IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/cysrev/v34y2012i7p1309-1316.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Child protection workers' experiences of working with high-conflict separating families

Author

Listed:
  • Saini, Michael
  • Black, Tara
  • Lwin, Kristen
  • Marshall, Alena
  • Fallon, Barbara
  • Goodman, Deborah

Abstract

Ongoing acrimonious conflict between separating parents can challenge child protection workers charged with the responsibility of investigating repeated allegations, especially when parents vigorously deflect blame to the other parent. There remains little evidence, however to guide practice when working with high-conflict families. The aim of this grounded theory approach was to explore child protection workers' perspectives of working with high-conflict families. Four focus groups with 28 child protection workers were conducted in a large metropolitan agency. Findings revealed an overall lack of consensus regarding the definition of high-conflict families. Participants expressed being challenged by the lack of training and experience to work with disputing parents involved in high-conflict. Participants also expressed that these cases require a substantial amount of resources, time, energy and emotional fortitude to deal with competing allegations of child maltreatment, the manipulation of acrimonious parents and the pressures of the family law system to take positions regarding custody and access issues. The study offers greater awareness of the challenges and opportunities of helping children who are caught between their parents' child custody disputes within the context of child protection services.

Suggested Citation

  • Saini, Michael & Black, Tara & Lwin, Kristen & Marshall, Alena & Fallon, Barbara & Goodman, Deborah, 2012. "Child protection workers' experiences of working with high-conflict separating families," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(7), pages 1309-1316.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:34:y:2012:i:7:p:1309-1316
    DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2012.03.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740912001272
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.childyouth.2012.03.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wise, Karlissa & Carter, LaToya & Bamba, Leslie Alyssa & Barr, Rachel, 2024. "How Do Child Protective Service (CPS) Policies Keep Employees Safe: ACaseworker’s Perspective," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    2. Katz, Carmit & Glucklich, Talia & Piller, Shir & Matty, Daniela Efrat, 2019. "Between chaos and danger: Spotlighting social workers' views in cases of child maltreatment accusations in the context of high-intensity parental disputes," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    3. Saini, Michael & Black, Tara & Godbout, Elisabeth & Deljavan, Sevil, 2019. "Feeling the pressure to take sides: A survey of child protection workers' experiences about responding to allegations of child maltreatment within the context of child custody disputes," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 127-133.
    4. Toros, Karmen & Tiko, Anne & Saia, Koidu, 2013. "Child-centered approach in the context of the assessment of children in need: Reflections of child protection workers in Estonia," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 1015-1022.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:34:y:2012:i:7:p:1309-1316. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/childyouth .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.