Understanding the implementation of children's social care policy in Wales: a study of the new Child Sexual Exploitation guidance

Research commissioned by the Welsh Government concluded that assessment quality and interventions with families impacted by CSE varies greatly across the country (Hallett 2017). This review identified the need for the 2011 CSE statutory guidance to be overhauled and made a number of recommendations about what the new guidance should cover. The new CSE policy is due for implementation in Spring 2020.

A significant body of research highlights the potential problems with professional responses to CSE.

However, to date only very limited research has been carried out into specifically how child protection policies in the UK are implemented by frontline staff and which factors help and hinder this process.

The aim of this study is to give detailed consideration as to how the new Welsh CSE policy is implemented in practice by frontline social workers and other key professionals. It is hoped that it will assist policy makers in understanding how new child protection policies are implemented in different local areas in Wales and identify which factors hinder or assist with effective policy implementation.

This research seeks to consider how the new policy will impact on practice with young people at risk of CSE and will contribute to the development of effective services and improved responses to this critical issue. The rationale behind undertaking a two-year study is that we will be able to ascertain over a length of time how this policy takes shape in the three test sites across Wales. It therefore offers a unique opportunity to explore the embedment of the new guidance as it is rolled out.

As Proctor (2012) highlighted, a key issue with evidence-based practice is ensuring that policies are implemented in the way they were intended to be. A considerable strength of this study is its timing: with the new policy being introduced in Spring 2020 and research commencing in October 2020, we will be able to carry out a ‘real time’ study of how the policy is implemented in practice. A novel element to this study is that one of the lead authors of the new CSE policy is an academic, Sophie Hallett, who has carried considerable research on CSE in Wales. The policy will therefore be based on high quality research, enabling us to obtain real insight into how evidence-based policy impacts on practice ‘on the ground’ by social workers and other key professionals. By carrying out interviews with young people and their families we will also ascertain how this new policy impacts on their experiences of services.

In undertaking this study, we hope to discover how new child protection policies are implemented in practice in a number of local authorities and understand the impact of different contexts and organisational cultures on policy implementation. This will be valuable learning for child protection policy makers, senior managers and practitioners and will help the Welsh Government consider which factors assist and impede effective policy implementation.