An epistemological examination of knowledge construction in child protection
In safeguarding and child protection, professionals face a profound challenge every day: how do we know what a child is experiencing? This isn't just a practical question—it's deeply philosophical. It touches on epistemology, the study of knowledge itself, and asks us to consider not only what we believe to be true, but how we come to believe it, and whether our methods of knowing are rigorous, fair, and child-centred.
When a child speaks, are we hearing their truth, or our interpretation of it? When a parent appears cooperative, are they genuinely engaged, or managing professional scrutiny? When a teaching assistant notices a child smells unwashed, are they observing neglect, or imposing middle-class standards on different but adequate care? These are not abstract puzzles—they shape decisions that affect children's lives. Yet the answers are rarely straightforward, because knowledge in safeguarding is relational, interpretive, and always incomplete (Munro, 2019; Ferguson et al., 2020).
Research into epistemic injustice—when someone's voice is unfairly dismissed or misunderstood—shows that children in care and families under safeguarding intervention are particularly vulnerable to having their knowledge and experiences discounted (Fieller et al., 2022). This reminds us that the question isn't just whether we believe children and families, but whether we genuinely understand them, and whether our systems allow their voices to be heard on their own terms (Toros, 2021b; Collins et al., 2021).
The word "epistemology" comes from the Greek epistēmē (ἐπιστήμη), meaning "knowledge" or "understanding", combined with logos (λόγος), "study". It shares its root with "epistle" - the letters that form much of the New Testament. When the Apostle Paul wrote his epistles in the first century CE, every community reading them faced the same challenge: bridging the gap between what Paul meant and what they understood him to mean.
For millennia, humans have grappled with the distance between experiencing truth and communicating it, between what someone means and what we understand. The epistemological problems in safeguarding aren't new - they're ancient human struggles in modern professional practice.
This essay draws on three interconnected theoretical perspectives to examine knowledge construction in safeguarding practice:
Phenomenology provides the foundation for understanding how practitioners' lived experiences shape their interpretations of families' situations. Following Husserl's (1970) emphasis on the structures of consciousness and Heidegger's (1962) focus on being-in-the-world, phenomenological approaches to social work recognise that professionals cannot observe reality objectively but always through their own experiential lens (Newberry, 2012; Brown, 2023). As Pascal (2010) demonstrates in cancer survival contexts, phenomenological inquiry reveals how individuals construct meaning from their experiences in ways that resist reduction to objective categories.
Epistemic Justice Theory, developed by Fricker (2007), illuminates how power structures affect whose knowledge is taken seriously and whose is dismissed. Fieller et al. (2022) apply this framework specifically to looked-after children, demonstrating how stigma and epistemic injustice intersect to silence children's voices within systems ostensibly designed to protect them. This theoretical lens helps explain why parents might withhold information not because they are "disguised compliant" but because they rationally anticipate interpretive bias.
Complexity Theory (Stevens & Hassett, 2007; Hood, 2014; Kettle, 2017) provides a framework for understanding decision-making in conditions of irreducible uncertainty. Rather than viewing risk assessment as a technical problem amenable to linear solutions, complexity theory recognises child protection as characterised by non-linear interactions, emergence, and path-dependency—features that fundamentally resist the predictive certainty systems demand.
In my previous analysis "The Victoria Sponge Problem: Why schools can't be everything" (Young, 2025), I explored school safeguarding specifically—how schools are given layer upon layer of frontline child safeguarding responsibility (breakfast clubs, Words and Pictures sessions, attendance monitoring) without adequate resources or training. Those layers sit between the clean policy requirements at the top and the messy reality of children's lived experience at the bottom. It's in that middle space where professional practice happens, where neat procedures encounter complex human reality, and where things inevitably become problematic.
This essay takes that observation—that there's a troublesome space between policy and practice—and explores it epistemologically across all safeguarding contexts, not just schools. Whether it's a teaching assistant noticing something concerning, a health visitor assessing a home, a police officer responding to a domestic incident, or a social worker making removal decisions, the same fundamental knowledge problems exist. This aligns with what Munro (2011) identified in her review of child protection: systems oriented around performance indicators and audit culture do not necessarily support service quality or improve outcomes because they fail to address the epistemological challenges inherent in the work.
Policy documents speak confidently about "assessing risk," "hearing the child's voice," and "working in partnership with families" (DfE, 2023; Ofsted, 2021). They assume a kind of objective knowability—that professionals can reliably determine what's happening in families, what children need, and whether change is occurring. But anyone working in that messy middle space knows that knowledge is never that clean or certain (Ferguson, 2016; Wilkins & Antonopoulou, 2019).
We don't observe reality directly. We observe it through our own phenomenological lens—our experiences, assumptions, biases, and interpretations (Erikson & Englander, 2017). And crucially, we operate within systems that treat our interpreted observations as objective facts, building cases and making life-altering decisions on foundations that are far more fragile than we acknowledge (Gibson, 2016; Murphy, 2021a).
