Gatecrashing and Gatekeeping: Knowledge Sharing in Children's Safeguarding

This paper presents findings from a recently completed National Insititute for Health Research funded project examining the complexities of communication between hospitals and children's social care in two sites in England. At... [ view full abstract ]

This paper presents findings from a recently completed National Insititute for Health Research funded project examining the complexities of communication between hospitals and children's social care in two sites in England. At this interface, complexities arise from the need to pass pieces of unclear, speculative and ambiguous information across service boundaries. The ‘jigsaw’ may be incomplete, and the professional concerned may, or may not, know that some of the pieces are missing. The construction of a ‘full’ picture is inevitably contingent upon actions and talk within settings, and may or may not be subject to ongoing revision. The search for a common language for child welfare has been a veritable holy grail of policy, but in the context of stretched services, where information is often interpreted strategically, it has been elusive. The imperative to refer to children's social care also creates paradoxical effects in the system. To the recipient a fragment of information often makes little sense. As a result children’s social care attempt to gate-keep and limit information flow into their organisation, particularly where this is fragmented and difficult to use. But, their health colleagues have equally good organisational reasons for wanted to gate-crash. The boundary difficulties are thus complicated by potentially very different interpretive schemata and local exigencies. This paper will present data which show these phenomena in detail and will raise questions about safer system design at this crucial boundary.