Edinburgh Napier University

  Dr. Peter Yates, Lecturer in Child and Pubic Protection at Edinburgh Napier University, will present an overview of findings from his doctoral research examining social workers’ thinking processes through accounts of their decision making in cases involving sexual behaviour between siblings. This is an area which has received scant attention, almost all decision making research focusing on concerns about abuse of a child by a parent. The presentation will explore the social workers’ use of heuristics to facilitate decision making in such cases, and in particular the underlying influence of social workers’ frames - mental filters through which the world is perceived and interpreted. These frames tend to have the effect of discouraging a consideration of the impact of the sibling sexual behaviour upon the victim; of bestowing influence to the worker’s relationship with the parent rather than an assessment of the parent’s ability to protect their children; and to a judgement of the character of the perpetrator rather than an assessment of risk. The presentation will suggest that raising reflexive awareness of these frames and following an assessment-based approach to decision making may help to produce more accountable decisions, in which the needs of both the perpetrator and victim are more consistently represented.