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Whose Best Interests?
Whose Best Interests?
A fellow social worker described to me recently, an account of a fairly heated interaction with parents during an initial visit. It sounded like a difficult visit where everyone was feeling defensive, which I’ve certainly experienced myself. But what stood out to me was that the social worker had told the parents that her job is to think about the children’s best interests. This made me stop and think about how shaming this might have felt for the parent and the possible repercussions of this happening.
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When a professional asserts that they are acting in the best interests of the child, what does this implicitly say about the parent’s best interests? Do we start to enter a space where the best interests of the child and of the parent are classed as being different, or even at odds with each other?
Let's pause to imagine how would it feel to be that parent...
The concept of the child’s best interests comes from section 3.1. of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). It’s a valuable (although debated) principle that the child’s best interests should be a primary consideration in all actions concerning children. Additionally, social workers are guided by a similar notion from the Children Act 1989 that the “welfare of the child is paramount”. I’ll admit, that these principles always seemed uncontentious to me.
But what if this idea, that a social worker’s focus should always be on the child’s welfare is not as simple or as neutral as it first seems?
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I strongly argue that usually, attending to a parent’s welfare is not only compatible with acting in the child’s best interests, but is often the best way to support a child’s wellbeing within their family.
As Pat Crittenden writes in her book Raising Parents (2008), professionals need to view parents as people with children who have their own needs, rather than seeing parents as people who exist purely to fulfil the needs of their children.
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From the extensive research Pat Crittenden has conducted internationally over the years, three common themes among parents whose children are in the child protection system have emerged:
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Even when parents harm their children, they almost never intended to do so.
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Harmful parental behaviour has roots in what parents learned in their own childhoods – that is, parents were also threatened or harmed as children.
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Parents seek to raise their children better than they were raised
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Social workers are expected to consider the Welfare Checklist and the UNCRC when they’re involved in legal processes relating to children. This means that when a social worker is making recommendations to court about where a child should live, the child’s best interests and child’s welfare is the primary consideration. I completely agree with this application of these principles, which can be asserted respectfully to the parents.
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But the majority of a child and family social worker’s time is spent supporting families through Child in Need or Child Protections Plans, and the aim is to keep families together wherever possible. If we as professionals (consciously or not) minimise a parent's needs, then we risk dehumanizing parents and in doing so, are undermining our own efforts to improve children's safety and wellbeing.
I want to think about language – “Child Protection”. This phrase looks pretty problematic if we apply to Karpman’s Drama Triangle like this:
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For me, this leads to a question “Who are we as social workers protecting children from”? This makes rocky ground for social workers trying to build relationships with parents, and supporting parents to feel empowered to make changes in their own parenting.
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I wonder, if parent's needs are overlooked by social workers, whether it is to do with limited resources and large social work caseloads. In this context, a scarcity mindset can develop where there's not enough to go around for everyone.
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Lastly, I suggest that in Britain, the work of parenting is not valued enough. More people than ever in Britain are parenting in poverty and without an established community network to support them. Parenting is hard work at the best of times!
By viewing the parents and the children’s needs as part of the same puzzle from the outset, I hope that parents can feel less ashamed of their own needs and circumstances and feel more able to work with professionals to make changes that protect the family as a whole.
Persecutor
(Parent)
Victim
(Child)
Rescuer
(Social Worker)