Standing at the crossroads: Child safeguarding and Deaf BSL parents (in England)—Issues and challenges in social work

Abstract

Focussing on Deaf parents using British Sign Language (BSL) in England, this article shares perspectives of Child and Family social work practitioners (CFSWs) across a large urban area, through the lens of cultural competence. In an under-researched field, it explores linguistic and cultural aspects of working with Deaf parents, for whom English is not their first language, in the specific context of parenting assessments in child safeguarding procedures. Individual semi-structured online interviews were conducted by the researcher (in BSL) with seven CFSWs using English, involving a sign language interpreter. Participants were encouraged to reflect on the assessment process when it involves Deaf parents and/or other cultural-linguistic minority groups. Employing Braun and Clarke’s reflective thematic analysis method, the findings are grouped into three themes: CFSWs’ knowledge of working with Deaf people; cultural aspects relating to Deaf parents’ understanding of safeguarding/child protection proceedings; and meeting the communication and cultural needs of Deaf parents. The results identify several factors in current practice which impact CFSWs’ competence to carry out an assessment involving a Deaf BSL parent. Findings highlight the need for relevant training and resources developed specifically for this cultural minority group. Future research including the direct perspectives of Deaf parents is indicated.

Introduction

This article concerns parenting assessments carried out as part of formal child safeguarding practice in the context of one, or more, parent being a Deaf person who uses British Sign Language (BSL). Specifically, it reports a study of Child and Family social work practitioners’ (CFSWs) perceptions of whether and how the practice of parenting assessment is impacted by the language and cultural identity of Deaf parents. It considers how this might affect the outcomes of child safeguarding procedures.

In child safeguarding professional practice in England, CFSWs have a legal duty (Children Act 1989, 2004) to investigate when there are reports of safeguarding concerns, to protect any child at risk of harm. Parenting assessment is one part of this process and can take several forms. It can be part of a ‘child in need’ assessment under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 in which CFSWs aim to identify needs and offer a range of measures to support the family. It can also occur in Section 47 enquiries, aiming to ascertain if a child is at risk or likely to suffer significant harm. This process includes assessing families’ capacity to prevent significant harm and to safeguard and promote the child’s welfare. Led by CFSWs, the Child and Family assessment looks at strengths and weaknesses within the family, signposting them to other departments/external services for any necessary interventions, with the aim of keeping families together.

All contact with the family should also take into consideration aspects including their culture, ethnicity, religion, and first language, with appropriate provision offered (Children Act 1989; Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023). BSL is an indigenous language of the UK safeguarded in law (BSL Act 2022), and Deaf culture is firmly recognized as associated with language use (British Deaf Association 2015).

There are no official statistics on how many parenting assessments within child safeguarding procedures involve culturally Deaf families, where a parent might be a BSL user, because such information is not recorded. Unofficially, through professional observation, there have been concerns in England about the large number of child removals involving Deaf parents compared to the majority population. Following one example where a Deaf father won his appeal against such a decision (Royal Courts of Justice 2014) Re C (A Child) [2014] EWCA (England and Wales Court Appeal) Civ 128), Family Court guidance advised that an expert in sign language or Deaf culture should be required in all Family Court proceedings involving a Deaf parent. No similar directions or best practice guidance exist for initial stages of the safeguarding assessment process where Deaf parents are involved, although organizations representing deaf children in the UK have recently collaborated on publishing information about best practice in safeguarding deaf children, a minority of whom will have Deaf parents (Wilson et al., 2022).

A literature search undertaken between 2000 and 2024 yielded no data on Deaf parents undergoing parenting assessments within safeguarding processes, whether in the UK or internationally. A small number of articles were identified relating to other cultural-linguistic minorities whose first language is not English in the context of parenting and safeguarding. Studies by Barn (2002) and Fazil et al. (2002), for example, highlight the absence of parenting support service provision to meet the needs of particular cultural-linguistic minority groups, and barriers to accessing mainstream parenting education and support. However, there is no specific literature on the cultural-linguistic impact on parenting assessment within safeguarding practices from parents’ perspectives. It has long been recognized that culture, values, beliefs, and attitudes influence different interpretations of parenting concepts and behaviours (Lansford 2022) so that ‘norms’ of parenting are not the same universally (Bornstein 2012). Appraisals of good enough parenting, therefore, are culturally mediated, leading to potential misunderstandings and false representations, including within child protection processes (Bernard 2018). Pre-existing assumptions about the implications of certain characteristics of parents can also influence the appraisal of parenting capacity. For example, the literature on parents with learning disabilities highlights how preconceptions of poor parenting capacity have led to child removals, unjustified in some cases (Booth and Booth 2005).