No professional enters a family situation as a blank slate. We all bring our own histories, assumptions, and biases—what philosophers call our phenomenology, the lived experience through which we interpret the world (Heidegger, 1962; Merleau-Ponty, 1962). A social worker who grew up in poverty may read a chaotic home differently than one who did not. A practitioner shaped by their own trauma may over-identify with a child, or conversely, may distance themselves to cope. A teaching assistant who maintains an immaculate home may struggle to see adequate-but-messy care as anything other than concerning.
Recent phenomenological research into child protection social workers highlights how deeply personal and relational this work is, and how professionals must navigate their own emotional and existential realities whilst staying attuned to families (Rawles, 2023; Malka, 2025). Erikson and Englander (2017), in qualitative research with Swedish social workers, found that detailed background information about service users was less important for empathic practice than practitioners' capacity for phenomenological attunement—their ability to suspend assumptions and genuinely encounter the other person's lived reality.
This isn't a flaw—it's fundamentally human. But it does mean that reflective practice, supervision, and peer consultation are essential (Brown, 2023; Ruch et al., 2018). Without them, our judgements risk becoming clouded not by malice, but by the limits of our own perspective. As Ratcliffe (2012) demonstrates, social conditioning can lead us to "other" certain groups of people, making it harder to see them as subjects with their own valid knowledge rather than objects of our professional gaze.
For social workers, at least there's some training in this. Degree programmes touch on reflective practice, phenomenology, the importance of self-awareness (Brown, 2023; Ingram, 2013). Students are encouraged to examine their own assumptions and biases through processes like Magri's (2018) concept of "epoche"—the suspension of common-sense beliefs to better understand others' perspectives. Whether this training translates effectively into live practice is another question—the evidence suggests it often doesn't (Rawles, 2023; Taylor & White, 2006)—but at least the concepts are introduced.
The phenomenological approach teaches that we must recognise how our identities are co-constructed within each encounter (Morgan, 2017). As enactivists argue, the social worker's perspective doesn't just observe assessment outcomes—it shapes them and influences the identity of the person being assessed (Erikson & Englander, 2017). This has profound implications for practice: our way of knowing doesn't merely describe reality, it actively constructs it.
Here's where the epistemological challenges become particularly acute: in schools, teaching assistants are typically the frontline of safeguarding. Research by the UK Department for Education (2024) confirms that TAs spend more direct time with children than almost anyone else, particularly with pupils who have special educational needs or require additional support. They're the ones who notice that a child smells, or is withdrawn, or seems afraid, or says something odd. They're making those initial observations and judgements that shape everything that follows.
And they have none of the theoretical framework I've just described. Zero training in phenomenology, in reflective practice, in epistemological humility. They're operating in that messy middle space between policy and practice, interpreting what they see through their own unexamined phenomenological lens—their own class background, their own experiences of parenting or childcare, their own trauma histories—with no framework whatsoever for recognising how that lens shapes what they observe.
Recent comprehensive research confirms this skills gap. Blatchford et al. (2012) found that while TAs have positive effects on teachers and teaching, their preparation for safeguarding responsibilities is minimal. The 2024 DfE study of teaching assistants revealed that 63% hold relevant qualifications, but these qualifications rarely include training in child development, trauma-informed practice, or reflective approaches to observation (DfE, 2024). Most TAs receive only basic safeguarding training—typically focused on recognising signs of abuse and knowing reporting procedures—rather than training in how to critically examine their own interpretive frameworks (Zen Educate, n.d.; Teaching Personnel, 2022).
TAs are expected to be "observant and proactive" in identifying mental health concerns and safeguarding issues (Online Learning College, 2025), yet research on professional learning communities shows they're often excluded from the reflective spaces where teachers develop critical thinking about their practice (Butt, 2017; Finnish study by Mikkonen et al., 2022). As Hancock (2012) demonstrates in research on TAs' pastoral pedagogy, they perform deeply relational work with vulnerable children but lack the conceptual tools to process the complexity of what they encounter.
This isn't a criticism of teaching assistants. Research consistently shows they're often dedicated, caring professionals doing difficult work (Dillow, 2010; Sendorek, 2009). But it's a systems critique. We've designed safeguarding to rely on people we've never equipped for the epistemological complexity of what we're asking them to do. We've placed them at the point where observations become institutional facts, where interpreted impressions get recorded as objective data, where someone's phenomenologically-shaped concerns trigger statutory processes—and we've given them no training in how to recognise the limits and biases of their own knowing.
Often, teaching assistants come from similar socioeconomic backgrounds to the families they're observing. That's not inherently problematic—it can enable genuine understanding and empathy. But without any framework for reflective practice, it can also mean they're projecting their own standards, judgements, and unexamined assumptions onto families who may be doing things differently but not dangerously. The teaching assistant who keeps a spotless home may genuinely believe that visible mess equals inadequate care, not because they're malicious, but because they've never been asked to examine that belief or consider alternative perspectives.
If professionals with degrees struggle to apply epistemological rigour in practice (Rawles, 2023), what happens when teaching assistants—who've never encountered concepts like epistemic humility or phenomenological awareness—are making those same snap judgements about whether something is concerning enough to report? What happens when their observations, filtered through unexamined assumptions, become the evidence that opens a case?
