Feature - Social Care: Volunteers in child protection

Two or three times a week, John Cliff, a retired insurance broker from Bromley in south London, pays a visit to a family in another part of the borough. He first met them 18 months ago and is still a regular caller.

"If you can imagine a small house, a mother, no father, five children aged between two and 16, a dog and two rabbits - it was quite hectic," he says. "I met a mum who was depressed and struggling severely with children on the child protection register. But I've seen her develop to the point where you really notice her self-esteem coming back. And she's able to deal with the children that much better."

Cliff is part of a pioneering scheme that uses volunteers to help families in child protection cases. Run by the charity CSV, the scheme has been piloted in partnership with local authorities in Bromley and Sunderland over the past three years. Impressed by the results, CSV is now trying to convince another five councils to adopt it and hope many more will take part.

According to Jane Tunstill, visiting social work professor at King's College London, who has evaluated the scheme, it has "great potential for a range of local authorities".

Unpaid non-professionals have never before been used in child protection work so CSV realised that this could not be just another volunteering scheme. There was a rigorous selection process. More than one hundred people applied to become volunteers - of these, 71 were interviewed, 56 made it onto the training programme and 45 were finally accepted. But only 24 have been matched to families - many of whom have had experience of bringing up children themselves.

Potential volunteers received 18 hours' training before taking on assignments. This helped to assuage concerns in the participating local authorities about the quality of the intake.

"The approach to recruitment was extremely robust," says Janet Newton, safeguarding and quality assurance manager at Sunderland Council. "In fact, it was arguably more so than most because the training was part of the recruitment. At any point, if people were considered - or considered themselves - to be unsuitable that's where it ended. So we got a very sound group of volunteers through that process."

It was also important that volunteers were only used for the right families. They were not assigned to cases of domestic violence, for example. "We were looking for families where neglect was the most significant issue, families where there was one or more children on the at-risk register and where the volunteer could take on activities and achieve something with the family," explains Jean Pardey, director of part-time volunteering at CSV.

Sense of trust

Volunteers provide emotional support and help with practical tasks to make life easier for the parents involved. Cliff, for example, arranged for the removal of a washing machine, fridge and other kitchen equipment from the family's back garden. He also took some of the children to school and helped with their homework. And he encouraged the mother to take numeracy and literacy classes at the local primary school.

There is a clear understanding that volunteers are not to infringe on the statutory duties of the social workers assigned to their families. The project has had to combat any perceptions by social workers that they were being undermined by the sudden, unprecedented presence of the volunteers.

"I was worried about how social workers would view the volunteers and if they would feel they were potentially being replaced by unpaid, non-professional people," says Julie Daly, head of safeguarding and quality assurance at the London Borough of Bromley. "But this is something that sits alongside statutory services - it doesn't replace them. It is very much about making that really clear from the beginning. In fact, there has never been a complaint from a social worker about the role of a volunteer in Bromley."

The process of attuning a professional statutory service to the role of volunteers was assisted by the fact that, in both pilot areas, CSV's project co-ordinator was located within the local authority. The volunteer co-ordinator in Bromley, Toni Rushton, is based in the social work referral and assessment team.

"It's good because I'm in the thick of it," she says. "My role is to co-ordinate volunteers, take referrals when they come in and match them with families. I then support the volunteer to ensure the match is working well and liaise with the social workers."

Tunstill believes the project co-ordinators are pivotal to the success of the pilot. "They are seen on a daily basis by social workers and they talk about referrals and keep tabs on what is going on. They have the crucial role of managing the volunteers but stay closely associated with the raison d'etre of the social workers."

The evaluation conducted by Tunstill was based on a small sample of volunteers, families and social workers. But it found a "high level of satisfaction" with the volunteers from all concerned.

"After an initial sense of apprehension, they were regarded by both families and social workers as making an important contribution to the well-being of the children and families," she concluded. Statistical evidence about the project is thin but, of the 29 families involved in the two-year pilot, 15 have left the child protection register.

There is also a consensus that the sense of trust established between families and volunteers provided an important added dimension to statutory child protection services. "Often with authority, the trust is not there - instead there's fear," says Rushton. "Social workers always come with the stigma that they might take your children away so families are never quite themselves with them. But they behave in a different way with volunteers. They are more relaxed and confident."

Wider family support

The volunteers have also been a reassuringly enduring presence in the lives of families. Many continue volunteering when the family is taken off the child protection register and official support suddenly ceases. Staff turnover in social work also means families can become far more familiar with volunteers than their social workers.

According to Tunstill, the model, if adopted widely, could help overcome the negative image of children's social work, especially among users, as being concerned solely with child protection rather than wider family support.

But whether the project is taken up in other parts of the country depends as much on financial constraints as on its inherent value. CSV funded the two pilots at a total cost of £288,000 and, while the scheme has continued in Bromley with its costs now shared with the council, the authority in Sunderland reluctantly decided to terminate it. "It was with a heavy heart that we said we couldn't continue to fund it. Our priority has to be the resourcing of statutory work," says Newton.

CSV is currently researching the outcomes of the project, to see if it can be shown conclusively that volunteers do help families get off - and remain off - the child protection register.

"We are looking at the impact," says Pardey. "If a child comes off the at-risk register and a volunteer has contributed towards that, then the savings are quite significant."

CASE STUDY: JOHN CLIFF, VOLUNTEER

"I worked for Lloyds as an insurance broker for 30 years but retired early when I was made redundant. I quickly got tired of Sudoku and crosswords so I decided to volunteer.

I wanted to do something local to help young people and families. I saw an advert for volunteers in child protection on the London Borough of Bromley's website and applied. I was interviewed extensively, there were Criminal Record Bureau checks and they asked for references. Training was three hours a week over six weeks. It was pretty intensive.

It took about three months for me to get matched to a family and I have now seen three. I was with the second family the longest and I still see them. They are now off the child protection register. They were on it because of the mother's former partner. It was alcohol, crack cocaine and abuse - verbal and sometimes physical.

It takes a while to gain an element of trust and understanding. We are not there to wash dishes and cook meals but to support the mother. The role just kind of developed - I found myself dealing with one problem and then moving on to others. It was practical things like checking things on the internet for children's homework and driving them to and from school. I also helped with one girl's transition from primary to secondary school.

I've been welcome at family in need meetings, which take place after the family come off the child protection register. I'm happy to support the mother and let social workers know how she's doing or alert them to any day-to-day issues they might not see because of their workload. A social worker can only visit once every three or four weeks and I'm at the home two or three times a week."