Earlier this month the NSPCC put out a call on twitter for professionals to respond to a survey they are running as part of the evidence gathering phase of ‘a project to support professionals to take the appropriate action when they have concerns about the safeguarding of children and young people’. That project is said to build upon an earlier project : ‘No one noticed, no one heard – A study of disclosures of childhood abuse’, which you can read about here. You can read about (and complete) the survey here. The original tweet appears now to have been deleted, but you can still see reference to it here :
@seethrujustice @SVPhillimore @suesspiciousmin it is a real shame you have adopted the word 'disclosure' when – ever since the 1987 Cleveland report – 'disclosure' for children saying what has happened to them has been judicially disapproved of (eg https://t.co/LNi4H4YbOW @[33])
— David Burrows (@dbfamilylaw) February 1, 2018
and in David Burrows’s** related, subsequent blog post here.
The tweet from @NSPCC, summarised and retweeted by Resolution, generated a twitter discussion in which a number of lawyers* raised concern about the use of the term ‘disclosure’ to describe accounts given by children. In short, where professionals start from a default position of belief of allegations made (whether by children or adults) there is a risk that accurate and truthful accounts will not be properly distinguished from those which are mistaken or untrue. Most child care lawyers will have experience of being told by social work professionals that their role is to believe the child, and will have heard the same professionals refer to a child’s account as a ‘disclosure’ even though it is neither proved nor accepted as true. Sometimes allegations turn out to be true, but sometimes when properly tested it becomes clear that they were not true, or at least that they can’t be treated as reliable accounts. There is very clear guidance to social workers about this, arising from the Cleveland Report in 1989, where failures to properly consider alternative explanations led to harm to children and families. Family Division Judge MacDonald J recently gave judgment in a case which is an example of how this still happens and how the guidance is still ignored :
despite the fact that the use of the term ‘disclosure’ to describe a statement or allegation of abuse made by a child has been deprecated since the Cleveland Report due to it precluding the notion that the abuse might not have occurred (see para 12.34(1)), every professional who gave evidence in this case (except the Children’s Guardian) used the term ‘disclosure’ to describe what the children had said to them). (AS v TH (False Allegations of Abuse) [2016] EWHC 532 Fam).
What Cleveland and subsequent guidance tells us is that rather than believing a child or clinging to a suspicion of abuse, professionals need to listen to the child and the broader evidence before making their minds up. As David Burrows reminds us, ‘An open mind and open questions are essential’ when it comes to gathering the evidence of children – if evidence is gathered from a starting point that allegations are true evidence is likely to become contaminated (for example through leading questions) or through a failure to look for or see evidence that tells a different story. Professionals (of all disciplines, not just lawyers) need to be able to see alternative perspectives and hold them in mind simultaneously.
In a post by Sarah Phillimore** at Child Protection Resource entitled Mind your language – whats the problem with ‘disclosure’?, also prompted by the twitter discussion around the survey, Sarah reminds us of the very contemporary consequences in matters of criminal justice where concern is rising that the mandate to police officers and prosecutors to ‘believe the victim’, may have led to injustice both to those wrongly accused or convicted and to those whose truthful accounts cannot be proved because evidence gathering has been so flawed that evidence cannot be relied upon (see Henriques report referred to in Sarah’s post). But none of this is new. Cleveland led to the introduction of guidelines around the taking of childrens’ evidence, called the Achieving Best Evidence Guidelines, and it should be followed whenever children begin to give an account of abuse or where abuse is suspected. It’s underlying principles have wider application than just what goes on in a police video interview suite – just like police officers social workers should avoid leading questions, pressure or age inappropriate language and should keep accurate contemporaneous records of accounts given by children. However published judgments from the family court are littered with examples of very poorly conducted ABE interviews and evidence gathering practice, which have made it really difficult for the court to make sound findings and therefore to protect children (from the harm of abuse or the harm of being removed from an innocent and loving parent). The MacDonald J example is not an isolated one.
Sarah said :
This is concerning on so many levels. What does ‘disclosure’ mean? It is ‘the act of making new or secret information known’ . To call allegations or comments by a child ‘disclosure’ means you start the investigation from a perspective of ‘belief’ – exactly the position decried in the Henriques report.
Back to the NSPCC survey… Having received no response via twitter, David Burrows wrote directly to the NSPCC saying :
I have done the survey. The word ‘disclosure’ comes up again and again. In one short question it occurs four times. It is akin to a person being threated as guilty before the case is proved, a fundamental principle which our system of justice says is wrong.
