Recognising and referring children exposed to domestic abuse: a multi-professional, proactive systems-based...

Area of Science:

• Social Care Research
• Public Health
• Quality Improvement

Background:

• Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a quality assurance tool used in healthcare.
• Its application in social care, particularly for child protection, is underexplored.
• Domestic abuse significantly impacts child welfare and requires robust safeguarding processes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To apply FMEA to the process of recognizing and referring children exposed to domestic abuse in a UK social care setting.
• To identify potential failure modes and their causes within this safeguarding process.
• To generate corrective actions to enhance child protection measures.

Main Methods:

• A multidisciplinary, multi-agency team of 10 front-line professionals conducted a modified FMEA.
• The process involved mapping the safeguarding pathway, identifying failure modes and causes, and developing corrective actions over seven group meetings.
• Qualitative feedback from the FMEA team was analyzed.

Main Results:

• The FMEA successfully identified numerous potential failure modes within the child safeguarding process.
• A significant number of corrective actions were generated for local consideration by the safeguarding board.
• Team members found the FMEA process valuable despite its challenges.

Conclusions:

• FMEA is a valuable prospective quality assurance methodology for appraising social care processes.
• Applying FMEA can enhance the identification and referral of children exposed to domestic abuse.
• Further use of FMEA in social care practice is recommended for improving safeguarding outcomes.