Vulnerable Family Meetings: A Way of Promoting Team Working in GPs’ Everyday Responses to Child Maltreatment?
This study uses observations of team meetings and interviews with 17 primary care professionals in four GP practices in England to generate hypotheses about how “vulnerable family” team meetings might support responses by GPs to maltreatment-related concerns and joint working with other professional...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2014-08-01
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| Series: | Social Sciences |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/3/3/341 |
| _version_ | 1811209648775102464 |
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| author | Jenny Woodman Ruth Gilbert Danya Glaser Janice Allister Marian Brandon |
| author_facet | Jenny Woodman Ruth Gilbert Danya Glaser Janice Allister Marian Brandon |
| author_sort | Jenny Woodman |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This study uses observations of team meetings and interviews with 17 primary care professionals in four GP practices in England to generate hypotheses about how “vulnerable family” team meetings might support responses by GPs to maltreatment-related concerns and joint working with other professionals. These meetings are also called “safeguarding meetings”. The study found that vulnerable family meetings were used as a way of monitoring children or young people and their families and supporting risk assessment by information gathering. Four factors facilitated the meetings: meaningful information flow into the meetings from other agencies, systematic ways of identifying cases for discussion, limiting attendance to core members of the primary care team and locating the meeting as part of routine clinical practice. Our results generate hypotheses about a model of care that can be tested for effectiveness in terms of service measures, child and family outcomes, and as a potential mechanism for other professionals to engage and support GPs in their everyday responses to vulnerable and maltreated children. The potential for adverse as well as beneficial effects should be considered from involving professionals outside the core primary care team (e.g., police, children’s social care, education and mental health services). |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-12T04:42:45Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-f251b68d7c5e4a86a24bcc0638d05efd |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2076-0760 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-12T04:42:45Z |
| publishDate | 2014-08-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Social Sciences |
| spelling | doaj.art-f251b68d7c5e4a86a24bcc0638d05efd2022-12-22T03:47:34ZengMDPI AGSocial Sciences2076-07602014-08-013334135810.3390/socsci3030341socsci3030341Vulnerable Family Meetings: A Way of Promoting Team Working in GPs’ Everyday Responses to Child Maltreatment?Jenny Woodman0Ruth Gilbert1Danya Glaser2Janice Allister3Marian Brandon4Population, policy and practice, UCL-Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street, London WC1N 1EH, UKPopulation, policy and practice, UCL-Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street, London WC1N 1EH, UKPopulation, policy and practice, UCL-Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street, London WC1N 1EH, UKRoyal College of General Practitioners, 30 Euston Square, London NW1 2FB, UKSchool of Social Work, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UKThis study uses observations of team meetings and interviews with 17 primary care professionals in four GP practices in England to generate hypotheses about how “vulnerable family” team meetings might support responses by GPs to maltreatment-related concerns and joint working with other professionals. These meetings are also called “safeguarding meetings”. The study found that vulnerable family meetings were used as a way of monitoring children or young people and their families and supporting risk assessment by information gathering. Four factors facilitated the meetings: meaningful information flow into the meetings from other agencies, systematic ways of identifying cases for discussion, limiting attendance to core members of the primary care team and locating the meeting as part of routine clinical practice. Our results generate hypotheses about a model of care that can be tested for effectiveness in terms of service measures, child and family outcomes, and as a potential mechanism for other professionals to engage and support GPs in their everyday responses to vulnerable and maltreated children. The potential for adverse as well as beneficial effects should be considered from involving professionals outside the core primary care team (e.g., police, children’s social care, education and mental health services).http://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/3/3/341primary carehealthGPschildrenchild protectionchild safeguardingresponsesinterventionjoint-workingdecision-making |
| spellingShingle | Jenny Woodman Ruth Gilbert Danya Glaser Janice Allister Marian Brandon Vulnerable Family Meetings: A Way of Promoting Team Working in GPs’ Everyday Responses to Child Maltreatment? Social Sciences primary care health GPs children child protection child safeguarding responses intervention joint-working decision-making |
| title | Vulnerable Family Meetings: A Way of Promoting Team Working in GPs’ Everyday Responses to Child Maltreatment? |
| title_full | Vulnerable Family Meetings: A Way of Promoting Team Working in GPs’ Everyday Responses to Child Maltreatment? |
| title_fullStr | Vulnerable Family Meetings: A Way of Promoting Team Working in GPs’ Everyday Responses to Child Maltreatment? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Vulnerable Family Meetings: A Way of Promoting Team Working in GPs’ Everyday Responses to Child Maltreatment? |
| title_short | Vulnerable Family Meetings: A Way of Promoting Team Working in GPs’ Everyday Responses to Child Maltreatment? |
| title_sort | vulnerable family meetings a way of promoting team working in gps everyday responses to child maltreatment |
| topic | primary care health GPs children child protection child safeguarding responses intervention joint-working decision-making |
| url | http://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/3/3/341 |
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