Examples such as these raise broader questions about how social workers might prepare for assessments when they are not familiar with the cultural nuances of those parents who are being assessed. However, no such literature exists with specific reference to Deaf parents within safeguarding procedures, which is the topic of this study.

Background context

The convention of defining Deaf people (with a capital D) highlights a community who identify themselves as a cultural-linguistic minority (British Deaf Association 2015), sharing an identity based on their cultural traditions and use of signed language (Ladd 2003). Although no definitive statistics exist, between 73,000 and 127,000 Deaf people use BSL in England (British Deaf Association, 2024) in comparison to the estimated 12 million adults in the UK who are deaf or hard of hearing (RNID 2024) and may communicate primarily through spoken language. This distinction is not limited solely to the UK but has been adopted to identify other cultural-linguistic communities who use their country-specific sign language(s) across the world (Wheatley and Pabsch 2012). Members of the Deaf community include those hearing children born into Deaf families.

BSL is a complex visual spatial language (Sutton-Spence and Woll 1999), which eventually obtained formal legal recognition as one of the four indigenous UK languages (BSL Act 2022). Cultural traditions and community membership are shared through the medium of BSL. Despite their self-identification as a cultural-linguistic minority, under the Equality Act 2010, Deaf people are categorized within the protected characteristic of disability instead. There has been a history of provision for Deaf people where the medical model of impairment and/or the social model of disability has been applied in the assessment of need and delivery of services (Corker 1998), impacting on the support and rights of Deaf people on the grounds of language and culture (Ladd 2003).

With regard to Deaf people requiring social work support, there has been a long tradition of specifically trained professionals, known as Social Workers with Deaf people (SWDPs); Jackson 1990; Oram and Young 2024), who have a high level of cultural understanding and BSL communication skills. As such, these individuals, some of whom are Deaf themselves, are equipped to meet the needs of this specific population (Redfern 1995). However, the number of SWDPs in England is declining (Young, Hunt, and Smith 2008; Young et al., 2010) because it is no longer mandatory for Local Authorities (LAs) to appoint this specialized role within their remit. Therefore, Deaf people might receive support from a generic child and family (non-specialized) social worker with the provision of a fully qualified BSL interpreter although, because the response to safeguarding where Deaf people are concerned varies across different LAs, even this is not guaranteed (Wilson et al. 2018). There is no requirement for CFSWs to have specialized training about this community and therefore, if concerns are raised with child protection services in a family where the parents are Deaf, the initial visit will probably come from a CFSW with potentially little or no awareness of their needs. The professional is highly unlikely to have BSL skills and may not even recognize the need to book an interpreter or a specialist professional (Oram, Young, and Cartney 2024) to accompany them as they do not initially realize there are linguistic and cultural differences involved.

Given this context, the authors report findings from a study that has engaged directly with CFSWs concerning parenting assessments where one or more parent is Deaf. We address their readiness to undertake these assessments, and highlight issues of practice on the ground and suggestions for improvement.

Methodology and methods

Research aims and objectives

This study focuses on social work practitioners working in children’s social services across a large urban area in England. It explores their views on the extent to which their usual practice in parenting assessments within safeguarding procedures might apply to families where one or more parent is Deaf and uses BSL. The research aims are:

To analyse the current knowledge and practice of social work practitioners in Deaf-related parenting assessments

To identify which usual processes of parenting assessments, in the context of safeguarding, are fit for purpose in the case of Deaf parents

To examine how safeguarding practices with respect to Deaf parents create opportunities and vulnerabilities for all parties involved within social work

The research objective is:

To raise cultural and linguistic awareness within social work on how to work with Deaf parents and their families where parenting assessments are concerned.

