It’s going to change my practice: the secondary impact of a simulated case file exploration on professional decision making

Objectives Any child of any age, gender or ethnicity can be criminally exploited but certain groups are at an increased risk, including those in residential or foster care and those who have been adopted (Whittaker, 2018). With limited adult oversight and no sense of familial belonging, these children are vulnerable to exploitative relationships but when this involves conflict with the law, “professionals responsible for child welfare and protection have given way to policing and criminal justice responses as the dominant legal framework” (Jay Review, 2024:48). Consequently, criminally exploited children often receive a criminal justice rather than a safeguarding approach. Since devolution, Wales has passed significant legislation in relation to social welfare, including the Social Services Wellbeing (Wales) Act 2014 which promotes collaborative approaches between agencies. Welsh Government have also published the All Wales Safeguarding Procedures that are aimed at improving child safeguarding and enhancing multi-agency responses for a range of issues, including child criminal exploitation. This non-statutory guidance states that when criminal exploitation is suspected, children’s services will arrange a multi-agency strategy meeting to consider what actions should be taken to safeguard the child. This study was funded by Health and Care Research Wales to examine the service pathways for criminally exploited children and the factors which influence professional decision-making regarding service provision. Methods A simulated case file and think aloud techniques were used to explore professional decision making about service pathways for a criminally exploited child. The case file was a composite of 15 children identified from case file analysis in one Welsh local authority. Twenty five professionals from a range of welfare and justice roles and three young people engaged with youth justice services completed a 60-minute activity. They were asked to identify what was happening in the child’s life and what actions they would take using a simulated case file of 26 documents. The activity began with the breakdown of the kinship care placement and ended with the child requesting removal from the foster home to an out of area placement following a violent incident. Findings All participants reported the activity was realistic with several noting similarities to existing cases. Participants expressed frustration about the level of missing, incomplete or inconsistent information which was deemed detrimental to effective decision making. Participants actively sought information about the wishes and feelings of the child but noted this information lacked depth and failed to offer a rich account of the child's life. Even where information was recorded about the child's wishes and feelings, there was no indication it had been used as a basis for service provision. Most participants indicated frustration about missed opportunities for intervention and queried why actions had not been taken at earlier stages of the child’s life. Conclusions/implications The study had practical implications for case file completion and capturing multiple perspectives to inform service responses. An unexpected outcome was the extent to which professionals used the simulated activity as a training tool, with many self-reporting changes to their practice based on the insights they had gleaned.