Stewart Kirk - The Sexual Abuse of Adolescent Girls: Social Workers Child Protection Practice

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THE SEXUAL ABUSE OF ADOLESCENT GIRLS

Dedicated to the memory of Declan Curran, 19811995

The Sexual Abuse of Adolescent Girls

Social workers child protection practice

STEWART KIRK

University of York

First published 1999 by Ashgate Publishing

Reissued 2018 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, 0X14 4RN

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright Stewart Kirk 1999

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice:

Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Publishers Note

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

Disclaimer

The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes correspondence from those they have been unable to contact.

A Library of Congress record exists under LC control number: 99072658

ISBN 13: 978-1-138-36029-7 (hbk)

ISBN 13: 978-1-138-36031-0 (pbk)

ISBN 13: 978-0-429-43323-8 (ebk)

Contents

This book is the result of a study to determine the ways in which a variety of factors influence the actions of social workers in child protection cases involving the sexual abuse of adolescent girls by a family member.

These influences on practice fall into five broad categories. The first category comprises central government legislation, policy and practice guidance, local procedures, local organisational and administrative issues and the availability of a whole series of resources within social services and beyond. The second category comprises those issues arising out of the governmental mandate for interagency coordination and the operation of the child protection network. The third category comprises those issues deriving from the girl and her status, and the form and seriousness of the abuse. This includes the crucial issue of the age of the girls concerned. The fourth category comprises those issues deriving from the girls families, both nonabusing members and perpetrators. This includes issues both of family structure and familial relationships. The fifth category comprises those issues to do with the skills, limitations and practice preferences of the social workers themselves.

The book has developed out of a doctoral research project based around a research process of in-depth interviews with social workers with reference to recent cases they had dealt with.

The various influences on their practice are considered both in terms of practical enablements to practice and constraints on practice, and in terms of indirect influences on practice. These are considered in terms of issues deriving from specific concrete situations, forms of abuse and the personalities of the various protagonists, mediated through the meanings they hold for practising social workers.

Through the examination of these various themes a number of areas of tension become apparent. The research demonstrates clear tensions between the social workers perceptions of the therapeutic task of child protection work and the aims of the criminal justice system, the rigidity of certain aspects of the child protection procedures and the aftermath needs of abused adolescent girls, and normative perspectives of risk and client choice.

Deriving from the analysis of the influence of these different factors on practice are recommendations for improved in-service training, including joint training for social workers and police officers, and recommendations for a review of the transitional procedures between child protection and adult services.

This study would not have been possible without the help of a great many people. Firstly, I wish to thank all of the social workers and social services managers that were kind enough to give up their valuable time in interviews. Secondly, I must thank Dr. Carol-Ann Hooper for her constructive criticism and intellectual support throughout the project, and Professor Ian Sinclair and Mr Bob Coles for their help in the early stages. I also wish to thank those undergraduate and postgraduate students at the universities of York and Bradford for their good-natured criticism and interest in the project. Thanks also go to my wife, Bernadette, my children, Anne, Catherine and Daniel, and other family and friends (they know who they are) for both emotional support and practical assistance in completing this book. Special thanks go to Mrs Jane Kirk, Messrs. John Manson, Dennis Robertson and Duncan Kirk for transporting a non-driver across the country to conduct interviews.

Evaluative Research in Social Work brings together research which has explored the impact of social work services in a variety of contexts and from several perspectives. The vision of social work in this series is a broad one. It encompasses services in residential, fieldwork and community settings undertaken by workers with backgrounds in health and welfare. The volumes will therefore include studies of social work with families and children, with elderly people, people with mental and other health problems and with offenders.

This approach to social work is consistent with contemporary legislation in many countries, including Britain, in which social work has a key role in the assessment of need and in the delivery of personal social services, in health care and in criminal justice. It also continues a long tradition which perceives an integral relationship between social work, social research and social policy. Those who provide social work services are acquainted with the complexities of human need and with the achievements and shortcomings of major instruments of social policy. This knowledge was exploited by, amongst others, Booth, Rowntree and the Webbs in their studies of poverty. Politicians and sociologists have also recognised that, together with the people they try to help, social workers can provide a commentary on the human meaning of public policies and the social issues that grow from private troubles.

This knowledge and experience of the recipients and practitioners of social work are not, of course, immediately accessible to the wider community. A major purpose of research is to gather, organise and interpret this information and, in the studies in this series, to evaluate the impact of social work. Here there are many legitimate interests to consider. First and foremost are direct service users and those who care for them. These are the people who should be the main beneficiaries of social work services. Also to be considered are the personnel of other services for whom liaison and collaboration with social work are essential to their own successful functioning. The needs and views of these different groups may well conflict and it is the researchers task to identify those tensions and describe social works response to them.

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