Methodological approach

Given the lack of pre-existing evidence about this topic and the focus on practice, a qualitative approach was justified to permit exploration and generation of new data from within practitioners’ experience. The researcher was particularly conscious that her characteristics and experience, as a Deaf specialist social worker, had the potential to influence all stages of the data process including recruitment, interview execution, and interpretation of data (Ho, Chiang, and Leung 2017). Therefore, her methodology choice needed to accommodate and acknowledge her professional reflexivity as a resource for analysis.

For data collection, a broadly narrative approach was adopted using semi-structured interviews (Flick 2006) that permitted interviewees to describe their practice in their own words whilst also allowing for prompts to understand the background to their views and underpinning assumptions (Magaldi and Berler 2020).

The researcher chose a vignette-driven format, employing made-up composite scenarios drawn from elements of real-life cases (which had been described by specialist professionals participating in an earlier study), in order to stimulate discussion at the beginning of the interview (Hazel 1995). It was felt this would offer a less intimidating approach for any participants who might feel inexperienced working with the primary community under discussion, in comparison to the researcher who could potentially be perceived as very experienced because of her professional and personal background. The format was designed to act as a trigger, prompting participants to recall stories about individuals, situations, and structures which, in turn, could offer insights into their perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes (Hughes 1998: 381).

Recruitment and sampling

Ethical approval was granted from the University of Manchester. Participants working as social work practitioners in Children & Families Services across the study site were sought by convenience sampling (Etikan, Musa, and Alkassim 2016). Individuals needed a minimum of three years’ experience in child protection together with some experience of cases where a parent was Deaf (either directly through their own work, or indirectly through their colleagues (or supervisees) to be included). Potential participants were recruited by email invitation via two lead contacts from within the LA social services department and a local social work teaching partnership, using the snowballing technique (Morgan 2008). A final sample of seven participants from three different LAs agreed to be interviewed.

Ethical considerations

It was anticipated that most participants would never have interacted with a Deaf professional before or been exposed to sign language in such an intensive way over the extended time-period required for an interpreter-mediated interview. This could potentially initiate a degree of alienation or ‘othering’ (Tipton 2008) for all parties, rather than encouraging direct interaction with the researcher, which could be disempowering for all concerned (Young, Oram, and Napier 2019). The same highly qualified interpreter with a knowledge of research techniques and social work terminology was used for all the interviews except one, and the fact that participants appeared comfortable and able to interact with the researcher, via a digital platform, meant that none of these anticipated issues arose.

Participants gave consent for their data to be shared under strict protocols described within the recruitment materials, including first and third party anonymization, pseudonymization of quotations, and deletion of video footage following analysis.

Data collection

Data were collected through individual online semi-structured interviews, each of which lasted approximately 1 h. They were conducted in both English and BSL, with support from an interpreter, and were recorded in both audio and video formats using Zoom/MS Teams, as applicable (Video footage preserves the body language, facial expressions, and other key elements which form the grammar of a visual language and therefore are necessary to construct a detailed translation.).

Data analysis

During the analysis, the researcher used the six-phase approach of Reflexive Thematic Analysis (Braun et al. 2018). The video recordings, alongside professionally produced written English transcripts, were subjected to repeated viewings by the researcher (a native BSL user) and her post-interview notes were recorded into NVivo 12 Plus software. The researcher thus also acted as translator in the analysis process (Temple and Young 2004; Young and Temple 2014) which raised questions of potential bias. She recognized, for example, the need to follow the interviewee’s own language, possibly grounded in ‘medical’ or ‘social’ models of disability, rather than her own constructs of referring to Deaf people as a linguistic minority using BSL (Ladd 2003). This served to sharpen awareness of differences in assumptions and world views. Furthermore, exercising a coding reliability approach (Braun and Clarke 2019) helped with reflection, evaluation, and transparency by identifying a pattern of shared meaning around a core concept.

Participant characteristics

All seven participants were female and employed as registered, qualified social workers. Their experience of working in child protection ranged from 3 to 12-plus years, and they consisted of four frontline staff (one in a senior role) and three management-level staff providing training or mentoring newly qualified social workers in child protection.

Findings

Findings are organized around three themes: social workers’ knowledge of working with Deaf people focussing on their cultural competence and training opportunities; cultural aspects that arise when working with Deaf parents around their understanding of safeguarding/child protection proceedings; and meeting the communication and cultural needs of Deaf parents.