Please review your use of ‘disclosure’ and reflect on the damage you may be doing to children who go to court if you misuse it.
In initial responses to David the NSPCC relied upon the widespread use of the term ‘disclosure’ by professionals and in guidance materials, including the 2015 Keeping Children Safe in Education Guidance and the 2008 Welsh Government Keeping Learners Safe Guidance. The NSPCC told David Burrows that :
We have chosen to use the word disclosure within the context of our Professionals Breaking the Silence project for a number of reasons. As the survey sets out, it is intended to be wider than allegation would suggest. Below is an example of a definition of ‘disclosure’.
“Disclosure is a complex process which can happen in many different ways, for example, verbally or non-verbally, directly or indirectly, partially or fully, and promoted or accidently. A disclosure may be made to family or friends, or to professionals such as social services or the police.”
…The use of the word in a justice context may of course have different implications…
The difficulty with what the NSPCC say about the use of terminology in a ‘justice context’ is that the process of gathering childrens’ evidence begins most often with social workers. The responsibility for protecting children is multi-agency, but criminal charges and convictions are there in part to help protect victims and potential future victims from this sort of harm. If social workers commit the sort of belief mistakes that Henriques and Cleveland decried, their efforts may make children less safe because when the case reaches the ‘justice context’ their evidence or the evidence they have touched or been involved in procuring will not stand the test of a proper fair forensic process. So it is impossible to separate out the ‘justice context’ from ‘real life’. As Sarah highlights, the choice of language both reflects and reinforces a dangerous mindset.
We asked NSPCC directly about this, explaining that we wanted to write a blog post on the topic. In response the Head of Policy and Public Affairs told us that their survey :
uses the term “disclosure” to reflect the process of a child starting to share their experiences with others, which in some cases comes even before they are ready to put their thoughts and feelings in order, sometimes before they are ready to make an allegation. In some cases, this process may never lead to an allegation. This process can be verbal or non verbal and can take place over a long period of time. We are therefore using disclosure in its wide definition, as it is often used and understood by professionals in a multiagency context. In that sense, the term allegation proposed as an alternative does not seem to capture to wider process of revealing information by young people.
To be clear, our use of the term disclosure should not be understood as implying that young people should automatically be believed. We understand that it takes extraordinary courage for a child to tell someone that they have been abused. Alleged victims of abuse need to know that they will be listened to and taken seriously, but this is not the same as being automatically believed. No alleged victim can or should be guaranteed that their testimony is assumed to be truth. This is our established position on the issue.
Sometimes when two worlds collide it is helpful to listen to the perspective of a complete outsider. Here is the perspective of our journalist colleague Louise Tickle :
…we are dealing with an issue of language available not being sufficiently subtle. It may be that we just don’t have the right word. Journalists deal with this by use of the word “said”. Except when they use the word “claim” which I think is loaded and should not be used except in very specific circumstances.
“Disclosure” is wrong because of what it implies.
“Allegation” doesn’t feel right because it’s a legal term and does not reflect the lived reality for the child giving the account – it seems to imply that they may be maliciously or deliberately making something up and as a starting assumption that feels as unhelpful as “disclosure”.
“Complainant” is just deeply unattractive. It should be neutral but in fact the word “complain” does not put someone in a very nice light.
I prefer “when a child tells an adult that they have been abused” which is a factual description of an event – but there is not a matching noun.
There is some force in the suggestion that ‘allegation’ is not a helpful term outside of a legal context. However we are not sure that this means that professionals therefore have to fall back upon ‘disclosure’, and we don’t agree with the NSPCC above that ‘disclosure’ somehow encompasses MORE than ‘allegation’ – an ‘allegation’ encompasses a range of possibilities : truthful, untruthful, coerced and genuine but mistaken accounts. ‘Disclosure’ shuts off all but one of those possible realities. We think that plain English phrases such as ‘a child said’ or ‘a child reports’ or ‘a child’s account’ would work just fine – avoiding both the narrowing effect of ‘disclosure’ and the legalistic ‘allegation’. Indeed, the 2015 Government non-statutory Guidance What to do if you’re worried a child is being abused – Advice for practitioners does just that :
If a child reports, following a conversation you have initiated or otherwise, that they are being abused and neglected, you should listen to them, take their allegation seriously, and reassure them that you will take action to keep them safe.”
