Parental Advocacy in Child Protection Services in England

Abstract

Involvement with children’s services makes many parents fearful, confused, and powerless. This makes it harder for them to engage, which in turn makes it harder for social workers to make accurate assessments of risk. Limited engagement by parents can therefore result in an escalation of child protection involvement.

Parental advocacy is a potentially valuable intervention in this area. In the USA research has shown that parental advocacy can help improve relationships between parents and social workers, empower parents to have more of a voice in decision making and in turn reduce the numbers of children coming into care.

This seminar will present the findings of the first large-scale realist-informed evaluation of parental advocacy in England. The research was conducted across four local authority sites, varying in geography, organisational culture, and advocacy design. Despite taking different forms, across the study sites, parental advocacy shaped how parents encountered, understood, and engaged with statutory child protection decision-making processes. We will discuss the contextual features that helped establish advocacy, indications of its impact on outcomes, and how the findings have developed our theory on how advocacy works. We will also explore further avenues for research and recommendations for practice.

Biographies

Dr Harriet Lloyd has worked as a research associate at the Children’s Social Care Research and Development Centre (CASCADE) since 2023. Her main research interest is in interventions that could change trajectories for families, such as breaking intergenerational cycles of care. She currently holds a Health and Care Research Wales Advancing Researcher award examining Residential Family Assessment Centres (Mother and Baby Units).

Dr Clive Diaz is a Senior Academic Leader at the Rees Centre, University of Oxford. He is a children’s social care researcher, registered social worker and psychodynamic psychotherapist with more than 20 years’ experience spanning frontline practice, senior leadership and academia. He has published more than 40 academic publications and research reports, including two books, and has led several studies examining children’s participation, parental advocacy and decision-making within child protection systems.