Four participants had worked directly on cases with Deaf parents. The others had worked with hearing parents from other cultural-linguistic groups (where English is not their first language, using a spoken language interpreter), and these examples were included for comparison, in part because participants drew on that experience in thinking about practice with Deaf parents. All of the cases discussed by participants related to safeguarding or child protection concerns, some of which had progressed to care proceedings. None of these four participants had experience of initial assessment stage(s), but had begun working with the families when providing interventions or supervision for pre-care proceedings.

Of these four participants, one (P1) had prior knowledge from basic Deaf awareness training, and at one point had worked with colleagues from a national deaf service; they used an interpreter for all meetings with the family. Another (P5) started with no previous knowledge of this community and learned on the job through support from a local deaf agency. They had some experience of working with interpreters. A third (P6) had neither prior knowledge nor training and relied significantly on their own initiative to ensure that Deaf parents had full access during the process, for example, booking an interpreter. The fourth (P7) had neither prior knowledge nor training and felt their level of understanding and deaf awareness developed gradually when working with a Deaf parent. They had not used an interpreter during their contact with the Deaf parent.

Social workers’ knowledge and experience of working with Deaf people

This theme considers participants’ levels of knowledge and experience in working with Deaf people, including what training they were offered relating to cultural competence, and whether they had or did not have direct experience yet of working with Deaf parents.

Cultural competence

In terms of their prior knowledge of the Deaf community, only one participant had received basic deaf awareness training before being allocated their first case with Deaf parents. Although they believed this training to have been helpful preparation, they still described the experience of working with Deaf parents as a steep learning curve.

I had some one-to-one training with a deaf organisation right at the start so they could explain to me what this family’s specific needs were and also a bit more about Deaf culture and what to expect, and they kind of acted as an open consultancy, if you like, on that front. (P1)

All participants essentially learned about deaf awareness and Deaf culture through working on their cases and recognizing that Deaf people have different types of communication which need to be addressed at all stages of the work, including at the initial referral. Most participants had experience of working with only one Deaf family and therefore based their understanding solely on that experience. Just one individual had been involved in two cases, although on the second occasion they had not been allocated the case originally (despite having prior experience of working with Deaf parents); they only took over the case when a colleague left.

Due to lack of training and an absence of formal guidance, all participants reported that they felt uncertain about the type and degree of support Deaf parents might need when they began working with the family. Participants were concerned that without that expertise, they risked either oversimplifying situations or overcompensating if they failed to recognize key cultural differences.

Are we letting cultural issues get in the way of really helping us to understand what the child protection issues are? Either way, are we just, like, accepting things that people are saying or are we really seeking to understand, you know, is this child safe? How do we know this child is safe and, you know, what are we basing that on? (P2)

One participant described a case they had considered should be classified as low-level risk but was deemed a more serious child protection case. In their view, this was because, there was no interpreter involved and consequently assumptions had been made about potential complexities which might have been viewed differently if an expert in the Deaf field had been involved.

Now you’ve got to try and work these dynamics with a deaf family where you’ve got to navigate the nuances of Deaf culture and toeing the line (for want of a better word again) of making sure you are respecting diversity and equality and policies and best practices as well. It’s kind of a minefield. (P1)

By contrast, participants described how they receive internal weekly training sessions on various aspects of diversity, including how to tackle racism, disability discrimination and LGBTQ+ issues which they might encounter with service users, as well as within their own work environment. Involvement in this research had raised the question of why diversity training had not included Deaf people. They said that they would welcome focused training on how to work with and support Deaf people (or those from different cultural-linguistic backgrounds), encouraging them to consider and recognize the challenges those families might experience within a child protection situation. Some participants explained there was a designated budget for staff development, but they had identified a gap in training provision regarding minority families. They understood the need for more specific training, rather than a generic approach, but in their experience, that need was usually not prioritized unless they had current cases where this was relevant.

I think for me I always felt like with Deaf culture/knowledge, Deaf people need to be treated in the same way as any other diverse [diversity—sic] issue. So we’ve had extensive training on other minority groups, so foreign nationals, people with different immigration statuses, different ability levels. We all know that we don’t stigmatise in a… There’s things that we do and we don’t do in those situations. You don’t hear about deafness in that arena. It just isn’t heard of. (P1)

Some participants noted that all of the issues they experience when trying to work with Deaf parents are further exacerbated by the high staff turnover and sickness rates within social services. As a result, any knowledge or experience gleaned by working with a particular family is lost when that person leaves, and cases can remain open longer than necessary.