There is not a single reference in that document to the term ‘disclosure’ and it is somewhat striking that the NSPCC do not refer to it. The 2015 Statutory Guidance that they do refer to Keeping children safe in education which does refer to ‘disclosure’ has a broader remit, and uses that term to refer to the Disclosure and Barring Service (pretty difficult to refer to such a system without using the term disclosure) and FGM only.
Similarly, the social worker’s guides on dealing with interviewing and safeguarding children (Achieving Best Evidence in Criminal Proceedings – Guidance on interviewing victims and witnesses, and guidance on using special measures and Working Together 2015) avoid use ‘disclosure’ in the way used by NSPCC.
The 2008 Welsh government guidance referred to was in fact updated in 2015 (you can read it here), and at 3.29 uses the term ‘disclosure’ in the context of a summary of the NSPCC No One Noticed… study. Indeed, some of the response from the NSPCC above is a verbatim quote from that passage of the guidance. A couple of paragraphs on there is a reference to children making ‘disclosures’. All other uses of the term ‘disclosure’ in that document relate to the DBS scheme. It is a shame that the Welsh and English Governments could not have agreed on a consistent use of terminology here. It appears that the Welsh guidance is the outlier.
What the NSPCC study showed was that it is really difficult for children to talk about the bad things that have happened to them, and that even when they do they are sometimes not heard – and professionals need to be prepared to listen, to work towards keeping them safe. But we would argue part of keeping them safe involves keeping an open mind and ensuring that investigations are thorough and that evidence is gathered properly. We would respectfully suggest that the wording in the 2015 Welsh guidance could easily be amended to remove references to ‘disclosures’ by children, without losing the very important messages about how important it is to listen to children’s attempts to tell adults about their experiences. We would invite the NSPCC to reflect on their use of disclosure just as perhaps lawyers could reflect on their insistence on its replacement with terms like ‘allegation’ (which to those outside the legal arena might sound a bit like disbelief, although that isn’t what they mean). We think that the NSPCC could, if it wished, play an important part in encouraging professionals to develop language and practice which better meets the joint aims of open minds and open ears.
Doing justice by and for children, and keeping them safe, requires us all to acknowledge that not everything that every child says will be ‘the truth’. Just like adults, children can be mistaken, confused or dishonest – perhaps more so. The message and evidence of children is of central importance to the work of child protection professionals, but the task of protecting children who give accounts of what appears to be abuse is more complicated than simply accepting their accounts at face value.
We would be happy to take guest posts on this topic, including the NSPCC – we think that it’s really important that professionals in different sectors and disciplines are able to talk about issues of language and practice, and to think about different perspectives. Guest posts don’t need to be just from professionals – whatever your perspective we’d like to hear your thoughts on these issues of language and will be happy to host them as part of a wider debate.
*including the author of this post, Lucy Reed
** David Burrows is a contributor to The Transparency Project and Sarah Phillimore is a Project member.
Feature pic : silence by Steve Rotman on Flickr (Creative Commons – thanks!)
I remember a family where an innocent remark by a child at school was totally misunderstood and misinterpreted by a teacher, leading to a complex and damaging
investigation. Thee was another case where, by visiting the house, we showed that what the child described could not be true; nevertheless the child was believed and children were removed.
Jean Robinson, President, Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services,
I’m a parent so not hugely familiar with the judicial context but here goes for what it is worth:-
Language
I’ve concluded that if you control the language about something you control the related narrative.
The extraordinarily judgmental and lets face it, nasty, use of language to describe families who need services that do not work, to work as they should, seems all-pervasive.
Here are just a few examples:-
• We have a child protection system, not a child welfare system.
• Neglect only counts if it is parental neglect.
• Families are difficult, they do not have difficulties.
• Families are challenging, they do not face challenges.
• Families need an intervention, not help.
• Families are failing, not services.
• Families need early intervention, not good well funded universal services that support families in their role as parents.
• Social workers are children’s social workers, not families social workers.
• No one has rights. You should not be upset or angry about this but if you are, therapy is the answer.
• Injustice has become trauma.
• Quote – Many children are voluntarily accommodated because their parents do not wish to be the main care-giver. For example, some disabled children or unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. (http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2018/01/31/comply-court-rulings-section-20/)
• Quote – It is a shocking reality that recent research shows that as many as 30% of adoptive parents and over 300,000 families overall live in households in which regular violence by children on their parents occurs. It is a truism that ‘hurt children hurt’ and there is widespread evidence that children that have been badly damaged in the early years are more likely to be violent themselves. (Conflation and a rush to judgement of the 300,000 families that do not contain adopted children? – See http://yvonnenewbold.com/happy-birthday-send-vcb-vcb-blog-series-4/ What do you have to do or be to be deserving of help and support that works?)