One term that has gained prominence in safeguarding is disguised compliance—the idea that some parents appear to cooperate with professionals whilst subtly resisting change, thereby masking ongoing risk to their children (NSPCC Learning, 2022a). It's a useful alert in some contexts, reminding practitioners to look beyond surface-level engagement and verify real change.
But the term itself has become controversial, and rightly so. Critics argue that it can be misleading, blaming, and counterproductive (NSPCC Learning, 2024). It assumes that professionals hold the correct understanding of what needs to happen, and that any parental resistance is inherently deceptive. In reality, parents may resist for many reasons: they may not trust the professional, may not understand what's being asked, or may genuinely disagree with the assessment being made (Medway Safeguarding Children Partnership, n.d.; Wilkins & Whittaker, 2017).
The NSPCC now cautions against overusing the term, noting that it can create an atmosphere of suspicion rather than collaboration, and may obscure professionals' own role in building—or failing to build—effective working relationships (NSPCC Learning, 2024). Research by Forrester et al. (2012) on parental resistance demonstrates that what appears as non-cooperation often reflects inadequate communication skills on the part of professionals rather than parental deception. When we label a parent as "disguised compliant," we risk closing down dialogue rather than opening it up.
But there's a deeper epistemological problem here that goes beyond terminology. Let me illustrate it with a question based on over twenty years' experience in Family Safeguarding and Early Help: Would I be fully open and honest with a social worker if I were the parent?
Knowing what I know from inside the profession, I wouldn't. Not because I don't want to be open and honest. But because I don't know how my words, thoughts, behaviour, and lifestyle will be understood.
I don't know whether my exhaustion would be read as depression requiring intervention, or as normal parenting stress. I don't know whether my frustration would be heard as honest emotion or as concerning anger. I don't know whether my explanation for something would be accepted at face value or scrutinised for inconsistencies. I don't know which aspects of my lifestyle—things that work perfectly well for me—might be interpreted through someone else's phenomenological lens as inadequate, risky, or concerning.
And if I don't know that, with all my professional expertise and insider knowledge, how could any parent possibly know it?
This reframes "disguised compliance" entirely. It's not deception—it's rational self-protection in the face of interpretive uncertainty. Parents aren't hiding the truth; they're managing an interaction where they have no control over how their truth will be understood, and where the stakes are existentially high. They're making strategic decisions about what to share and how to present themselves, not because they're inherently dishonest, but because they're navigating a system where one person's interpretation becomes institutional fact.
Research supports this interpretation. Spratt and Callan (2004) found that parents' views of social work interventions were strongly influenced by their perception of whether workers genuinely listened and understood their perspective. Tobis (2013) documents how parents in New York's child welfare system developed sophisticated strategies for managing professional relationships precisely because they understood the interpretive power professionals held. More recently, Murphy et al. (2021) have argued that relationship-based approaches face inherent tension with statutory authority, making genuine openness extremely difficult for families to achieve.
This is the core epistemological injustice: parents are expected to be transparent in a system where interpretation is opaque. They must reveal themselves fully to professionals who may interpret their revelations through unexamined phenomenological biases, with potentially catastrophic consequences. As Healy (2000) notes in research on participation in child protection, the power differential fundamentally constrains what counts as meaningful participation.
A more helpful approach than labelling "disguised compliance" is to describe specific behaviours, explore underlying reasons, and consider what we as professionals might do differently to foster genuine engagement (NSPCC Learning, 2024). Why doesn't this parent trust us? What might we be misunderstanding about their situation? What in our approach might be creating defensiveness rather than openness? These are epistemological questions—questions about how knowledge is being constructed in the relationship—and they're far more productive than assuming deception (Forrester et al., 2012; Ferguson et al., 2020).
Central to all of this is the voice of the child. Current guidance emphasises that children must be listened to, their views taken seriously, and their lived experiences placed at the centre of decision-making (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), Article 12; Children Act 1989). This is both a legal and moral duty, enshrined in international human rights frameworks.
But listening is not the same as hearing, and hearing is not the same as understanding. Research shows that whilst professionals are committed to child-centred practice, there is often a gap between principle and practice—a discourse of "yes, but" that limits genuine participation (Toros, 2021a,b; McPherson et al., 2021). Children need not just to be asked questions, but to be given safe, independent spaces where they feel able to speak freely (Skauge et al., 2021). And crucially, they need to know that what they say will be reflected upon accurately and acted upon meaningfully.
Yet children's voices are also subject to interpretation. When a child says they're fine, are they genuinely fine, or managing adult expectations? When they express loyalty to a parent, is that genuine attachment, or evidence of coercive control? When they're silent, is that because nothing's wrong, or because they don't feel safe to speak?
These aren't questions with obvious answers. They require careful, nuanced, relationship-based work (Ferguson et al., 2022; Ruch et al., 2018). They require professionals who can recognise their own interpretive biases and remain epistemologically humble—aware that they might be wrong, that their understanding might be incomplete, that the child might be telling them something they're not yet able to hear.