We have a high turnover of social workers, so we don’t have a strong knowledge base within the organisation and deep experience of working with (cultural-linguistic) families. (P3)

It could’ve been that the young person was open to us for three years because we didn’t have the right training and guidance so things were taking much longer, whereas if (parent) was a hearing parent that actually she might not have had…you know, they might not have been open to us for that amount of time. (P7)

Cultural aspects when working with Deaf parents

This second theme focuses on Deaf parents’ concept of safeguarding/child protection, including the lifelong communication barriers which can impact their knowledge of such issues, as well as the risk they will be misconstrued or misunderstood by professionals due to linguistic and cultural differences.

Deaf parents’ understanding of safeguarding/child protection proceedings

In the majority of cases, participants recognized and believed that the Deaf parent/s’ understanding of the concept of child protection was basic or non-existent. One participant referred to a parent who continued to struggle with understanding not only the technical terms throughout the process, but more fundamentally the concept of safeguarding/child protection, which was for them an intangible idea. In this case, the professional knew they were not being understood because they noticed that the parent often nodded as if in agreement yet focused on talking about themselves and their own issues, rather than taking on board the actions required to make improvements. Thus, their behaviour did not demonstrate that they understood the significance of child protection in this situation.

Participants also acknowledged that trying to communicate with Deaf parents, ideally in person, with the assistance of an interpreter where possible, meant the process took much longer. In one example, a participant explained that it took 6 h to explain care proceedings before going to court to parents using an interpreter, whereas that conversation would usually take an hour. It was also acknowledged that the Deaf parents had significant difficulties retaining information relating to safeguarding because the information provided was in written English and not their primary language. This was problematic not just for the parents but also with respect to the duties and obligations that CFSWs had in carrying out their practice. For example, one participant discussed their responsibility to ensure parents were involved in the decision-making process, but that was much more problematic if they were not sure that parents fully understood what was happening or the basic concepts about safeguarding. In their case, it was hard to move forward with one family because they did not understand the safety plan, a fundamental element of practice.

I think it’s really important to establish what the person’s level of understanding is for English or how they communicate within their own language, and not to make assumptions. And also to avoid using jargon and to make sure that I’m checking in with them. (P2)

In another example, one participant described carrying out intense one-to-one parenting support over a period of 18 months entirely through lipreading or using pen and paper, despite this parent being Deaf.

YouTube videos would be amazing I think, or some kind of public access in terms of things that we can leave with parents. So what is child protection, what’s this process? When I’m not here can you keep referring to that? (P1)

Considering communication/cultural aspects of Deaf parents in the assessment process

Over time, even if they had only one experience of working with Deaf parents, participants said that they had learned to consider new linguistic and cultural aspects in their practice with these individuals. This included texting in plain English so that parents could understand a message in order to establish a convenient time to meet in person, and endeavouring to find an interpreter for that meeting. However, that was described as an ideal situation because, often, time constraints made such adaptations difficult to achieve. The time pressures could be theirs as busy social work practitioners but also those of interpreters who were in short supply and therefore unavailable at short notice.

If you have a meeting and you want to meet someone tomorrow and you can’t get that right interpreter, then you’re stuck. So, it just causes complications because it’s not as straightforward, and then I think people get a bit impatient with the whole process. (P2)

Sometimes we end up working in quite oppressive ways because of time limits and because of lack of interpreters or lack of knowledge about where to find interpreters for specialist cases. So as much as I’m being very good, this is what I would do, I’m aware that in a crisis situation it might not be quite as perfect as this. (P2)

Cultural misinterpretation

With respect to communication methods, a few participants described instances where text messages from parents had been persistent, or could seem overly direct and forthright. They had come to realize that this was a mode of communication for the Deaf parent that could serve as an outlet for frustration, equivalent to a hearing parent shouting down the phone. However, professionals might perceive these written messages as aggressive or possibly as evidence of mental health issues (due to the high number of messages). Similar cultural misunderstandings could arise through how a hearing professional might appraise the body language of a Deaf parent. If signing quickly or expansively when angry or frustrated, a Deaf person’s body language may seem threatening because signs take up a larger space, more expression appears on the face and there is more movement in the core body. However, these are linguistic and culturally normative changes in a visual language in the same way as one hearing culture might perceive another as ‘loud’ when in fact it was just the usual way of talking when passionate about something.