Does the way language is deployed by child protection professionals cause harm to children and young people?
I’ve no doubt it does. It introduces bias as many of the examples above show. It creates the environment where it takes real independence and some confidence to challenge and you need to be prepared to be an outsider if you do and for the consequences that flow from that.
Is precision important?
Very much so. As one example social worker’s have got themselves in no end of difficulties around the language of attachment by mis-using and mis-representating clinical language. (http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2018/01/22/using-attachment-theory-practice-top-tips/)
The language surrounding special educational needs and disabilities (SEN_D) also holds a few traps for the unwary.
It seems to me, with my jaundiced eye, that this description of people with difficulties and difficulties in understanding and/or communicating, contains the word ‘Educational’ so social workers can say – ‘’Nothing to do with me. I don’t work in a school.’
Here is just a recommendation from a recent Serious Case Review on that front
Joint Serious Case Review Concerning Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adults with Needs for Care and Support in Newcastle-upon-Tyne David Spicer February 2018
9.19 Mental Health and Learning Disability
The cases included victims whose cognitive impairment had been identified previously and others in which no impairment had been identified but was suspected by professionals involved in addressing the exploitation. There were also circumstances in which cognitive difficulties of parents and the impact on their ability to protect had not been considered.
During the Learning Events discussions identified uncertainty about –
• Differences between learning disability and learning difficulty and relevance
• The extent to which either is susceptible to formal diagnosis
• Whose responsibility it is to assess
• Education services responsibilities
• What is the relationship with mental ill-health
• The meaning and impact of mild, moderate or severe categories
• Skills to work with impaired victims and when victims are unwilling to engage
• Handling and distinguishing capacity to decide some things but not others
• Impact on capacity of drugs and alcohol, abuse and mild cognitive impairment
• When to expect that impairment will have been identified during childhood
• Sources of expertise, advice and consultation for practitioners and availability from mental health services or the Community Learning Disability Team
This is unsurprising. Uncertainty is widespread. NHS Choices explains that learning disability is not the same as learning difficulty or mental illness but “it can be very confusing as the term “learning difficulties” is used by some to cover the whole range of learning disabilities.”
There is a difference in the language used in the education, health and social care services.
Learning disability is assessed taking account of a combination of IQ and intellectual and social functioning rather than an absolute diagnosis. Terminology might determine eligibility for services and for benefits.
Recommendation 1.15
I recommend that: Newcastle Safeguarding Children Board and Newcastle Safeguarding Adults Board should arrange for guidance to be issued to practitioners on the differences between learning disability and learning difficulties and the relevance for safeguarding judgments and services.
So yes, language really really matters but then as this is largely a legal site I imagine you understand this better than I.
Thanks looked_after_child.
The term ‘Disclosure’ is suggestive of ‘truth’.
Therefore there is a genuine risk that a ‘Disclosure’, can subconsciously invade the minds of others and contaminate their investigations, leading to questionable outcomes.
Given her personal experience of Family Courts, about which she has written, I’m not sure that Louise Tickle can be described as a “complete outsider” on this subject.
Not that I say this to challenge the basis of your blog, with which I agree.
I have come across your post as I am writing a disseration on the theme of ‘disclosure’ in dramatherapy with children. Athough I am mindul from your article that you do not the think the term ‘disclosure’ is appropriate, what makes me uncomfortable is your argument relating to whether the child is telling the truth and your view that using the term disclosure some how implies that they are. How I perceive the NCPCC report is how can children share their experiences and seek support earlier on. Sexual abuse is still a taboo subject.
From a therapeutic perspective, the earlier someone is able to receive support to process their experiences the less likely more severe and induring mental health needs or harmful coping stategies will arise.
As dramatherapy uses metaphor and play, I was curious about the verbal attempts the young people made to share their experience vs those that felt they had shared/disclosed thier experience through their body, behaviour and non verbal cues. As both a social worker and training therapist, I am concious of my part to play in society in providing a thoughtful and considered response to meeting the needs of children and ensuring they are protected from harm. I can acknowledge that the process of ‘investigating abuse’ can be damaging for both child and parent if not handled sensitively.
