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Ethics and organisations Dorothy Scott—Child protection assessment Dorothy: In looking back on my PhD thesis on child protection assessment what strikes me are the unanticipated ethical and political issues which arose as well as the fact that the issues I had anticipated proved to be more complex and more difficult to handle than I had expected. This was partly because of my close connections with the hospital setting in which the research was conducted yet without those close connections it is unlikely that I would have been able to do the research at all. At the time I undertook the research I was not working there but I had previously acted as a clinical consultant and group supervisor to the unit in which the research was based, and so I had close relationships with many of the staff. I used in-depth interviews and observation to intensively shadow a small number of alleged child abuse cases through the hospital unit, a statutory child protection agency and the police. I repeatedly interviewed professionals involved with the same families throughout the life of the case, focusing on the factors to which they were attending in their assessment. Where possible I also observed episodes of practice, ranging from observing interviews with children through a oneway screen in the hospital unit, accompanying child protection workers on home visits to attending staff meetings, case conferences and court hearings. I interviewed the parents in their home three months after the cessation of contact with the services. Obtaining the informed consent of parents proved to be a more complex ethical issue than I had anticipated. At the point at which each case was selected, the parents in this study were in the immediate aftermath of discovering that their child might have been physically or sexually abused. While no parent was a statutory client at the time they gave their consent to the study, several parents became the subject of a child protection investigation and others later expressed their fear of becoming so. Some parents were clearly in a state of crisis. In light of this, I chose 35
Qualitative research in practice to delay approaching these parents in the immediate crisis in order to avoid seeking parental consent at a time when their capacity for informed judgement might be most compromised. This entailed forgoing the collection of data in the initial phase of the case, thus illustrating the ‘trade-off’ which can occur between ethical and methodological priorities. There were other ‘trade-offs’ of this nature. For example, I decided not to tape-record interviews or to interview parents before their involvement with the various services had finished, both significant methodological sacrifices, because of the risk that parents might divulge information which could be subpoenaed in legal proceedings. The decision not to give parents the option of being interviewed throughout the period of service involvement was seen by some of my colleagues as paternalistic and disempowering. My reason was that it might be very hard for parents to trust the confidentiality of what they might say to me when they knew that I was in close contact and on first-name terms with the professionals they were seeing. This may be an example of ‘justified paternalism’. All of the children in my study were aged ten years or less, and parental permission was sought to observe hospital social workers’ interviews with the children through a one-way screen. This was a standard practice in the hospital service and colleagues, trainees and clinical supervisors routinely observed interviews in this way (with the permission of the parent and the knowledge of the child). I did not seek parental permission to interview the children as I felt that interviewing the children could not be justified due to the risk of further traumatisation. While the potential risks could not be quantified, nor could the potential benefits. However, as the study unfolded, the issue of children’s involvement in the research became less clear cut. For example, on several occasions in the follow-up home interviews with parents the children were unexpectedly present for some of the interview although I had arranged with the parents to visit at a time when the children would not be there. As it 36
Page 2 and 3: Qualitative research in practice St
Page 4 and 5: Contents The researchers vi Table o
Page 6 and 7: Contents 8 Presenting and writing u
Page 8 and 9: The researchers Anne Coleman began
Page 10 and 11: The researchers into factors associ
Page 12 and 13: Table of research studies Tim and W
Page 14 and 15: Preface In this book we aim to brid
Page 16 and 17: Preface known to us, either through
Page 18 and 19: 1 From practice to research In the
Page 20 and 21: From practice to research social wo
Page 22 and 23: From practice to research in relati
Page 24 and 25: From practice to research consumer
Page 26 and 27: From practice to research parent—
Page 28 and 29: From practice to research space—t
Page 30 and 31: From practice to research what peop
Page 32 and 33: From practice to research developed
Page 34 and 35: From practice to research or exit f
Page 36 and 37: From practice to research tracked d
Page 38 and 39: 2 Ethics and organisations The best
Page 40 and 41: Ethics and organisations relevant i
Page 42 and 43: Ethics and organisations Informed c
Page 44 and 45: Ethics and organisations Yet a mino
Page 46 and 47: Ethics and organisations Observatio
Page 48 and 49: Ethics and organisations Ethical an
Page 50 and 51: Ethics and organisations with the s
Page 54 and 55: Ethics and organisations happened,
Page 56 and 57: Ethics and organisations an intensi
Page 58 and 59: Ethics and organisations to outside
Page 60 and 61: Ethics and organisations Yvonne: To
Page 62 and 63: Ethics and organisations Dorothy: R
Page 64 and 65: Ethics and organisations can only e
Page 66 and 67: In-depth interviewing them or not m