I think the presentation of a deaf person obviously might be more expressive than a hearing person. If the police went in or a social worker went in, they might see that as really aggressive but they’re not shouting, they’re just expressing themselves. (P5)

Other professionals discussed how misunderstandings could arise from hearing people’s focus on sound resulting in the wrong impression of the Deaf parent because they are basing their interpretations of sound on their own cultural understanding, not that of Deaf people. For example:

She doesn’t have the use of her voice but she does have some vocalisations, so the noises that she makes are really loud, which sounds distressing to professionals that are on this call that don’t understand that she has no understanding of what that sounds like. (P1)

Use of modern technology/digital platforms

One participant used a digital platform with auto-generated captions for meetings. However, they had come to realize that was impractical when the Deaf parent had questions (and would require an interpreter to voice them in English).

The difficulty that then came with that is that when mum was then asking questions of the professional, [the software] couldn't translate mum, because of her lip reading, and, you know, she would speak just using lip reading [mouth lip patterns]. So, it would then mean that somebody else within the service or the professionals would have to then interpret that back to the professional. So, we always would try and allocate a lot more time for meetings for mum. (P7)

Two participants also noted that telephone conferences were inappropriate for Deaf people as they do not know who is speaking at any given time, when there is more than one person on the call, because the captions do not show that. As English is not Deaf people’s primary language, some of them would also struggle to follow captions at all, especially when those might not be in clear, accurate English.

We had a child protection conference and (parent) attends in person, for obvious reasons. Everyone else is on the phone. That’s another thing as well, trying to do these meetings with people and technology and deaf people is just ridiculously impossible, and I think we need to be working a little bit more proactively for these parents as well. The whole court case for the first child was done through Teams. But (parent) had become dysregulated. (P1)

Three participants also pointed out that, in their experience, Deaf people drop eye contact when they feel overwhelmed or defensive as a way of avoiding further communication. The conversation cannot continue until they are ready to engage eye contact again, which then takes more time.

These challenges are just some examples of why professionals needed to request time extensions. Some participants stated that these requests were more readily granted during the more advanced stages of the process, for example, care proceedings.

Discussion

From the perceptions of the participants, this study demonstrates how the practice of parenting assessment is impacted by multiple factors in respect of the linguistic and cultural needs of Deaf parents.

It is evident that cases involving Deaf parents are allocated to a CFSW regardless of prior knowledge of the Deaf community. Participants themselves expressed concern regarding their lack of knowledge about members of this community on which to draw when receiving a case, and there is certainly no expectation that they would have BSL skills or even know the importance of booking an interpreter. Professionals might not realize that English is not the primary language for Deaf people, and that many of them have limited proficiency due to educational barriers they have experienced. Therefore, relying on written English is not necessarily appropriate or effective (Conrad 1979; Young et al. 2016).

Due to the extremely sensitive nature of the work, misunderstandings can easily occur during difficult conversations where anxiety or emotions are high (Bernard 2018). How much more likely is that to happen for Deaf parents when an interpreter is not provided? Are social work practitioners in a position to be able to evaluate risk or how families are being supported? What questions are being asked in assessments around culture? The assessment process requires CFSWs to take into consideration the family’s identity and culture; however, this can be difficult to navigate if the parents’ cultural norms for parenting differ from those of the professional. Ideally, CFSWs need to be able to identify whether or not something is a cultural issue or something more nuanced, because if they fail to do so, there can be bigger issues at stake. This is even more crucial if parents are unfamiliar with mainstream society cultural norms, in addition to experiencing language barriers.

Those participants who had worked on cases involving a Deaf parent shared their frustration about the lack of training or guidance provided by their department beforehand. They were placed in a situation of having to ‘learn on the job’, trying to extrapolate what they knew about hearing parents and apply it to members of the Deaf community; many of them expressed uncertainty about whether they were being effective on that basis. Social workers have a legal duty to assess the safety of a child within specified timescales, and to expect them to do so without relevant knowledge or experience of the (linguistic and) cultural issues involved could be dangerous. Failing to do this, or errors in this process, can result in serious consequences for the child, their family, or even professionals themselves.