Research consistently shows that despite mandated requirements under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), children's actual participation in child protection decision-making remains significantly diminished in practice (Brummelaar et al., 2018; Collins et al., 2021; Toros, 2021b). A systematic review by McCafferty et al. (2024) found that child welfare practitioners are making increasingly protectionist and interventionist decisions, a process that "instinctively reduces children's agentic status as individuals capable of forming a view" (McCafferty et al., 2021, p. 333). When faced with high-stakes decisions, professionals may inadvertently silence children's voices in the name of protecting them.
Creating that sense of safety is relational. It depends on trust, consistency, and the quality of the professional relationship (Simpson, 2016; Ferguson et al., 2020). For many children, especially those who have experienced trauma or instability, early negative interactions with authority figures can profoundly shape their understanding of what safety means, and whether they believe adults can be trusted at all. If we approach children with pre-formed conclusions, if we're looking for evidence to confirm what we already think we know, if we're not genuinely open to being surprised or challenged—children will sense that. And they'll adjust their responses accordingly (Bartelink et al., 2015; van Bijleveld et al., 2015).
All of the epistemological challenges I've outlined—the phenomenological baggage, the interpretive uncertainty, the partial knowledge, the untrained observations feeding into statutory systems—eventually converge at a single, unavoidable point: the moment when a social worker must make a decision about whether to remove a child from their family.
This is the apex of safeguarding. The moment where uncertainty must collapse into action. Where all the careful caveats about incomplete knowledge and fallible judgement become irrelevant because a child's immediate safety hangs in the balance. Where judgement, with all its limitations, must cease so that protective action can be taken.
And the social worker stands at that apex knowing that they could be catastrophically wrong in either direction.
Remove the child and you might be right—you might be preventing serious harm or death. Or you might be wrong—you might be unnecessarily traumatising a child and family, severing attachments, triggering a cascade of harm that follows that child through their entire life. The research on outcomes for children in care is sobering: looked-after children consistently show poorer outcomes across education (37% reaching expected standards at Key Stage 2 versus 65% of peers; Zhang, 2024), mental and physical health (Dixon, 2008; Viner & Taylor, 2005), employment, and life chances generally (O'Higgins et al., 2015, 2019). Taking a child into care is not a neutral intervention. It carries its own significant risks (Sinclair et al., 2021; NSPCC Learning, n.d.).
Even when the decision passes through the judicial safeguarding system—when a court grants an Emergency Protection Order or Interim Care Order—this is often experienced by social workers as a hurdle to clear rather than as an additional check on their analysis, professional standards, and risk probability assessment. And crucially, even after a judge authorises removal, it remains the social worker who must attend when the child is actually removed from their home, sometimes accompanied by police (National Legal Service, 2021). The social worker carries the decision from assessment through court and into the family's living room.
Don't remove the child and you might be right—you might be preserving crucial family bonds, allowing positive change to happen, avoiding the trauma of separation. Or you might be wrong—you might be leaving a child in danger, and the next phone call might be telling you that something terrible has happened that you could have prevented.
Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.
This is not hyperbole. This defines social workers' professionalism and careers. Every experienced social worker knows colleagues whose careers ended because they made the wrong call. They know the names of children who died when the decision was "don't remove." They know families who never recovered from the decision to "remove." They carry those names with them. And they know that the next apex moment could define not just a child's future, but their own.
The public and political response to high-profile cases creates an impossible bind. When a child dies and wasn't removed, there's outrage: "How could social workers have missed the signs? Why wasn't the child taken into care?" (Parton et al., 1997; Reder et al., 1993). When children are removed unnecessarily, there's outrage: "How could social workers tear families apart on flimsy evidence? What about parents' rights?" Social workers absorb both sets of criticism, often simultaneously, for decisions made with incomplete information under impossible time pressure (Dekker, 2007; Munro, 2019).
And here's the epistemological cruelty: the social worker standing at that apex has all the same uncertainties I've described. They know their observations are filtered through their phenomenology (Erikson & Englander, 2017). They know the "evidence" they're relying on includes observations from untrained teaching assistants and other frontline staff (Blatchford et al., 2012). They know parents might be withholding information not because they're dangerous, but because they're rationally managing interpretive uncertainty (Healy, 2000). They know the child's voice might be telling them what the child thinks will protect their parents, or what the child genuinely feels but might feel differently tomorrow (Toros, 2021b).
They know all of this. And they still have to decide.
There's no amount of supervision, no additional training, no better assessment framework that eliminates this fundamental dilemma. The messy space between policy and practice doesn't disappear at the apex—it concentrates. All the ambiguity, all the competing interpretations, all the legitimate uncertainty gets compressed into a binary choice: yes or no. Remove or don't remove. Act now or wait and monitor.
But this apex isn't just a single social worker's decision. It's a thread that runs through the entire children's services department, from frontline practitioner right up to the director. Team managers decide whether to support or question the social worker's judgement. Service managers decide whether to escalate decisions or let them sit at lower levels. Directors decide how much risk the department is willing to carry. And at every level, people are making choices about how much responsibility to shoulder or how much to duck.
This isn't necessarily cowardice—it's rational navigation of an impossible situation. A social worker who's been criticised for previous removals might be more cautious about taking action. A manager whose team is already under scrutiny might push for more decisive intervention to avoid further criticism. A director managing a department rated "requires improvement" by Ofsted might create a culture where removing children feels safer than leaving them, even when the evidence is marginal. Conversely, a department rated "good" might feel more confident to leave children at home because they have institutional credibility to absorb potential criticism.
