Table 2 Service development initiatives in social care settings
Study | Setting | Professionals involved | Type of service | Type of evaluation | Findings related to awareness |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Appleton 2015 [13] | Local authority | Social workers | Strengthening Families child protection conference | Before/after | Most professionals thought approach worked well but families perceived they were being judged |
Ashley 2017 [14] | City LSCB area | Social workers and others with safeguarding responsibility | FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) | Cross-sectional | FMEA was valuable for participants and generated actions to improve response |
Firmin 2016 [15] | Local authorities | Social workers | Contextual social work interventions | N/A (summary of published research) | Interventions that take account of context may improve safeguarding |
Gupta 2010 [16] | Social care system | Social workers and other practitioners | Improved recognition and safeguarding of trafficked children | Review of research and cross-sectional (interviews) | Need for improved training and deployment of staff, better interprofessional working and collection and sharing of data |
Harris 2017 [17] | Voluntary sector child sexual exploitation (CSE) services | Multiple groups Child protection professionals and CSE workers | ‘Hub and spoke’ model, including training for professionals | Cross-sectional | Hub and spoke model improves standards in local safeguarding by extending the reach of training and resources |
Heikkila 2011 [18] | Social care system (UK and other European countries) | Social workers and police | Examples of police and social workers working together, including school safety initiatives | Cross-sectional | Shows importance of networks between practitioners and multicultural skills |
Hurley 2015 [19] | Social care system | Social workers and others working with Romanian children | International Multi Agency Assessment Framework (IMAAF), a tool to prompt professionals to consider safeguarding issues related to trafficking | Evaluation of the IMAAF was in progress at the time of the report. | IMAAF encourages agencies to work together within and between countries to safeguard trafficked children |
Peckover 2017 [20] | Local authorities | Multiple groups Practitioners working in domestic abuse and safeguarding | Development of multiagency working in domestic abuse and child safeguarding | Cross-sectional | Need for further improvement in multiagency working to safeguard children |
Pinkerton 2015 [21] | Health & Social Care Trusts in Northern Ireland | Multiple groups Agencies dealing with ‘looked after’ children | Review of cases of ‘looked after’ children who had repeatedly ‘gone missing’ and were at risk of sexual exploitation | Cross-sectional | Improved awareness of ‘going missing’ as a possible indicator of sexual exploitation needing a multiagency response |
Whiting 2008 [22] | Local authority | Multiple groups Nurses, health visitors (including ‘health specialists’), social workers and managers | Health specialist initiative (health visitors seconded to child protection teams) | Cross-sectional | The health specialist was successful in improving communication, increasing social workers’ knowledge of child health and strengthening assessments made in social care. |