Publications
Books | Journals | Other | Work In Progress
Liz Davies is co-author to the following publications, details of which, and links to their pages on Amazon can be found below.
In addition to these three books, Liz has written for several other publications.
You can click here to view individual articles.
PhD thesis: Dr Liz Davies
Protecting Children - A Critical Contribution to Policy and Practice Development
A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy - April 2010
This thesis presents six documents as a synthesis of the author’s contribution to child protection policy and practice from the late 80’s to the present day.
The work provides a critical reflection on child protection social work policy and practice informed by research of documentary evidence from survivor’s accounts, legislation, policy, practice guidance, academic texts and media reporting.
It is argued that the refocusing agenda of the mid 90’s generated a policy shift that was detrimental to child protection systems and processes. The originality of the author’s approach lies in the presentation of six themes, five of which have to be combined at the forefront of policy and practice.
The first theme is a child rights approach which includes hearing the voices of children, adult survivors of abuse and professionals who work to protect abused children.
The second theme is a concept of prevention as an essential strategy in the protection of children from harm, which thirdly, emphasises the importance of joint work with the police as well as, fourthly, the involvement of the community in the investigation of abuse and targeting of perpetrators.
The fifth theme advocates the positive use of the media whilst the sixth reflects the author’s professional experience of being silenced.
The author presents a challenge to the rationale for the prevention approach as defined in policy agendas since the mid 90’s and accelerated through the Every Child Matters agenda. That rationale included the argument that over zealous professionals were implementing an incident-led approach which represented excessive and expensive state intrusion into family life.
The author concludes that, by the late 00’s, these very features had emerged as a result of policies supposedly designed to achieve the opposite, the prevention agenda having damaged child protection systems by devaluing professional investigative skills and through punitive approaches to child victims.
It is argued that social workers in late 00’s, in compliance with a universalist approach and over-burdened with mechanistic child in need assessments, were intervening in family life at the level of concern rather than significant harm, leading to extensive regulation and surveillance of children and parents as the dominating characteristics of children’s services.
Central to this thesis is the evidence of the author’s work as a social work activist and her methodology.
Particularly through her publications and use of the media, she has brought to professional, political and public attention the complexities and importance of specialist, proactive child protection social work practice.
DOWNLOAD THE THESIS AS A PDF HERE.
Proactive
Child Protection in Social Work - co-authored with N.Duckett
Protecting children from abuse is a serious matter, demanding critical thinking, tenacity, resilience, courage and compassion.
This book is designed to show how the social work task of protecting children works.
It aims to increase the confidence of those undertaking the work, who need to know and understand the processes involved to be better able to form part of the proactive child protection network.
The book locates knowledge and skills within a series of case examples from the authors actual practice, making the book an indispensable resource for students, professionals and others concerned with protecting children.
Click to buy from Amazon
A review of Proactive Child Protection and Social Work has been published on the SWAP website.
Click here to view. Click here for a review from Critical Social Policy 2010: 30:443.
Joint investigation in child protection. Working Together Training Together
co-authored with D.Townsend
Addressing work done by police officers, social workers and any other professional linked to safeguarding children boards, the Joint Investigation in Child
Protection
manual can help everyone involved to: understand and recognise what constitutes
significant harm focus on the children involved develop suitable investigative
skills, understand the roles of fellow professionals from all other agencies
sufficiently well to work effectively with, and if necessary, challenge them.
The Joint Investigation in Child Protection manual has as its primary purpose the joint training of specialist police officers and social workers.
But the manual can also help all LSCB-linked agencies achieve their performance objectives, including: - health workers in PCTS and hospital trusts - teachers and education staff in formal and informal education - social workers in children s and adults services and other local authority workers such as housing staff - probation officers, and staff in the prison service, secure provision and youth offending teams - police officers who work with children - staff in the voluntary and private sectors delivering services for children and adults - religious leaders and volunteers providing services to children within faith communities.
Workers from all of these backgrounds, with varied levels of experience, knowledge and prior learning can benefit from this training s approach to child-centred interviewing.
The Joint Investigation in Child Protection manual: - challenges and goes beyond existing government guidance in ways that can significantly improve safeguarding and protecting work with children and young people. - follows English and Welsh statutory guidance, and is adaptable for use in Scotland and Northern Ireland - contains a wide range of 23 presentations and 31 activities, which specialist police and social work trainers working and training together, demonstrating their flexibility and expertise across disciplines - can pick and choose from to design their own 5-day course, depending on participants experience and needs, including those who needs may be at an introductory level.
And trainers will still have further materials left over for use at other times: this is a rich and extensive resource. The manual includes a wide range of materials suited to adult learning such as role plays, carousels, storytelling and quizzes. - is available at a price commensurate with the budgets of even the smaller organisations that are involved in this work; or of agencies of any size for whom this work may be crucial, but which perhaps is not their principal undertaking.
Both training manuals were reviewed by Helen Brown for the British Journal - of Social Work. Vol 39:3. pp575-578
Click to buy from Amazon.
The investigative interviewing of children. Achieving Best Evidence. Working
Together Training Together
co-authored with D.Townsend
Designed to help improve the investigative interviewing of child victims and witnesses in possible child abuse cases and entirely applicable when undertaking investigative interviews with children in any other circumstances this manual provides material for extensive, advanced-level joint training of police officers and social workers.
It
diligently follows statutory guidance on interviewing child victims and witnesses
in criminal proceedings, in ways that are made directly relevant to possible
child abuse cases. This is high level material. Its successful delivery requires
the direct co-operation of appropriately skilled and experienced police officers
and social workers, working together, to deliver the training. A wide range of activities is presented in order to achieve clear learning objectives and, although some choices of material are offered, trainers should follow the suggested programme, which is timed to run over a full 5-day week. Ideally any social worker or police officer undertaking this training would already have gone through the Joint Investigation in Child Protection training. It contains 19 presentations and 22 activities which include a wide range of materials suited to adult learning such as role plays, carousels, storytelling and quizzes.
It is recommended for use in training with: - Social workers and police officers of varied levels of experience, knowledge and prior learning, including those who are involved in the work of Local Children s Safeguarding Boards, as well as in SSAFA (who respond to the needs of children of families in the armed forces). - Several teams in each constabulary: child abuse investigation, domestic violence units, complex abuse investigation, investigation of serious sexual assault, investigation of trafficking of children and of other organised crime, schools liaison, public protection, Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPAS). - Social workers in Children s Services with responsibility for the protection and safeguarding of children and young people, including those who work in specialist teams such as those for disabled children, unaccompanied minors and child and adolescent mental health.
Extensively tested, this specialist, advanced-level, high-quality and material directly addresses major current gaps in training that is available to police officers and social workers. It will enable them to work together on the investigation of possible child abuse in ways that can meet concerns raised by high profile inquiries of the last two decades... but not yet addressed.
This material will help police officers and social workers to meet their performance objectives, but it also challenges and goes beyond existing government guidance in ways that can significantly improve work with both the victims and perpetrators of child abuse. This should become a must have resource that can help police officers and social workers start right away to make real progress and improvements in their work.
Click to buy from Amazon
British
Journal of Social Work. Volume 39, Number 3, 22 April 2009 , pp. 575-578(4)
Here is a link to a review of the two training manuals in the British Journal
of Social Work. Volume 39, Number 3, 22 April 2009 , pp. 575-578(4) Author:
Brown, Helen
Click
here for more info
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