Supporting and engaging schools in decision-making and multi-agency working for the protection of children.

Schools are an important source for the identification, referral and management of child protection concerns. Yet schools often lack robust arrangements for working in partnership with children's social care departments and/or find it difficult to implement these effectively (Baginsky, 2007; Ward, Brown & Maskell-Graham, 2012). A recent major review identified a lack of engagement by schools with safeguarding, despite the statutory framework to promote inter-agency co-operation (Davies and Ward, 2012). Furthermore, in recent years state-funded schools have been able to sever their links with local authorities and there has been a significant increase in the number of Academies and free schools giving heads and teachers greater freedoms and flexibilities. The Government is clear that schools of all types should continue to maintain a strong relationship with local authorities over child protection and safeguarding concerns, although schools are able to determine the shape of that relationship. These changes, combined with changes in local authority structures and the introduction of Health and Wellbeing Boards (HWBs), mean research to understand and promote strong local collaborative safeguarding arrangements is timely and important.

In June 2010, the Secretary of State for Education requested an independent review of child protection in England from Professor Eileen Munro. As part of this work Professor Munro considered the wider organisational system in promoting or hindering good critical thinking. In order to be able to reflect the dynamic and unpredictable nature of child protection within a multi-agency context it is intended to use an approach that is capable of allowing this complexity to be examined and analysed.

The research will comprise three distinct but related phases:

1. Inception and scoping informed by:
a. a literature review;
b. discussions with representatives from key stakeholder groups;
2. A survey of all education and children's social care sections of children's service departments (or equivalents) in all local authorities; all LSCBs; all HWBs to:
i. identify the relative contributions of predictive variables in successful multi-agency working; and
ii. enable the selection of five case study authorities which represent a range of collaborative practice as identified through the survey, as well as different types of authority.
3. Five case studies:
a. a short pro forma will be sent to all schools and Further Education colleges in the five case study authorities, to capture their experiences of involvement in safeguarding practice and to inform sampling of ten educational establishments in each area (total 50) to reflect diversity of provision.
b. in the 50 identified educational establishments, all relevant key personnel will be interviewed and also asked to complete the Organisational Social Context (OSC) measure, a validated measure developed in United States (US) but used in a small number of English authorities.
c. the school data will be mapped onto a framework developed by Professor Bob Hudson to assess capacity for collaborative practice and partnership, in this case of individual schools.
d. discussion groups will be held with representatives from local authority agencies in the case study authorities and school staff to discuss the survey and interview data.

This research will provide information on the current arrangements existing between schools and the key bodies with responsibility for child protection and on how these arrangements are working. It will also contribute to what we know about decision-making around child protection by all the agencies concerned and make recommendations about the structures and support that best reflect the needs of the newly configured educational context. Evidence generated by the research will be pertinent to the debate around mandatory reporting of child protection concerns, both nationally and internationally.

Academic impact: contribution of new knowledge and understanding to an under-researched aspect of an area of critical importance and insight into the impact of:
a) recent rapid changes in both educational and local authority governance; and
b) organisational contexts
on the way staff in schools make decisions in relation to child protection and its impact on their engagement in multi-agency work. The application of complexity theory and the Organisational Social Context measure will build on recent work using systems theory and provide an enhanced understanding of the reasons for the failure of child protection practice to adopt lessons from Serious Care Reviews.

Innovative methodologies and cross-disciplinary approaches: The mixed methods and multi-level methodology underpinning the study are innovative and complex. They offer an opportunity to study multi-agency work from the perspectives of all key stakeholders and gain greater insight into the complexities of collaborative practice within and beyond local authority structures.

Economic and social impact: The project will contribute to the research priorities for child protection, social work reform and intervention identified by Government (DfE, 2014):
-Improving professional awareness of abuse and neglect to achieve more appropriate referrals and a better understanding of what motivates professionals to refer or not;
-Understanding the barriers preventing professionals referring safeguarding concerns to social services in an effective and timely manner;
-Identifying effective interventions in improving the quality and consistency of referrals; and
-Assessing the impact of:
a) different models of inter-agency working and information sharing on the quality and timeliness of decision making;
b) local organisational and leadership changes; and
c) the different ways LSCBs operate and factors influencing the effectiveness of LSCBs.

Contributing towards evidence-based policymaking at local, regional and national levels: By engaging with key national and local stakeholders the project provides a significant opportunity to inform the development of policy and practice at national and local levels.

Shaping and enhancing the effectiveness of public services: In addition to influencing the development of local authority models of inter-agency working, the project offers considerable potential to enhance safeguarding practice at school level and to influence the development of the role of local authorities in supporting all state-funded schools to fulfill their statutory duty to safeguard children.

Transforming evidence-based policy into practice and influencing and informing practitioners and professional practice: Study findings will enhance understanding of the factors impacting on schools' capacity and motivation to engage in inter-agency collaboration and will support development of relevant training and skills.

Improving social welfare: Professional identification of safeguarding issues, early intervention, appropriate referral and effective multi-agency working are critical to the prevention of child abuse and neglect and to ensuring the welfare of children, as well as to the efficient operation of overstretched children's social care services.

Changing organisational culture and practices: The project has significant potential to influence:
a) development of models of inter-agency governance at local government and school levels to promote best practice in safeguarding and child protection; and
b) structures and support required to strengthen safeguarding practice in schools and schools' role within multi-agency collaboration. It would facilitate the adoption of solutions that reflected the needs of the newly configured educational context.

Publications proposed in: British Journal of Social Work, Children & Youth Services Review, Child & Family Social Work, Journal of Educational Research and Journal of Integrated Care