David Brindle, London, 2 Apr 2020
Face-to-face visits are integral to social work practice, but the coronavirus crisis has reduced contact with at-risk children
When Kate* went to do an initial child protection assessment the other day, she had to see the youngster in the garden. “They didn’t really understand what was going on, they were cold and they didn’t want to talk,” she says. “It wasn’t very effective.”
At least Kate, a 32-year-old children and families social worker, got to see the child who had been referred to her local authority in the south-west of England. Other social workers report that the coronavirus crisis has reduced their contact with at-risk children to a WhatsApp call, or being shown them at a safe distance on the doorstep by parents who say they are self-isolating or are anxious about infection.
It’s a deeply unsatisfactory state of affairs that is alarming social workers across the country. “There are four families on my books – 10 children in all – where, however hard I try, I really can’t know that the children are safe,” says Kirsty, a senior practitioner with a council in the Midlands. “If it all goes Pete Tong, who is going to be accountable?”
Face-to-face contact is integral to social workers’ practice. The coronavirus lockdown has left children and families specialists, as well as those working with vulnerable adults, without any national rules or advice on how to adapt their approach to ensure even minimal safeguards when contact is limited.
“The fundamental problem is that there is no public health guidance for social work,” says Ruth Allen, chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers (BASW). “There’s also a concern that this situation may enable some families to put up barriers. But it’s the social worker’s job to overcome those barriers.”
Kate’s authority is still requiring her and her ‘front-door’ colleagues to make visits to follow-up referrals, even though other services such as family support have stopped.
“Families don’t want us visiting because they are worried about us going from household to household [and carrying infection],” she says. “I appreciate that. But when you end up trying to do an assessment in the garden, I just feel like I’m not doing my job and may be leaving the child at risk – and putting my registration at risk.”
Charlie does the same job as Kate with a council in the Midlands. She is currently self-isolating and assessment visits are being undertaken by two colleagues. Their managers have stipulated that, for the time being, no visit should exceed 15 minutes.
“That makes it very difficult to assess what’s going on, assess relationships and assess risk,” says Charlie, 30. “We’re trying to get a bit more creative and tech-savvy with WhatsApp and FaceTime, doing what we can to still have a conversation, but it doesn’t sit right. It’s not a good time to be a social worker.”
For Kirsty, who is part of a post-referral child safeguarding team, schools would normally offer an alternative location for a visit and there would be time, in a private space, to draw out a child through games, toys or drawing. But relatively few at-risk children are still being sent to school, even though they remain eligible to attend. Only one of Kirsty’s caseload of 21 children is still going.
“The school are marvellous: they scrub down, sterilise and deep-clean every time I’m there,” says Kirsty, 47, contrasting the precautions with those of her own employer who, she reports, has issued her with a flask for water, a bar of soap and paper towels so she can wash her hands between visits.
Some of her deepest concerns are reserved for children and teenagers in households marked out for domestic abuse and drug and alcohol misuse, that have now declared themselves off-limits for visiting. “I have a family with a 17-year-old who has a boyfriend who abuses her, a younger sister of 15 and a mother who has mental health issues she doesn’t acknowledge,” says Kirsty. “How am I supposed to know if the boyfriend is there? How am I supposed to ensure those children are safe?”
Allen says the BASW is urgently drawing up guidance on home visiting, which it hopes to publish in the next few days and which will stress the imperative to keep contact to an essential minimum while observing basic health precautions.
But it is vital that social workers like Kate, Charlie and Kirsty, working alone, feel they are not carrying sole responsibility for any gaps in the system during the current emergency, Allen says. “It’s really important that organisations create virtual teams to maintain relationships. That’s quite possible to do. Managers and supervisors are operating under tremendous strain – everyone is – but they need to ensure that their social workers still have team support.”