Broadening the horizon: child protection in Europe

Child protection systems differ across Europe. Knowledge on how to assess, intervene, and to facilitate children’s, young people’s and parents’ participation often does not cross the borders of a country. In a two year... [ view full abstract ]

Child protection systems differ across Europe. Knowledge on how to assess, intervene, and to facilitate children’s, young people’s and parents’ participation often does not cross the borders of a country. In a two year European Union funded project, Multi-disciplinary Assessment and Participation of Children in Child Protection Proceedings (MAPChiPP)) partners from eight European countries (England, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Portugal and Romania) opened the gates and developed a modular train the trainer program. Based on values of a transnational foundations for ethical practice in interventions (Kelly & Meysen, 2016), the program built on evidence based approaches to assessment (Cox & Bentovim 2001, Cox et al 2009), analysis, planning and delivering interventions and measuring outcomes (Bentovim et al 2009, Pizzey et al 2015, Bentovim & Gray 2016).

MAPChiPP’s overarching themes are:

• multi-disciplinary working and participation in the context of cultural diversity;

• cross-national ethical issues in child protection;

• and the vulnerability of children and families living in adverse circumstances.

The workshop introduces the MAPChiPP training program, demonstrates the way modules were adapted to each countries’ system specifics and combined flexibly in relation to participants needs, and the challenges faced in each country.

The workshop will look at the challenges faced in developing multi-national approaches. It will engage the audience by presenting film clips and case studies used to train the various elements including:

• multi-disciplinary working;

• information gathering and documentation;

• communicating with and involving children and young people; analysing patterns of harm and protection;

• predicting the outlook for children if their circumstances do not change;

• planning intervention and evaluating outcomes.

Built on evolving international comparative research and discourse on child protection systems, MAPChiPP aims to bridge the research to practice gap. The workshop will be concluded with a discussion on the implications for policy and further Research.