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The research reported here forms part of a study of children’s participation in children in care reviews and decision making in one local authority in England. The purpose of this paper is to outline the views of 11 social workers and 8 Independent Reviewing Officers (IROs) and explores their perceptions of children’s participation in reviews. The paper considers the barriers to young people participating meaningfully in decision making and how practice could be improved in this vital area so that children’s voices are more clearly heard and when possible acted upon by professionals.

The data reported here derive from a qualitative cross-sectional study in one English local authority. The entire study involved interviewing children in care, IROs, social workers and senior managers about young people’s participation in their reviews. Findings from the interviews with young people and senior managers have been reported elsewhere (Diaz and Aylward, 2018; Diaz et al., 2018); this paper focusses on the interviews with social workers and IROs. Specifically, the authors were interested in gaining insight into their views about the following research questions: To what degree do children and young people meaningfully participate in reviews? What are the barriers to participation? What can be done to improve children and young people’s participation in reviews?

During this process seven themes were identified, five of which concerned barriers to effective participation and two which concerned factors that appeared to support effective participation. These are summarised below and explained further in the following sections. Barriers to effective participation: social workers and IROs’ high caseloads and ensuing time pressures; high turnover of social workers and inexperienced staff; lack of understanding and training of professionals in participation; children and young people’s negative experiences of reviews and consequent reticence in taking part; and structure and process of the review not being child-centred. Factors which assist participation: quality of the relationship between the child and professionals; and the child or young person chairing their own review meeting.

Although these findings reflect practice in one local authority, their consistency with other research in this area suggests that they are applicable more widely.

The practice of children chairing their own reviews was pioneered by The Children’s Society in North West England in the 1990s (Welsby, 1996), and has more recently been implemented with some success by IROs in Gloucestershire (see Thomas, 2015, p. 47). A key recommendation from this study would be for research to explore how this practice could be developed and embedded more widely. Previous research has noted the tension between the review being viewed as an administrative process and as a vehicle of participation (Pert et al., 2014). This study highlighted practitioner reservations about young people chairing their own reviews, but it also gave examples of how this had been done successfully and how it could improve children’s participation in decision making. At the very least, it is essential that young people play a role in deciding where the review is going to take place, when it will take place, who is going to be invited and what will be included on the agenda.

The paper highlights that in this Local Authority caseloads for social workers were very high and this, combined with a high turnover of staff and an inexperienced workforce, meant that children in care struggled to have a consistent social worker. This often meant that young people were not able to build up a positive working relationship with their social worker, which negatively impacted on their ability to play a meaningful role in decision making.

There have been very few recent studies that have considered professionals’ perspectives of children’s participation in key meetings and decision making, so that this provides a timely and worthwhile contribution to this important area of work.

Parental advocacy is an emerging area of research and policy interest in Wales and across the UK. Although there is little research in the UK context to date, international research has indicated that parental advocacy can improve the relationship between parent and professional in the field of child protection social work. This paper aims to ascertain how the implementation of a parental advocacy programme supports parents to play a meaningful role in decision-making when children’s services are working with them and their families.

This study used interviews, surveys and focus groups to obtain qualitative data from 18 parents, seven parent advocates, two advocacy managers and four social workers, to explore the potential impact of parental advocacy on decision-making. The study identified challenges in implementing parental advocacy, particularly relating to awareness of the service. Participants also discussed experiences of the child protection system and how parents are supported by advocates.

Despite challenges surrounding implementation, initial findings were encouraging, and generated examples of how parental advocacy services have helped parents to understand children’s services and develop relationships of trust with social care professionals. In doing so, this study identified potential mechanisms that may be useful to support future service delivery.

This paper and research is novel as it explores parental advocacy within the Welsh context. Although there has been research conducted into parental advocacy, this has largely come from the USA. This research comes from the evaluation of an innovative and promising parental advocacy scheme in Wales.

Child neglect is the most common form of maltreatment but is also one of the most complex. Neglect has a long-term negative impact on children and young people’s development and wellbeing. This study examined 20 recent serious case reviews that had taken place in England where neglect was a feature. The purpose of this study is sought to explore the barriers, which exist for social workers in England in identifying and responding to neglect in a timely, appropriate and effective manner.

Thematic analysis identified four main themes that were likely to impact upon effective interventions.

Challenges in terms of the definition of neglect and how to identify it; the use of neglect toolkits; the impact of organisational cultures on practice and the voice of the child.