As someone who currently works as children and families social worker, many parents I have worked with who have shared that have shared with me they were sexually abused as children and did not share/disclose this at the time were concerned that they would not be beleived or were concerned in being taken away from their parents.
Given that you are coming from a legal perspective, I am cant help but be of the opinion that the semantics and upset about what is the most appropriate word to use, protects the ‘alleged’ perpertrator rather then the child in feeling comfortable to come forward, which to be is why we have an issue of both children and adults feeling able to share their abuse experiences.
The charity 1 in 4, details that at least 1 in 4 of us have experienced childhood sexual abuse, which shows how high this is an issue, however given how difficult it is for people to come forward, are we ever going to be able to accurately reflect how any individuals have been impacted? Maybe it is too hard for us- I include myself in this to comprehend how many ‘perpetrators of abuse’ are actually living amongst us.
https://www.oneinfour.org.uk/
I wonder where you place the responsibility, with the child, parent, perpetrator or professional?
The NSPCC in my view are trying to have some understanding of why children and young people find it hard to share their experience. Although you are saying it is important to change the language I am not hearing any real and tangable ways you are advocating for us to improve the experience of young people. This to me reflects the complexity that we face in society of being able to truly tackle the issue of protecting to children. I am of the view this also adds to the burn out social workers feel in atempting to ensure that children are safe. This is how I have felt as a practitioner. The phrase ‘Damed if you do, damed if you dont’ springs to mind.
Allegation implies that it might not have happened, which again isolates someone from coming forward. Young people sense when they are not being believed and any intervention from the position of being open to the young person potentially lieing in my view takes away from the young person having an empathetic and holding response to what they are sharing and the feeling attached to it. We do not need to rush to court or remove a child immediately if the network around child and famly can work together to ensure both child and parent are treated with respect.
At this moment in time, I will treat all verbal communication that a child makes to me about experiencing abuse as the truth, as this creates the space for them to be able to talk through their experience. I am of the view that this is more likely to provide them the space to process their experience and see it from all angles and for those that have found themselves making a false statement/disclosure a respectful envionment to withdraw their account before it goes through the criminal justice system. Although I make this statement, I am uncomfortable with this in that even if a child was not ‘telling the truth’ we are highligting an unmet need the child is experiencing.
I think in dicussing an emotive topic like this, we have to let the reader know our own personal connection to this topic, something I do not beleive I or those who have written this article have fully shared.
Thank you for giving me many perspectives to look at and I am ofcourse open to exploring my views, I will go away pondering my postion and will share this article with my social work and therapist colleagues. Thank you for taking the time to write this article as it has educated me.
I would be interested to know your views on the Truth Project and if you wish to contact me I would be happy to discuss this topic futher with you. Clearly it is one that interests me I have commited to writing 10,000 words on it! Wish me luck 🙂
https://www.truthproject.org.uk/i-will-be-heard
Thanks for your comment. I’d invite you to re-read this article again to see what we are and aren’t saying. In the meantime, in response to some of your points :
The definition of disclose is to make secret or new information known. So it is not just a case of us ‘somehow’ suggesting it implies truth. It just does.
You complain of our “semantics and upset about what is the most appropriate word to use, [which you feel] protects the ‘alleged’ perpertrator rather then the child in feeling comfortable to come forward”. Your use of the term ‘Semantics’ is pejorative but semantics really matter – how we describe something repeatedly affects how we respond to it. But what we are NOT talking about in this post is how professionals should respond verbally when a child tells a grown up about abusive experiences. We are talking about how adults should frame those reports themselves because, as I’m afraid your comment perhaps confirms, the focus upon protecting victims of abuse can sometimes blind a professional who is genuinely working in the best interests of a child from seeing that maybe what the child is saying is not the complete picture – maybe its happened, maybe its got muddled, maybe the child has been coached by someone who is emotionally harming them in quite different ways.
The role of professionals is to protect children from harm – that might be the harm of sexual abuse or it might be the harm of being coerced or coached into saying things that aren’t true, describing benign events as abusive or simply saying what a child has learnt an adult wants to hear – leading to them being exposed to intimate examinations and ABE interviews that were never necessary, and leading them to wrongly believe that they are victims of abuse from a parent or some other person (perhaps you acknowledge this possibility when you say ‘even if a child was not ‘telling the truth’ we are highligting an unmet need the child is experiencing.’). Many of the things that children say will be factual descriptions of really bad things that have actually happened to them, but professionals need to keep an open mind about where a child’s words have come from in every case or risk failing to protect.