Page 68 and 69: In-depth interviewing Stories give
Page 70 and 71: In-depth interviewing experience of
Page 72 and 73: In-depth interviewing There is a re
Page 74 and 75: In-depth interviewing data sought,
Page 76 and 77: In-depth interviewing interview. Th
Page 78 and 79: In-depth interviewing Generally, th
Page 80 and 81: In-depth interviewing in-depth inte
Page 82 and 83: In-depth interviewing Yvonne: So a
Page 84 and 85: In-depth interviewing Sampling Yvon
Page 86 and 87: In-depth interviewing much they tal
Page 88 and 89: In-depth interviewing encouraged mu
Page 90 and 91: In-depth interviewing contact, the
Page 92 and 93: Observation Choosing observation Li
Page 94 and 95: Observation The observation process
Page 96 and 97: Observation When to observe and for
Page 98 and 99: Observation Anne Coleman—Five sta
Page 100 and 101: Observation Yvonne: Anne: Yvonne: A
Page 102 and 103:
Observation Anne: Another useful th
Page 104 and 105:
Observation couldn’t understand h
Page 106 and 107:
Observation interesting because I s
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Observation of questions separate f
Page 110 and 111:
Tailoring data collection We focus
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Tailoring data collection The exper
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Tailoring data collection be achiev
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Tailoring data collection Making us
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Tailoring data collection children
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Tailoring data collection collectio
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Tailoring data collection • Settl
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Tailoring data collection Caroline
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Tailoring data collection Dorothy:
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Tailoring data collection Dorothy:
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Tailoring data collection Tim: real
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Tailoring data collection supermark
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Tailoring data collection Wendy: th
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6 Mixing methods ‘Mixed methods
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Mixing methods the different compon
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Mixing methods methods which allowe
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Mixing methods obtained through one
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Mixing methods in itself. Rather, t
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Mixing methods and how they would e
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Mixing methods violence; that they
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Mixing methods incredibly arrogant
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Mixing methods about 1200 organisat
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Mixing methods Yvonne: that overarc
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Mixing methods Yvonne: Cheryl: Yvon
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Mixing methods reducing the benefit
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Analysing data possible about what
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Analysing data sometimes referred t
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Analysing data Team research makes
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Analysing data crying—and I could
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Analysing data Analysing the observ
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Analysing data I’d said that’,
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Analysing data straight to the inte
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Analysing data They also highlight
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Presenting and writing up be used.
Page 178 and 179:
Presenting and writing up participa
Page 180 and 181:
Presenting and writing up the princ
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Presenting and writing up difficult
Page 184 and 185:
Presenting and writing up adopted c
Page 186 and 187:
Presenting and writing up Yvonne: L
Page 188 and 189:
Presenting and writing up of the th
Page 190 and 191:
Presenting and writing up Tim: stor
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Presenting and writing up Anne felt
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9 Epilogue: From research to practi
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Epilogue are presented to the way i
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Epilogue • Diffusion (disseminati
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Epilogue practical and simple langu
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Epilogue violence, the things we em
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Epilogue [it] was dragging me along
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Epilogue through reporting the expe
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References Beresford, B. 1997 Perso
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References Darlington, Y., Osmond,
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References Johnson, K. & Scott, D.
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References ——1995 In-depth Inte
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References ——1990 Writing Strat
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References Tilse, C. 1994 ‘Long t
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Index Page numbers in italics refer
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Index ‘getting in/getting on/gett
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Index quantitative research 3; meth
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