Sources of Stress for Children and Families

Many families under stress are able to care for children and meet their needs in a warm, loving and supportive environment. For other families stress has a negative impact on the child's health, development and well-being either directly or because it affects the capacity of parents to respond to the child's needs. This is particularly the case where there is no other significant adult who is able to respond to the child's needs.

Social Exclusion and Poverty

Many families are disadvantaged and lack a wage earner. Poverty may mean that children live in crowded or unsuitable accommodation, have poor diets, health problems or disability, be vulnerable to accidents, and lack ready access to good educational and leisure opportunities.

Racism

Racism and racial harassment are additional sources of stress for some families and children. Although racism causes Significant Harm it is not, in itself, a category of child abuse. The experience of racism is likely to affect the responses of the child and family to assessment and enquiry processes. Failure to consider the effects of racism will undermine efforts to protect children from other forms of abuse.

Contextual safeguarding, which has been developed by Dr. Carlene Firmin at the University of Bedfordshire's Contextual Safeguarding Network, recognises that as young people grow and develop they are influenced by a whole range of environments and people outside of their family. For example in school or college, in the local community, in their peer groups or online. Children and young people may encounter risk in any of these environments. Sometimes the different contexts are inter-related and can mean that children and young people may encounter multiple risks. Contextual safeguarding looks at how we can best understand these risks, engage with children and young people and help to keep them safe. It's an approach that's often been used to apply to adolescents, though the lessons can equally be applied to younger children, especially in today's changing world.

Other sources of stress for children and families referred to in more detail in this manual include:

• Domestic Abuse (see Domestic Abuse Procedure);
• Drug and alcohol misuse (see Children of Drug and/or Alcohol Misusing Parents Procedure);
• Mental illness (see Mental Ill Health of a Parent of Carer Procedure).