Most participants agreed that it was important to mitigate against misunderstanding, especially those who had witnessed colleagues misconstrue information previously. However, they had different perspectives on how this could be achieved. Some spoke of the need to involve interpreters, whereas others considered it sufficient to rely on the lipreading or written English skills of the parents. In the latter scenario, they seemed unaware that expecting parents to communicate using their second language (English) could be potentially discriminatory (Equality Act 2010), and that face-to-face interpreting should be provided if there are suspected child protection issues (UK Government 2024).

Some participants have recognized that there are factors other than linguistic needs that need to be considered when assessing a Deaf parent. They appreciate that Deaf people have different lived experiences compared to the majority with whom they have worked in child protection. It is evident from their examples that Deaf parents might not share the mainstream concept of child protection because they have not had access to this type of information previously, and therefore they require extra time, reiteration and culturally adapted resources to fully understand the process and its implications.

Retaining that information is another potential difficulty for these parents, when written resources are not appropriate, and this can be supported using visual techniques. Additional work of this nature adds pressure onto social work practitioners, who have a responsibility to ensure parents are involved in decision-making; they expressed frustration at the seemingly impossible nature of this task at times and shared concerns that the current system was failing these families.

Participants have also acknowledged that (linguistic and) cultural adaptations need to be made regarding their choice of communication methods, including the use of modern technology. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in changes to social work operational procedures (UK Parliament 2022), including a reduction in home visits and more reliance on telephone or conference calls, for example, via MS Teams. Some participants recognized that this medium has not been well considered in terms of its impact on Deaf parents in safeguarding situations as it is less interactive, and virtual communication can create cultural barriers. Technology does not always offer the best solutions.

With hindsight, all participants emphasized that they would appreciate deaf awareness training so they could meet the needs of Deaf parents more efficiently and effectively, but ideally this should be provided in advance to prepare them before they embarked on such a case. In their view, this should be a priority and could form part of their weekly team training. This would help prevent any unnecessary delays in cases involving Deaf parents.

However, participants also acknowledged the issue regarding retaining a knowledge base due to the rapid staff turnover in their area of work, typically due to work-related stress. Therefore, should one person happen to work with a Deaf parent and gain some awareness of the needs and challenges involved whilst on that case, there is a risk that person might leave and any knowledge or experience go with them. Staff changes exacerbate all the other issues they have encountered because each new person is ‘reinventing the wheel’ and having to repeat all the learning, resulting in the Deaf parents bearing the brunt of that impact.

Conclusion

For those cultural-linguistic families where English is very much a second language, even to the point of limited proficiency in some cases, there appears to be a systematic difference in the way they are treated. Participants also stipulated the need for bespoke resources explaining child protection and the assessment process (in BSL), aimed specifically at Deaf parents, ideally on a digital platform, which they could provide to families. To understand a person’s language and culture takes time and training, which is even more important in safeguarding situations where the stakes are so high and errors can have such serious consequences. However, the system is not set up to provide that necessary time and the training is not being made available in advance.

Considering the factors which have been identified, SW training should include mandatory sessions which recognize the challenges Deaf/Cultural-linguistic families from different backgrounds might experience within a child protection situation, for example, via pre-SW qualification or the Assessed and Supported Year in Employment programme. This would provide all SW practitioners with some basic knowledge, so that, should they be allocated cases involving Deaf people, they have better insight into the challenges and potential risks involved and could approach them with more confidence in their professional skills, or know that they need more specialized help and expertise. It needs be more systematic and structured, to help avoid CFSWs starting on a Deaf case without any knowledge/understanding of the challenges involved (e.g. no interpreter), avoid the risks of just learning from scratch on the job (and the impact those mistakes have on the Deaf family as well as professional), and avoid loss of information through staff turnover/sickness.

To conclude, the findings confirm the need for improvement to the service delivery for Deaf families living in England. Further research is required to fill in the gaps of parental perspectives (from Deaf parents) in this field, which can then be used to build evidence-based practice with better protocols in safeguarding/child protection services directed towards minority families.

Acknowledgements

A special mention of thanks goes to the participants that took part in the study for their time and contributions.

Funding

This research is supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ES/P000665/1).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship or publication of this article.

References