Example social work in the media dissertation topic 2:

Lessons from Cleveland: The effect of the media

The Cleveland child abuse case was a scandal in many different ways. First, the number of children taken into care was substantial, at 121 children. Secondly, the media not only created widespread awareness of not only the specific cases in Cleveland but in the issue of child abuse nationally; further, come families used this power of the media to call for re-investigation of their case, and thus the media was in part responsible for the restitution of children to their families.. Thirdly, broad community perceptions were that social workers were the agents of removal, yet such removals were undertaken on the advice of medical professionals, and, in some cases, contrary to the advice of social workers. Focusing upon the role of the media and the lessons learned, this dissertation asks whether more still needs to be done to not protect those who are not guilty until so proven and the need for greater sensitivity from the press. In so doing, this case reviews the role of the press not only in the Cleveland case but in subsequent media-fuelled cases such as that of Baby P.

Suggested initial topic reading:

• Ayre, P. (2001) ‘Child protection and the media: Lessons from the last three decades’, British Journal of Social Work, Vol. 31(6), pp. 887-901.
• Parton, N. (2012) ‘Reflections on ‘governing the family’: The close relationship between child protection and social work in advanced Western societies – The example of England’, Families, Relationships and Societies, Vol. 1(1), pp. 87-101.