All of this sits within what might be called institutional phenomenology. It's not just individual workers' personal histories shaping their judgements—it's the department's recent history with Ofsted, its collective memory of past serious case reviews, its current political pressures, the local media environment. When a department is rated "requires improvement," that rating becomes part of the phenomenological lens through which every case is viewed. Workers know they're being scrutinised. They know their judgement is already considered questionable by the inspectorate. That knowledge inevitably influences decisions, often in ways that prioritise demonstrable action over nuanced judgement (Hood et al., 2020; Webb et al., 2022). As Munro (2011) identified, it's safer to explain why you removed a child who turned out not to need removing, than to explain why you left a child at home who then came to harm.
This creates a perverse outcome: the very systems designed to improve practice—Ofsted inspections, serious case reviews, performance frameworks—can inadvertently create phenomenological pressures that distort professional judgement (Tian & Diamond, 2024). When you know your decisions will be scrutinised retrospectively with perfect hindsight, you make different decisions than you would if you were simply trying to do the right thing for this specific child in this specific moment (Munro, 1996, 2019). Research by Hood et al. (2022) demonstrates that monitoring and inspection systems can have both beneficial and deleterious effects on child protection outcomes. Their "dark logic model" suggests that inspection pressure can lead to risk-averse decision-making, rushed child-removal practices, and socioeconomic inequalities in intervention rates. Wilkins and Antonopoulou (2019) found that performance indicators associated with better Ofsted ratings don't necessarily correlate with better outcomes for children.
The social worker seeks their manager's endorsement. The manager seeks their senior manager's agreement. The senior manager checks with legal. Legal checks with the director. Everyone wants someone else's name on the decision too, because everyone understands that when things go wrong, the apex becomes the target (Power, 1997; Dekker, 2007).
This is why epistemic humility isn't just an academic nicety—it's an ethical necessity. If we're going to ask social workers to make decisions of this magnitude based on knowledge we all acknowledge is partial and interpreted, the least we can do is be honest about those limitations. Not just with families, but in our recording, in our case conferences, in our court reports, in our serious case reviews (Munro, 2019).
When things go wrong—and things will go wrong, because we're making high-stakes decisions with incomplete information—the question shouldn't be "Why didn't the social worker know?" but "What were the systemic barriers to knowing? What interpretive challenges did they face? What would anyone have reasonably concluded with the information available at that moment?" (Hood, 2014; Munro, 1996).
This isn't about lowering standards or avoiding accountability. It's about honest accountability that acknowledges the epistemological reality of safeguarding work. Social workers aren't omniscient. They're humans with limited information, limited time, and phenomenological biases, operating in systems that demand certainty they cannot possibly possess (Harnett, 2024; Middel et al., 2025).
The apex moment will always exist. Children will sometimes need immediate protection before all the facts are clear. But we can at least be honest about what we're asking social workers to do: to make life-altering decisions based on interpreted observations, partial information, and professional judgement that could be wrong (Taylor & White, 2006). To carry the weight of those decisions for their entire careers. To walk into that apex knowing they might be damned either way, and to make the best call they can anyway.
That's not a call for paralysis. It's a call for humility, honesty, and systemic support for people doing impossible work. And it's a call for systems that don't scapegoat individual social workers when decisions made under conditions of irreducible uncertainty turn out to be wrong (Dekker, 2007).
So what does rigorous safeguarding practice look like through an epistemological lens? It begins with humility—an acknowledgement that our knowledge is always partial, our judgements always fallible, and our perspectives always shaped by who we are (Munro, 2019; Ferguson et al., 2022). It requires us to stay curious, to question our assumptions, and to seek out multiple sources of information and interpretation (Taylor & White, 2006).
This is particularly crucial for teaching assistants and other frontline staff who lack formal training in reflective practice. Schools need to create spaces where staff can examine their own assumptions, where observations are treated as interpreted data rather than objective fact, where there's genuine curiosity about alternative explanations (Hancock, 2012; Butt, 2017). What looks like neglect to one person might be adequate care through a different cultural or class lens. What seems like parental disengagement might be trauma response, or practical barriers, or rational mistrust (Healy, 2000; Forrester et al., 2012).
For social workers and other qualified professionals, epistemic humility means resisting the pressure to claim certainty when we don't have it. It means being honest about the limits of what we know (Munro, 2019). It means documenting not just our conclusions, but the reasoning that led to them and the alternative explanations we considered (Rawles, 2023). It means staying open to information that challenges our initial assessment, rather than unconsciously filtering for data that confirms it (Barlow et al., 2012; Enosh & Bayer-Topilsky, 2015).
It also requires us to build relationships founded on empathy and transparency, rather than authority and compliance (Ruch et al., 2018; Ferguson et al., 2022). When families trust us—not because they fear the consequences of non-cooperation, but because they believe we genuinely want to understand and support them—we gain access to richer, more honest information (Frost & Dolan, 2021). That's when real safeguarding becomes possible.
