Abuse and Protection Issues across the Lifespan: Reviewing the Literature

Abstract

The literature is reviewed: (a)

Constructions of ‘vulnerability’ in comparative perspective: Scottish protection policies and the trouble with ‘adults at risk’

“…The rationale for this is unclear. Hence the findings of the paper support related work that promotes a comparative and lifespan approach, as one means of interrogating policy and refining its assumptions (Bowes and Daniel, 2010;Daniel and Bowes, 2011;Johnson et al, 2010). Such an approach has implications for all three of the policies discussed; however the focus here has been on ASP.…”

“…However, except that it coincides neither with mental incapacity nor with any other label traditionally attached to people by policies and services, the precise nature of the vulnerability understood to affect 'adults at risk' has still not been made clear. Furthermore, the assumptions of predecessor policies, themselves based on patchy empirical foundations, have been built on and refined with remarkably little comparison and cross-fertilisation of ideas from related fields (Bowes and Daniel, 2010;Johnson et al, 2010).…”

“…The comparison is of three frameworks for understanding and for professional practice. Professionals, policy-makers and others tend to view a situation through one such framework at a time, not least because of the divisions that exist in policy and service structures and professional remits and roles (Daniel and Bowes, 2011;Johnson et al, 2010). Given this, and given that all policies inevitably construct problems and the people affected by those problems (Bacchi, 1999), comparison is a powerful medium for rendering explicit the ways this has been done.…”

Governance in adult safeguarding in Scotland since the implementation of the Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2007

“…At a local level there were examples of data collection on the affected population, type of harm, source and number of referrals informing knowledge about the scope of the work, for example the preponderance in some areas of women among adults referred, and in others of harm related to substance abuse[1]. Overall the data indicated a marked increase in the rate of referrals, with consequent anxiety about impact on staffing and workloads, and while the level of detail provided varied considerably, there was a consistently emerging sense of the complexity of definition and categorisation in a field where harm takes place in dynamic contexts and where roles of "victim" and "perpetrator" may be complex (Hogg et al, 2009), fluid and subjective (Johnson et al, 2010). While many of the reports noted that data collection remained an area for considerable development, there was nonetheless a sense of a drive to know more about the extent, nature and characteristics of the local population who might be affected by adult protection issues and a "concerned curiosity" found absent in the Serious Case Review of the multiple and sustained instances of abuse at Winterbourne View in England (Flynn, 2012, p. 130).…”

Problems with the Term and Concept of 'Abuse': Critical Reflections on the Scottish Adult Support and Protection Study

“…"Abuse" has been constructed differently at different times and in reference to different groups of individuals (Johnson et al, 2010). It is a relative concept, defined in counterpoint to prevailing norms of acceptable experience.…”