Child Protection Guidance 2021

Part 4: Specific support needs and concerns 143 National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland 2021 Version 1.0 September 2021 4.73 Emotional abuse and neglect are the most commonly recorded concerns leading to the placing of children on the child protection register. Children may experience neglect and other forms of abuse at the same time. “Lack of parental care” was the most common ground for referral to the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration. (SCRA 2018). The average age for such referrals was 6 years. Practitioners will be aware of the urgency and need of a supportive response when very young children are involved. See also the section on pre-birth assessment and support below. Teenage neglect is less often recognised. 4.74 Single incidents of extreme neglect can be significantly harmful. However, neglect and emotional abuse are usually associated with the term ‘persistent’. This refers to a pattern, which may be either continuous or intermittent, which has either caused or is likely to cause significant harm. For example, neglect may involve lack of physical care, including care for health and safety and including online and in the digital environment. It may also include unreliability or unavailability of emotional care, and lack of developmental care. It may further include neglect of educational, medical, dental care and nutritional needs (see section on obesity below). Unmet needs can impact on children’s wellbeing regardless of the level of parent or carer intent. Comprehensive assessment of unmet needs and analysis of impact on wellbeing is essential, again guided by the My World Triangle. 4.75 Emotional abuse includes parental behaviour or exposure to adult behaviour that evokes fear, humiliation, distress, despair and a closing down of self-expression. This can cause immediate and long-term harm, because of the traumatic impact, the impact on development and how a child learns to feel about themselves, their relationships and the world. Extreme overprotection can also impair development. The effect of these harms are complicated when parents place all the responsibility for troubled or frozen behaviour on to the child. 4.76 Practitioners must be able to describe the interactions of concern. There must be a basis for the belief that these will be harmful. Descriptions in plain language are more useful than non-specific general terms like ‘emotional abuse’. 4.77 A proportionate response to concerns requires an awareness of healthy development at each age and stage, and contrasting indicators associated with the need for support. For example, it is necessary to be curious about the reasons for: • abnormally quiet and unresponsive infants with signs of developmental delay • pre-school children who show abnormally frequent and persistent aggression and frustration; or who may be withdrawn, watchful and avoidant of parents or carers; or indiscriminate in their affections with strangers • primary school age children who show an abnormally poor attention span, lacking an ability to be absorbed in play either alone or especially with others, who lack confidence and self-esteem and show unusual impulsivity and sharp mood swings, or an abnormal lack of concentration, confidence and/or social skills • children in secondary school who show an abnormal lack of self-confidence, who lack trust in others, are self-isolating or have difficulty sustaining friendships, who steal, bully others, run away, or who show signs of eating disorders, self-harm or depression 4.78 Signs of concern may be physical, emotional, behavioural, educational or relational. Some concerns are visible. However, there are neglected children who are abnormally quiet and compliant and become invisible. The experience and impact of neglect is individual to that child, just as the intersection of causes is distinctive in each situation. Practitioners who are involved in assessment, planning and support must try to understand the quality of daily life experience and relationships of the child and their parents. That may take time.