But here's the structural problem: genuine openness requires trust that you'll be understood fairly. When the power differential is absolute, when one person's interpretation becomes institutional fact, when you can't know which of your words might later be presented in court as evidence against you—trust becomes extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to establish (Healy, 2000; Murphy et al., 2021). This isn't something individual practitioners can simply overcome through better communication skills or warmer approaches. It's built into the structure of safeguarding relationships (Ferguson et al., 2020).
Acknowledging this doesn't mean abandoning statutory responsibilities. Children do need protection, and sometimes intervention is necessary despite parental wishes. But it does mean recognising the profound epistemological challenges we face, being honest about the limits of what we can know with confidence, and approaching families with genuine humility rather than assumed authority (Brown, 2023).
Two thousand years ago and earlier, Greek philosophers and early communities interpreting sacred texts grappled with the same fundamental challenge: how do we know what we know? But crucially, they also learned to sit with uncertainty, to value it as essential to wisdom rather than something to be eliminated. The epistemology of safeguarding confronts us with these ancient questions in modern professional practice, asking us to reclaim that lost art of epistemic humility—recognising that knowledge in this field is never purely objective. It is always relational, interpretive, and shaped by power. True rigour lies not in certainty, but in reflective doubt—in our willingness to question ourselves, to listen deeply, and to remain open to perspectives that challenge our own.
This matters because the stakes are so high. When we get it wrong, when our phenomenological biases lead us to misinterpret what we're seeing, when we mistake cultural difference for inadequacy or rational self-protection for deception—children may be harmed by intervention or harmed by its absence. Families may be unnecessarily traumatised. Trust between communities and services may be further eroded.
By embracing epistemic humility—by acknowledging the limits and biases of our knowing, by creating genuine spaces for families and children to be heard, by examining our own assumptions as rigorously as we examine families' behaviour—we move beyond compliance and procedure toward something more profound: a practice grounded in empathy, relationship, and a genuine commitment to understanding.
We can't eliminate that messy middle space where policy meets practice. Safeguarding work will always be ambiguous, relational, and epistemologically complex. But we can be honest about that complexity, train ourselves and others to navigate it more thoughtfully, and build systems that acknowledge the limits of what we can know with certainty about other people's lives.
That's not a call for paralysis or inaction. It's a call for intellectual honesty, methodological rigour, and ethical humility in work that profoundly affects children and families.
Barlow, J., Fisher, J. D., & Jones, D. (2012). Systematic review of models of analysing significant harm. Department for Education.
Bartelink, C., van Yperen, T. A., & ten Berge, I. J. (2015). Deciding on child maltreatment: A literature review on methods that improve decision-making. Child Abuse & Neglect, 49, 142-153.
Blatchford, P., Russell, A., & Webster, R. (2012). Reassessing the impact of teaching assistants: How research challenges practice and policy. Routledge.
Brown, C. (2023). How can the literature on phenomenology inform the teaching of accurate empathy in social work practice? Social Work Education, 42(6), 985-1001.
Brummelaar, M. D., Harder, A. T., Kalverboer, M. E., Post, W. J., & Knorth, E. J. (2018). Participation of youth in decision-making procedures during residential care: A narrative review. Child & Family Social Work, 23(1), 33-44.
Butt, R. (2017). The career experiences of teaching assistants who undertake an undergraduate or post graduate level degree. British Educational Research Journal, 43(3), 583-602.
Children Act 1989, c.41. UK Public General Acts. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/41/contents
Collins, M. E., Lemon, K., Street, K., & Routray, S. (2021). Youth participatory action research: A model for transformation in child welfare services. Children and Youth Services Review, 120, 105746.
Dekker, S. (2007). Just culture: Balancing safety and accountability. Ashgate Publishing.
Department for Education (DfE). (2023). Working together to safeguard children: A guide to inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. HM Government.
Department for Education (DfE). (2024). Use of teaching assistants in schools: Research report. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66e31878718edd81771316c5/Use_of_teaching_assistants_in_schools_research_report.pdf
Dillow, C. (2010). Supporting stories: Being a teaching assistant. Trentham Books.
Dixon, J. (2008). Young people leaving care: Health, well-being and outcomes. Child & Family Social Work, 13(2), 207-217.
Enosh, G., & Bayer-Topilsky, T. (2015). Reasoning and bias: Heuristics in safety assessment and placement decisions for children at risk. British Journal of Social Work, 45(6), 1771-1787.
Erikson, M., & Englander, M. (2017). Empathy in social work. Journal of Social Work Practice, 31(1), 115-130.
Ferguson, H. (2016). What social workers do in performing child protection work: Evidence from research into face-to-face practice. Child & Family Social Work, 21(3), 283-294.
Ferguson, H., Disney, T., Warwick, L., Leigh, J., Singh Cooner, T., & Beddoe, L. (2020). Hostile relationships in social work practice: Anxiety, hate and conflict in long-term work with involuntary service users. Journal of Social Work Practice, 34(2), 145-162.
Ferguson, H., Warwick, L., Disney, T., Leigh, J., Singh Cooner, T., & Beddoe, L. (2022). Relationship-based practice and the creation of therapeutic change in long-term work: Social work as a holding relationship. Social Work Education, 41(2), 209-227.