You make a point about the author of the post and disclosure. That’s me. I’m not sure what you think I haven’t disclosed about myself in this article that I should have done. My name is on it. I am identified on the site with a biography. For the avoidance of doubt I am a lawyer who has represented both child and adult victims of serious abuse of all sorts, as well as alleged perpetrators of abuse (guilty ones and wrongly accused ones), and who has also represented children who have sadly been coached or led into making allegations of abuse that just weren’t real, and who were very damaged by it as a result.
You say you treat all verbal communication that a child makes to you about experiencing abuse ‘as the truth’. Failing to keep an open mind about these things is a failure to do right by any of those people. Our actions are affected by our language. Whilst there is no need when face to face with a child to give any indication to a child that they are not telling the truth, I would suggest you look at the ABE guidance for the dangers of praise or affirmation of allegations by receiving professionals – which can lead to a victim’s allegations being undermined. I would also suggest that you review the ABE guidance and caselaw to gain an understanding of the dangers of social work professionals becoming involved in the sort of discussions with children that you describe ‘before it goes through the criminal justice system’. Social workers should take a record, report and refer, and wait for the strategy meeting and joint investigation where a child can be professionally interviewed in order to avoid contaminating or undermining a child’s evidence. If in your social work role you are expected to be doing something else I suggest you have an urgent training need in your department. When a professional acting on a report from a child goes is deciding what other enquiries to make its absolutely critical that they do so without treating that initial account as necessarily true or complete. Professionals that treat reports as ‘disclosures’ often fail to follow up essential lines of enquiry, which might have strengthened or undermined that account – and which either way might rob the child of protection and justice.
Sorry if my response sounds critical but I think that there are some crossed wires here and if I have correctly understood your comment also some blurring of the roles of child protection social workers and therapists, and generally of the distinct roles of various professionals at each stage of the child protection process.
Lucy
Thanks Lucy. I really appreciate your time in responding. To be honest the topic blows my mind in fully knowing the best way to respond as there are so many variables to this that need to be considered. It was helpful for me to know your background more in relation to your experience of supporting those that have shared abuse experiences and those that have been accused and the two sides you have experienced in relation to false and true accounts. I would of course ask clear questions around what a child is sharing. My role has moved forward in that, I am not in a direct role where I investigate child abuse disclosures as have moved to supporting 18+ but what you have shared still applies. Your advice to review the ABE process is definitely helpful.
I can see what you are saying in that offering praise could make it harder to withdraw a false statement and appreciate there are incidents were children will be forced into making false statements.
I have seen this myself in custody battles and how confusing it is for practitioners and courts to have a clear understanding of what has gone on. I have also seen young people I have worked with so reluctant to share abuse experiences again when they have felt not believed, and was my point about trying to create a space for them to feel able to talk. I appreciate that in coming from this angle this again it may then be harder to question what is being shared and can be argued is the same within a therapy role. Sometimes a social worker role can be hard, because a parent for what ever reason may not be able to provide containment for a child and it makes the social work role complex in attempting to support the child in an emotionally empathetic way and having a role to investigate abuse effectively in the best interest of all involved.
I am unfortunately finding it hard to find literature relating to how therapists appropriately respond when children share abuse experiences, yes there is basic guidance in relation to what governing bodies say in passing on concerns, but less literature about how the client can be supported after within the therapeutic relationship. There is no unit on this.
Have you been involved in delivering training to social workers or therapists?
I am still trying to grapple with what is a more helpful word to use other then disclosure as it is so entrenched in social work language that in both posts I had to re-word my sentence when the I naturally went to write the word disclosure.
Thanks again.
Ive trained social workers but not therapists- but a lawyer will teach the importance of recording evidence without contaminating evidence, not how to interact.
I’d suggest you just use phrases like ‘reports’ ‘accounts’ ‘told’ or ‘says’ instead of disclosure.
The comment above: Social Worker and trainee therapist on 7 June 2019 at 11:32 pm raised the following question – “I wonder where you place the responsibility, with the child, parent, perpetrator or professional?”
Which just serves to prove the point!
It highlights the danger of using the term Disclosure, as the social worker refers to a ‘perpetrator’, rather than an ‘alleged perpetrator’.
Using the word Disclosure is so corrosive that those then tasked with investigating may find it impossible to do so impartially, as can be seen above when this social worker writes in response to the use of the word, yet is already working on the premise of guilt, rather than alleged guilt.