Family Group Conferences: An Opportunity to Re-Frame Responses to the Abuse of Older People?

Abstract

Recent legislative and policy changes in adult social care have refocused attention on 15 a strengths-based approach to social work practice. The Care Act 2014 advocates a more inclusive and holistic understanding of individual well-being, which is evident by its expectation of more personalised responses to safeguarding. Family Group Conferences (FGCs) fit well with this policy shift but require further exploration before being integrated into work with adults. A fictitious case study was analysed through 20 an organic group discussion, during which the authors applied their professional expertise to explore the appropriateness of FGCs to provide a response to adultsafeguarding cases. FGCs provide a viable alternative to traditional decision-making approaches in the adult-safeguarding field. The case analysis exposes three main areas that require further consideration to ensure effective implementation. The areas iden-25 tified are divided into mental capacity, risk and funding. It is important that policy makers and local authorities acknowledge the complexity of transferring an approach originally designed for working with children and families to the context of social work with older adults. More effort should be made to address the practice tensions

More than words can say: Why health and social care policy makers should reconsider their position on informal interpreters

“…Niska's (2000) pyramid acknowledges that interpreting requires explicit subjective elements, including deciding to step outside of the role to advocate for an individual when they believe it to be necessary, which family or friends would arguably be much better placed to do. There is a substantial evidence base emerging that supports this understanding of professional interpreting (Temple and Edwards, 2002;Ho, 2008; Bramberg and Sandman, 2012; Colley and Guéry, 2015;Parkinson et al, 2018) thus undermining policy maker's rationale for encouraging the provision of formal interpreters in health and social care interactions.…”

“…These are inappropriate and insufficient (Westake and Jones, 2018, Temple and Edwards, 2002) and undermine the intersectional nature of LEP; particularly in relation to socio-economic aspects of individual identity (Gunaratnam, 2003). Research by Parkinson et al, 2018 lends support to the inadequacy of such practices, reporting users of services being described as 'stupid' and 'illiterate' by gender and ethnicity matched professional interpreters, in reference to stereotypes about the rural region they were born, in their country of origin. Indeed, friends or relations of the individual with LEP may actually be better placed to provide individualised language brokering, due to their understanding of the individual's lived experiences, as Temple and Edwards refer to language as 'tied to local realities ' (2002: 3).…”

“…Nevertheless, research indicates that the existence of this Code has not reassured individuals who require language brokers and there is still concern that professional interpreters will breach confidentiality. When interviewing older Pakistani women with LEP, Parkinson et al, 2018 found that their preference for family interpreters was in part a mechanism to protect their privacy. The women were from a town with a large Pakistani population and believed that professional interpreters were likely to be employed from within their community.…”

“…In this context, Edwards et al (2006) discuss the level of trust expected from individuals when utilising a professional interpreter. As previously discussed, those individuals with LEP are more likely to be in poor health, older, female, and from lower socio-economic backgrounds than the general population (Merrell, 2006;Office of National Statistics, 2015;Lucas, 2016;Durbin et al, 2017;Parkinson et al, 2018). When communicating with health and social care services, in the context of this disadvantageous position, individu-als are then expected to trust an interpreter, recruited by the organisation, with their welfare.…”

“…Existing research (Merrell et al, 2006;Durbin et al, 2017;Parkinson et al, 2018) indicates that second language acquisition is intersectional in nature; in these projects the researchers identified that older minority ethnic women were less likely to speak English than older males or younger women from the same ethnic background. In addition, Parkinson et al, 2018 andDurbin et al (2017) reported the importance of socio-economic status as a contributing factor influencing second language acquisition with the latter describing individuals with LEP as 'commonly older and female with less education and more physical health comorbidities ' (2017: 495). It therefore appears that it is not necessarily the lack of English language that increases poor health, but a combination of associated factors such as socio-economic status, education, age and gender.…”