Holding It Together? Professional Perspectives on the Role of Relationships when Relocating Young People due to Extra-familial Harm

Abstract

When young people come to harm in extra-familial contexts, professionals may move them a distance from their home community to protect them, and in doing so disrupt relationships in which they have encountered harm. However, relocations can also fracture young people’s protective relationships with family, peers, and professionals; relationships that have been positioned as targets for intervention in cases of extra-familial harm. The extent to which these relationships are considered during relocations is under-explored. Utilising semi-structured interviews with 16 social work professionals in England and Wales, we assessed their accounts of using relationships prior to, during, and following relocations in cases of extra-familial harm. Three themes emerged: using relationships during relocations to provide consistency, to collaborate, and to create safety. Professional accounts prioritised young people’s relationships with practitioners, over relationships with families, peers, and their wider communities, when using/seeking opportunities to offer consistency and to collaborate on safety plans. They also depicted a struggle to engage with the complex web of family, peer, and community relationships associated to young people’s protection in both their home communities and those they had been moved to; relationships that were critical for creating safety. Implications for practice and future research are discussed, highlighting the potential merits of offering integrated research and practice frameworks that hold together young people’s relationships with families, peers, communities, and professionals, in response to extra-familial harm.

Revisiting social workers in schools (SWIS) – making the case for safeguarding in context and the potential for reach

“…Yet, the context of public service retrenchment described earlier has resulted in the erosion of trust (Lefevre et al , 2017) and has limited opportunities to reach young people early. Recent commentaries remind us of the centrality of protective relationships in keeping young people safe (Firmin and Owens, 2021). Roles like SWIS seem to go some way to answer calls to reclaim long term, therapeutic, holding relationships, which for Ferguson et al (2020) involves immersing ourselves in the day-to-day existence of children and families.…”

“…Internationally, there is consensus that SWIS is based on consent, which is a marked point of difference from other statutory roles social workers occupy. For Firmin and Owens (2021), such collaborative relationships form a key part of protective responses to extra-familial harm. Voluntary engagement of this nature coincides with the adolescent developmental period of choice, control and autonomy (Hanson and Holmes, 2014).…”

‘It's like a much deeper understanding and you kind of believe them more …’: The value of peer support for young people affected by sexual violence

“…Therefore, there should be existing foundations for such relationships and types of support to be nurtured. However, research studies in the UK context have highlighted that currently services are struggling to create these ‘trusting relationships’ and that there is a need for safeguarding systems to create more space for trusted relationships when working with adolescents affected by extra‐familial forms of harm – including sexual violence (Firmin & Owens, 2021; Hanson & Holmes, 2014). In this study, having space to create a relationship, and to some extent shape and determine the focus of conversations and activities, was thought to be important.…”

When Helping Hurts: A Zemiological Analysis of a Child Protection Intervention in Adolescence—Implications for a Critical Child Protection Studies

“…The research was organised around two phases. Data from a quantitative survey (phase one) distributed to 15 local authorities to ascertain the rates at which they relocated adolescents exposed to extra-familial risk has been published elsewhere in a findings paper, as well as a thematic paper exploring the impact of relocations on relationships (Firmin et al 2021;Firmin and Owens 2022). The methodological and analytical approach for phase two is described below.…”

“…Often the purpose of relocation is to disrupt abusive relationships and to remove young people from harmful contexts (Firmin et al 2021). At the same time, professionals, and more so young people and parents, have shared the ways in which these moves sever safe and protective relationships and bonds with family, friends, professionals and social networks (see also Firmin and Owens 2022). When asked about the impact of relocations on safety, participants, much like in work described by Haines and Charles (2019), responded with a zemiological account of harm that extended beyond the ability of the placement to manage risk or not, including specifically the impact on relationships: I think it can make a young person more vulnerable, and breaking down those supports that they already have, maybe, you know, the dinner lady that served them dinner every day for the last five years, as a social worker, you know, you might not even be aware particularly of that relationship if it's not something the young person has discussed with you.…”