Fieller, M., Strnadová, I., & Cumming, T. M. (2022). Stigma, epistemic injustice, and "looked after children": The need for a radical shift in perspective. Evaluation & the Health Professions, 28(4), 465-478.
Forrester, D., Westlake, D., & Glynn, G. (2012). Parental resistance and social worker skills: Towards a theory of motivational social work. Child & Family Social Work, 17(2), 118-129.
Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing. Oxford University Press.
Frost, N., & Dolan, P. (2021). Theory, research and practice in child welfare: The current state of the art in social work. Child & Family Social Work, 26(1), 3-10.
Gibson, M. (2016). Social worker shame in child and family social work: Inadequacy, failure, and the struggle to practise humanely. Journal of Social Work Practice, 30(1), 17-32.
Hancock, R. (2012). The pastoral pedagogy of teaching assistants. In T. Cole, H. Daniels, & J. Visser (Eds.), The Routledge international companion to emotional and behavioural difficulties (pp. 283-289). Routledge.
Harnett, P. (2024). Managing risk and uncertainty in the context of child protection decision making. The British Journal of Social Work, 54(6), 2435-2453.
Healy, K. (2000). Social work practices: Contemporary perspectives on change. Sage.
Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). Harper & Row. (Original work published 1927)
Hood, R. (2014). Complexity and integrated working in children's services. British Journal of Social Work, 44(1), 27-43.
Hood, R., & Goldacre, A. (2021). Exploring the impact of Ofsted inspections on performance in children's social care. Children and Youth Services Review, 129, 106188.
Hood, R., Goldacre, A., Gorin, S., Bywaters, P., & Webb, C. (2020). Exploring demand and provision in English child protection services: Analysis of longitudinal data, 2012–2019. Child & Family Social Work, 25(4), 789-800.
Hood, R., Gorin, S., Goldacre, A., Bywaters, P., & Webb, C. (2022). Monitoring a fragile child protection system: A longitudinal local area ecological analysis of the inequalities impact of children's services inspections on statutory child welfare interventions in England. Journal of Social Policy, 51(4), 817-838.
Husserl, E. (1970). The crisis of European sciences and transcendental phenomenology (D. Carr, Trans.). Northwestern University Press. (Original work published 1936)
Ingram, R. (2013). Locating emotional intelligence at the heart of social work practice. British Journal of Social Work, 43(5), 987-1004.
Kettle, M. (2017). Working with complexity in child protection: A systems approach. Routledge.
Langston, C. (2021). Child protection policy and practice in the context of the Munro review: Tensions and unintended consequences. Social Policy and Society, 20(4), 571-584.
Magri, E. (2018). Epoché as a tool for conceptual analysis in social work. Journal of Social Work, 18(3), 291-309.
Malka, M. (2025). On the way to be(coming) a social worker: Phenomenological reflections by social work students on their final year as a site of professional identity exploration. The British Journal of Social Work, 55(1), 377-400.
McCafferty, P. (2017). Implementing Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in child protection decision-making. Child Abuse Review, 26(5), 332-347.
McCafferty, P., Toros, K., Dolzhikova, A., & Donnelly, M. (2021). Protecting children's participation rights in child protection. The International Journal of Children's Rights, 29(1), 124-156.
McCafferty, P., Toros, K., & McPherson, L. (2024). Children's participation in child welfare: A systematic review of systematic reviews. The British Journal of Social Work, 54(3), 1092-1113.
McPherson, L., Liabo, K., Weiss, C. H., Long, R., & Petticrew, M. (2021). Do young people in care and leaving care have a voice in child protection policy making? A systematic review. Children and Youth Services Review, 120, 105749.
Medway Safeguarding Children Partnership. (n.d.). Disguised compliance. https://www.medwayscp.org.uk/info/4/professionals/160/disguised-compliance
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). Phenomenology of perception (C. Smith, Trans.). Routledge. (Original work published 1945)
Middel, F., Fluke, J., & Hahn, A. (2025). The effect of child protection attitudes on child protection decision-making: The mediating role of person perceptions. The British Journal of Social Work, bcaf185.
Morgan, A. (2017). Phenomenological empathy: Husserl, ethics, and intersubjectivity. In R. Parker & J. Shotter (Eds.), Dialogic perspectives on being, knowing, and relating (pp. 147-164). Routledge.
Munro, E. (1996). Avoidable and unavoidable mistakes in child protection work. British Journal of Social Work, 26(6), 795-810.
Munro, E. (2011). The Munro review of child protection: Final report – A child-centred system. The Stationery Office.
Munro, E. (2019). Decision-making under uncertainty in child protection: Creating a just and learning culture. Child & Family Social Work, 24(1), 123-130.
Murphy, D., Duggan, M., & Joseph, S. (2013). Relationship-based social work and its compatibility with the person-centred approach: Principled versus instrumental perspectives. British Journal of Social Work, 43(4), 703-719.
Murphy, D. (2021a). Is 'requiring improvement' improving? Reflections from a children's services frontline manager. Practice: Social Work in Action, 33(3), 199-212.
