Neglect and serious case reviews (PDF, 735KB) - nspcc

figure 2.1: age distribution of children with a (past or current) child protection plan
for neglect compared with children with no plan
50%
45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
2. Neglect in the lives of children who become the subject of a serious case review – a statistical overview
30%
45%
24% 24%
15%
< 1 year 1–5 years 6–10 years 11–15 years 16 years +
9%
Neglect CP plan
No CP plan for
neglect
Ethnic group: The ethnicity of the children who were the subject of a child protection
plan for neglect broadly matches that of the comparative samples. Although there is
arguably an over representation of minority ethnic children across all samples, this
looks much less pronounced in the light of new information from the 2011 census which
shows higher proportions of minority ethnic children in the population of England than
in earlier years.
Gender: There was a higher proportion of girls (57%) with a CP plan for neglect than
boys (43%). This was in contrast to the children without a plan for neglect, 44 per cent
of whom were girls, and 56 per cent of whom were boys. Recent statistics on category
of plan for 2011 in England show that in contrast, nationally, there is a slightly higher
proportion of boys (51%) with a CP plan for neglect, than there are girls (49%). A
similar 52 per cent/48 per cent split is also apparent in the other categories of abuse,
except for sexual abuse, where 57 per cent of those with this type of plan are girls (see
also Appendix A).
Family size: In these SCRs, a higher proportion of children with a CP plan for neglect
lived in large families with four or more siblings than would be found in the general
population. This was also true for children with a plan in any other category. In their
large cohort study of over 14,000 children in the west of England, Sidebotham and
colleagues (2006) cited a number of authors who had shown increased risks of child
maltreatment in larger families. However Sidebotham’s multivariate analysis found
that the marginally higher risk to the child in large families was accounted for by the
confounding effects of parental background and socio-economic factors. In our analysis
of serious case reviews from 2007–09 (Brandon et al 2010), we noted the additional
stress, not least financial, that can come with a large family, and that professionals’ focus
on individual children can be lost in such circumstances.
21%
12%
11%
10%
25