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Held hostage

Child protection failures may be partly explained by a hostage-like relationship that can develop between a child protection worker and a violent parent, according to findings by Monash researchers. FIONA PERRY reports.

News of the death of a child known to child protection authorities is invariably met with a public reaction of anger, shock and disbelief. Media interest is intense and often directed at the social workers and others involved in the child's care ­ how could they allow this to happen?

It's a story that Associate Professor Chris Goddard, director of Monash University's Child Abuse and Family Research Unit, knows only too well.

"The deaths of children known to child protection services have preoccupied health and welfare professions for 30 years," he says. "But it is only now that we are beginning to recognise the complex power relationships that may exist between child protection workers and abusers and how these relationships can affect the outcomes for children."

A new book published this year by Dr Goddard and co-researcher Dr Janet Stanley presents findings from their four-year study into the extent of violence against Victorian child protection workers and its effect on their ability to protect their clients.

In the Firing Line: Violence and Power in Child Protection Work is based on in-depth interviews with 50 randomly selected protection workers and a review of a random sample of their case files.

The study uncovered a startling incidence of intimidation and violence against child protection workers. In the six-month period prior to their research interviews, almost half the workers had received at least one death threat and had been threatened with assault. Almost a quarter of workers had been physically assaulted. Others had been threatened with sexual assault, knives and guns.

In the absence of adequate support from their agencies, the effect of the violence was to make the workers feel like hostages ­ disempowered, helpless, traumatised and isolated, Dr Goddard says.

"The book makes an important connection between child protection failure and actual and threatened violence against child protection workers," he explains.

"The workers we interviewed often had to face difficult, intimidating and traumatic situations without sufficient support, regularly dealing with people in their homes who are known to engage in criminal activities and often, multiple forms of family violence."

Dr Goddard points out it is often assumed that social workers are all-powerful in their relationships with clients and their families, because they have the authority to remove children from their parents.

"But when dealing with often long, drawn-out cases involving a violent perpetrator, many workers felt trapped and powerless, unconsciously changing their behaviour to cope in a hostile environment," he says.

"We found that the workers who were most likely to exhibit hostage-like behaviour were the ones who experienced the most intimidation and violence, and who received the least support from management, their supervisors and other agencies."

Self-protective defences employed by workers in the study included underestimating by half the number of violent incidents within a child's family; forgetting or under-recalling frightening situations; and under-recalling incidents of violence or intimidation experienced by other workers.

In short, the study showed that workers consistently under-recalled the extent of violence associated with families in the case files, and also under-recalled the physical assault, sexual and psychological abuse and neglect of children for whom they were responsible, Dr Goddard says.

"The children from the workers' current case loads were recorded as having been subjected to twice as many types of maltreatment as the workers recalled," he explains.

"The extent and consistency of this error of recall suggests an association between denial ­ linked to hostage-like behaviour ­ and the failure to protect a child."

It is clear that more intensive supervision, support and resources for workers are required in order to stem the number of children who die or continue to suffer serious injury at the hands of violent abusers, says Dr Goddard, who points to recent changes in policy and practice implemented by New Zealand's child protection agency as an example.

In 1996, the New Zealand government department responsible for child protection implemented changes in response to research into hostage theory. These included:

• the establishment of teams to act as a resource to the social worker and ensure the effects of working in a dangerous situation are managed and minimised;
• a systematic and regular review of situations of extreme violence and threats to workers;
• mandatory training regarding issues such as dangerous situations and hostage theory;
• the addition of the safety of workers to risk management reviews;
• debriefing conducted externally for all dangerous situation cases;
• a mandatory independent review of cases where three referrals are received within a 12-month period;
• access to legal advice in dangerous situations;
• the flagging of dangerous situation cases in protection record-keeping;
• fast-tracking of access to specialist services in dangerous situation cases.

"Reforms such as these, which go some way towards providing greater support for protection workers than currently exist, are urgently needed in Victoria and elsewhere," Dr Goddard says.

For more information about studying social work, visit www.arts.monash.edu.au/social_work/.

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