Recent research suggests delaying decision about Care Review necessary

One study concludes, ‘A failure to acknowledge and address the socioeconomic determinants of child maltreatment raises doubts about the appropriateness of any restructuring of public services’.

Policies which tackle the deep-rooted issues of failure demand and inequality are needed. The Care Review does not do this.

Investment in financial and material support for families, as well as in family support services, may be an effective prescription for addressing these issues and improving service quality.

The Care Review omits the first important step of financial and material support. Any family support services require this as a necessary foundation.

A further study concludes the current evidence based on measuring child neglect is too weak/limited to effectively inform practice.

Assessing neglect is complex because it is multifaceted and opaque. There is a dearth of suitable tools to measure neglect.

Assessment of need as opposed to a singular focus on assessing risks should be adopted in practice, as neglect can be understood as an unmet need. A risk-focused approach fails to fathom the relationship between the wider economic, social, and community contexts influential in neglect and practice, and can exclude effective assessment of needs and support for these to be met.

The significant cost of neglect at personal, professional, community, and societal levels justifies the need for a thorough and robust research project to develop a new child neglect measurement tool.

A tool needs particular attention to validity, reliability, and relevance of the aspects measured, and also capture neglect subtypes, severity, and chronicity.

Download NCERCC summaries of the research