Child centered social work: Analysis and practice Word count or equivalent: 2000 Proportion of total marks: 25% Learning Outcomes to be assessed: LO2: Critically Provide an overview and critical...

Centring child-work around children
Centring child-work around children
Children are the centre of the universe. This saying is said and repeated so often. However, how many of us actually work by it? In a world that is practically centred around adults and their decisions, how focused are we really on children? Children have their own needs, their right to be heard and their right to participate. Have we given them their due and treated them as individuals instead of treating them like possessions who need to follow orders.
Child-centred social work is no different. While social works are proclaimed to perform acts and aids for children, how focused are these approaches towards children, it is yet to be ascertained. Most of the child-centred social work is done by adults, thinking like adults and structured by adults. (Roberts 2000, p229) How much involvement do children or younger people, who are the focus of these works, receive? (Simmonds & Coleman, 2002)
Child-care under the social work umbrella is a broad field. It refers to caring for children under the protection of the state as well as children in general. Children can be considered anyone below the age of eighteen. The category of children as such is broad. They include those who cannot proclaim their needs and voice their opinions like infants as well as fully-grown, almost adults who have strong opinions and voices like eighteen-year-olds.
After understanding the terminology of child care and children, it is necessary to focus on some other terms that are commonly misused. While focussing on child-care, it is important to develop a clear distinction between the terms- Child- focussed and Child-centred, since the two may look similar but are very different
Child-focused work refers to works done for children, whether it is assistance, care, support or guidance.
Child-centred work, on the other hand, refers to work that is child-oriented from the child’s perspective. (Department of Health, 2000)
So the main distinction between the two is the perspective. Child-focused is work done for children through adult eyes, while child-centred is work done for children through the child’s eyes. This fundamental difference requires more attention at all levels whether individual, family or social.
Today, Child-care is more child-focused rather than child-centred. This is evident in the various policies, procedures and field works involving child-care. There is a need of shifting the radar of child care from being child-focused to child-centred. The importance of child-care becoming child-centred rather than child-focussed cannot be emphasized enough. Child-centeredness deals with some very important emotional needs of children which has so far been overlooked.
Children are individuals and it is not right for adults to decide what they think is right for the child while ignoring the child’s opinion. Children have their own individuality from the moment they are born. They have their own understanding, their own thoughts and their own convictions (James et al. 1998 in Ridge, 2003). It is transgression for adults to restrict this individuality in them by forcing their own opinions and decisions on them. Especially the children in social care must be given a chance to have a voice since more often than not, these children find themselves neglected and unheard. (Winkworth & McArthur, 2006)
The current system of child-care is governed and guided by so many different factors. The main focus is on the tangible needs of the child while the emotional needs are utterly neglected. The harm caused by such standards of care is completely ignored. Government policies aims at providing children with security and safety, the basic need for food, drink and shelter and basic healthcare. In these guidelines, the child’s view, wants or desires are not given any scope or space. The focus on tangible needs has clouded the emotional needs of children (Australian Law Reform Commission, 1997)
This is not an unproven fact. Studies have shown that children themselves wish that the social work that involved them would take into view what they thought about it and what they wanted it to be like....