile gives an indication of care on a graded scale.
www.nspcc.org.uk/inform/resourcesforprofessionals/neglect/graded_care_profile.
A sign of safety is a strengths-based and safety organised assessment and planning
framework by Turnell and Edwards. www.signsofsafety.net
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DELIVERY PLAN –MULTI AGENCY NEGLECT STRATEGY 2014-16
STRATEGIC
ACTIVITY
RESPONSIBILITY
OBJECTIVE
1. Raising and sustaining
 Public Health
awareness of the impact of
awareness and
neglect on children and
JSNA development
families
 Staff Training
across
Partnership(s)
 Relaunch
Thresholds model
2. Ensuring practitioners
and managers are able to
recognise and respond to
early indicators of neglect



3. Ensuring that
practitioners and managers
are able to respond to, and
to work purposefully with,
Neglect Strategy Final

LEAD PERSON
TIMESCALE
KSCB Board
Manager.
Public Health
June 2015
Work Force
Development Lead
and LSCB training
Officer.
Early help
assessments
Review CSC
Assessment Tools
used for neglect and
significant harm
Develop and
evaluate training
framework for
neglect using DfE
tools
Review of
Assessment Tools
for Neglect/
significant harm
KSCB Training
Officer
Head of Service CSC
Asst. Director(s)
Children’s Social
Care
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families where neglect is
causing significant harm
4. Developing and
sustaining a multi-agency
response to neglect which
ensures strategic multi
agency partnership
working.
5. Ensuring that the
effectiveness of service
provision in respect of
neglect is evaluatedincluding the voice of the
child being seen and heard
Neglect Strategy Final

Sustainable multi
agency training
model on neglect
Clear thresholds
and step-up/down
approach to case
management
KSCB Training
Officer

Multi Agency
processes and
working tools to
assist in diagnosis
Asst. Director
Children’s Service

Measuring ‘success’
through
performance data
and evaluation
Multi agency
auditing through
KSCB

KSCB members and
through respective
governance
arrangements.
KSCB Board
Manager
KSCB QA Manager
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