Exploring inequities in child welfare and child protection services: explaining the ‘inverse intervention law’

Paul Bywaters; Geraldine M. Brady; Tim Sparks; Elizabeth Bos; L. Bunting; B. Daniel; B. Featherstone

doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2015.07.017

Exploring inequities in child welfare and child protection services: explaining the ‘inverse intervention law’

Paul Bywaters, Geraldine M. Brady, Tim Sparks, Elizabeth Bos, L. Bunting, B. Daniel, B. Featherstone

Nuffield Foundation

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89 Citations (Scopus)

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Abstract

Attempts to record, understand and respond to variations in child welfare and protection reporting, service patterns and outcomes are international, numerous and longstanding. Reframing such variations as an issue of inequity between children and between families opens the way to a new approach to explaining the profound difference in intervention rates between and within countries and administrative districts. Recent accounts of variation have frequently been based on the idea that there is a binary divide between bias and risk (or need). Here we propose seeing supply (bias) and demand (risk) factors as two aspects of a single system, both framed, in part, by social structures. A recent finding from a study of intervention rates in England, the ‘inverse intervention law’, is used to illustrate the complex ways in which a range of factors interact to produce intervention rates. In turn, this analysis raises profound moral, policy, practice and research questions about current child welfare and child protection services.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	98-105
Journal	Children and Youth Services Review
Volume	57
Early online date	31 Jul 2015
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2015.07.017
Publication status	Published - Oct 2015

Bibliographical note

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Children and Youth Services Review. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Children and Youth Services Review, [57, (2015)] DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2015.07.017

© 2015, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Keywords

child welfare
child protection
social inequity
social policy

Access to Document

10.1016/j.childyouth.2015.07.017

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89 Citations
1 Article

Poverty, inequality, child abuse and neglect: Changing the conversation across the UK in child protection?
Featherstone, B., Morris, K., Daniel, B., Bywaters, P., Brady, G., Bunting, L., Mason, W. & Mirza, N., Feb 2019, In: Children and Youth Services Review. 97, p. 127-133 7 p.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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56 Citations (Scopus)

1043 Downloads (Pure)

Cite this

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title = "Exploring inequities in child welfare and child protection services: explaining the {\textquoteleft}inverse intervention law{\textquoteright}",

abstract = "Attempts to record, understand and respond to variations in child welfare and protection reporting, service patterns and outcomes are international, numerous and longstanding. Reframing such variations as an issue of inequity between children and between families opens the way to a new approach to explaining the profound difference in intervention rates between and within countries and administrative districts. Recent accounts of variation have frequently been based on the idea that there is a binary divide between bias and risk (or need). Here we propose seeing supply (bias) and demand (risk) factors as two aspects of a single system, both framed, in part, by social structures. A recent finding from a study of intervention rates in England, the {\textquoteleft}inverse intervention law{\textquoteright}, is used to illustrate the complex ways in which a range of factors interact to produce intervention rates. In turn, this analysis raises profound moral, policy, practice and research questions about current child welfare and child protection services. ",

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Exploring inequities in child welfare and child protection services: explaining the ‘inverse intervention law’

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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Research output

Poverty, inequality, child abuse and neglect: Changing the conversation across the UK in child protection?

Cite this