Introduction

Before outlining in Chapter Eight a practice proposal to introduce a system of crisis intervention in schools, the best place from which to mount non-stigmatic primary preventive measures in this field, to be backed up in the context of secondary prevention by a similar ‘passage agent’ support role for children from Cafcass when parents commence litigation in the family justice system, I need to consider various points. First, some of the reasons why Caplanian principles of preventive mental health have not generally as yet found their way into practice and policy in England and Wales; second, why services for children in this field, such as they are remain largely uncoordinated and focused on remedial services when problems have become acute and entrenched; and third, why the development of preventive services in particular has proved so difficult.

Obstacles hindering the preventive crisis intervention approach

Over and over again for many years numerous official reports and studies have called for early intervention, particularly in the area of child abuse and neglect. Invariably these inquiries and serious case reviews use hindsight to look back on errors in social work intervention and highlight a serious lack of interagency coordination. Since the 1960s this has led to calls to tighten up managerial supervision and bureaucratic compliance. Yet, as the Munro Report explained, in child protection this produced a compliance culture ‘where meeting performance management demands became the dominant focus rather than meeting the needs of children and their families’.

Not only has this approach contributed to defensive organisational behaviour and low morale among many social workers, but it has inevitably directed priorities and resources to the most challenging and vulnerable cases where a child's safety is at stake and where removal from a dangerous family situation has to be considered. The problem is that such policy responses invariable come at the expense of early supportive intervention in what are seen as less risky cases. Moreover, when resources are severely restricted and cut as they are when government pursues an austere economic policy with a view to eliminating the public deficit, it is even more difficult for care-giving organisations to make adequate provision for preventive work, even though it is recognised that failure to do so will lead later to even more serious acute emergencies.