In spite of its prevalence there is a dearth of literature relating specifically to the issue of neglect. There is a need for further research to be undertaken because of the acknowledged, seriousness and potential longstanding negative impact on children even into adulthood (Horwath, 2013). It is hoped that this study provides a useful insight into some of the barriers that exist for social workers in working effectively with children and families for whom neglect is an issue.

This study aims to explore how local authority child and family practitioners understood and implement the contextual safeguarding approach focusing, in particular, on what practitioners felt supported and hindered implementation.

This qualitative study drew upon semi-structured interviews and focus groups to explore the perspectives of 18 frontline workers, team managers and senior managers in a London authority. The transcribed accounts were analysed using thematic analysis.

Participants reported that the strain on services because of sustained budget cuts was overwhelming, even without the additional challenge of implementing this new approach. Further challenges in relation to implementation included parental-capacity focused legislation and conflicting perspectives between stakeholders. This study recommends that proper funding must be committed to safeguarding partnerships if contextual safeguarding is to be successfully implemented. Additionally, child protection practitioners should aim to develop a collaborative and child-welfare focused network of community agencies and organisations if young people are to be safeguarded in their communities.

As the sample required specialist knowledge to participate in this study, this study cannot claim that the findings are generalisable to all social workers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first external evaluation of the implementation of the contextual safeguarding approach in a local authority independent of the contextual safeguarding team at the University of Bedfordshire since the evaluation of Hackney.

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the current state of literature on peer parental advocacy, offering practical insights and ideas for researchers and practitioners interested in this evolving field.

This narrative review is a comprehensive, critical and objective analysis of the current knowledge on peer parental advocacy.

Parental peer advocacy (PPA) has seen growing interest, with increasing research detailing the benefits and challenges. It is now being considered within children’s services across the UK, drawing upon the success of similar initiatives, especially in the USA. There is a compelling case for PPA, not least as it may contribute to resolving the longstanding challenges within children services of families having the opportunity to meaningfully participate in decision-making (Corby et al., 1996; Muench et al., 2017; Bekaert et al., 2021).

Parental advocacy (PA) continues to be an evolving area of academic research and policy development both in the United Kingdom and internationally. Emerging research suggests a compelling case for an expansion in PPA within child welfare and protection systems, specifically in case, program and policy advocacy.

PA continues to be an evolving area of academic research and policy development both in the United Kingdom and internationally. Emerging research suggests a compelling case for an expansion in PPA within child welfare and protection systems, specifically in case, program and policy advocacy.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first UK-based narrative reviews that critically analyses the research, highlighting the limitations and strengths of adopting PPA as an approach.

The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that influence the development of service robots, and to apply a service innovation strategic mindset to the hotel industry in Taiwan.

A mixed-methods approach, combining an expert panel and semi-structured interviews using a SMART SWOT ranking survey, was applied to understand the perspectives of hotel owners and robotics experts.

Fifty-three items were collected regarding the demand side of the hospitality market, showing that the Taiwan hospitality industry has good potential to implement service robots. Sixty-one items on the supply side of business were collected, showing that this robotics service can help hotels handle seasonal employment and labor utilization. The SWOT analysis identifies “The fun and curiosity aroused in consumers can enhance the promotion of service robots”, “Lack of talent in system integration”, “Taiwan’s aging society can increase the demand for service robots” and “China and South-east countries have aggressively poached talent in the global robotics market” as key issues.

Few studies have investigated robotics service for hotels using the six-dimensional service innovation model. This model helps identify six factors and implies that this new service concept can position hotels to better compete by using IT and relationship marketing strategies.

On average, the National Health Service (NHS) loses annually £360 million in opportunity costs due to non‐attendance of outpatient appointments (Stone et al, 1999). In addition to draining healthcare resources, failure to attend clinical appointments incurs personal costs. Mobile phone technology has been applied successfully to reducing appointment non‐attendance and improving clinical outcomes for patients with physical illnesses. However, it is unclear whether these applications can be extended to patients with severe and enduring mental disorders. We conducted a trust‐wide survey of 141 psychiatric inpatients of the Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust (82% of the Trust's total inpatient population) to establish how many respondents owned a mobile phone (62%), could use text‐messaging services (62%) and were willing to use the latter as a means of communication with the Trust (80%). Compared to patients with psychotic illnesses, those with non‐psychotic illnesses reported higher rates of mobile phone ownership (78% versus 55%, p=0.01), ability to use text messaging (76% versus 56%, p=0.03) and willingness to receive text messages from the Trust (90% versus 76%, p=0.05). The results of the survey were used to inform the planning of a pilot study aimed at reducing non‐attendance rates of outpatient appointments in Oxleas.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.