National Legal Service. (2021, March 4). Guide to Emergency Protection Orders. https://nationallegalservice.co.uk/blog/guide-to-emergency-protection-orders/
Newberry, A. M. (2012). Social work and hermeneutic phenomenology. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 11(1), 30-43.
NSPCC Learning. (2022a). Disguised compliance: Learning from case reviews. https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/research-resources/learning-from-case-reviews/disguised-compliance
NSPCC Learning. (2024). Why using the term 'disguised compliance' can be problematic. https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/news/why-language-matters/disguised-compliance-problematic
NSPCC Learning. (n.d.). Children in care (looked after children): Statistics briefing. https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/research-resources/statistics-briefings/children-in-care
O'Higgins, A., Sebba, J., & Luke, N. (2015). What is the relationship between being in care and the educational outcomes of children? An international systematic review. University of Oxford.
O'Higgins, A., Sebba, J., & Luke, N. (2019). What is the relationship between being in care and the educational outcomes of children? International Journal of Inclusive Education, 23(10), 1063-1082.
Ofsted. (2021). Inspecting local authority children's services framework. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/inspecting-local-authority-childrens-services-from-2018
Online Learning College. (2025, January 27). Strategies for teaching assistants to boost student mental health. https://online-learning-college.com/knowledge-hub/education/teaching-assistants-and-classroom-management-strategies-for-success/
Parton, N., Thorpe, D., & Wattam, C. (1997). Child protection: Risk and the moral order. Macmillan.
Pascal, J. (2010). Phenomenology as a research method for social work contexts: Understanding the lived experience of cancer survival. Currents: Scholarship in the Human Services, 9(2).
Power, M. (1997). The audit society: Rituals of verification. Oxford University Press.
Ratcliffe, M. (2012). Phenomenology as a form of empathy. Inquiry, 55(5), 473-495.
Rawles, J. (2023). How social work students develop the skill of professional judgement. Journal of Practice Learning and Teaching, 20(1), 7-28.
Reder, P., Duncan, S., & Gray, M. (1993). Beyond blame: Child abuse tragedies revisited. Routledge.
Ruch, G., Turney, D., & Ward, A. (Eds.). (2018). Relationship-based social work: Getting to the heart of practice (2nd ed.). Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Sendorek, R. J. (2009). New professionals in the classroom? Teaching assistants in Polish schools. Uniwersytet Warszawski.
Simpson, D. (2016). Effective communication and relationship building. In A. Mantell & T. Scragg (Eds.), Safeguarding adults in social work (pp. 115-130). Learning Matters.
Sinclair, I., Luke, N., & Berridge, D. (2021). 'Closing the gap': The conditions under which children in care are most likely to catch up in mainstream schools. Oxford Review of Education, 47(6), 738-753.
Skauge, T., Binder, P. E., & Borg, M. (2021). How do children experience their encounters with professionals in child protection services? A meta-synthesis of the qualitative research. Child & Family Social Work, 26(1), 110-120.
Spratt, T., & Callan, J. (2004). Parents' views on social work interventions in child welfare cases. The British Journal of Social Work, 34(2), 199-224.
Stevens, I., & Hassett, P. (2007). Applying complexity theory to risk in child protection practice. Childhood, 14(1), 128-134.
Taylor, B. J., & White, S. (2006). Practitioners' use of research evidence in decision-making. Practice, 18(3), 181-193.
Teaching Personnel. (2022). Safeguarding in schools: An educator's guide. https://www.teachingpersonnel.com/tp-posts/2022-2/safeguarding-in-schools-an-educators-guide
Tian, M., & Diamond, C. (2024). OfSTED from within: Inspectors' views on challenges and future direction. School Leadership & Management, 1-18.
Tobis, D. (2013). From pariahs to partners: How parents and their allies changed New York City's child welfare system. Oxford University Press.
Toros, K. (2021a). 'The voice of the child' in child protection mediation: A turn-taking analysis. Child & Family Social Work, 26(3), 447-457.
Toros, K. (2021b). Meaningful participation of children in child protection processes: The voice of the child—A systematic review. Children and Youth Services Review, 124, 105961.
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, November 20, 1989, 1577 U.N.T.S. 3.
van Bijleveld, G. G., Dedding, C. W., & Bunders-Aelen, J. F. (2015). Children's and young people's participation within child welfare and child protection services: A state-of-the-art review. Child & Family Social Work, 20(2), 129-138.
Viner, R. M., & Taylor, B. (2005). Adult outcomes of binge drinking in adolescence: Findings from a UK national birth cohort. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 59(2), 91-97.
Webb, C., Bennett, M., & Bywaters, P. (2022). Austerity, child welfare, and unequal child protection. Research, Policy and Planning, 34(2), 65-78.
Wilkins, D., & Antonopoulou, V. (2019). Ofsted and children's services: What performance indicators and other factors are associated with better inspection results? The British Journal of Social Work, 49(4), 1047-1064.
Wilkins, D., & Whittaker, C. (2017). Doing child-protection social work with parents: What are the barriers in practice? British Journal of Social Work, 48(7), 2003-2019.
Young, S. (2025). The Victoria Sponge Problem: Why schools can't be everything. YoungFamilyLife Ltd. https://www.youngfamilylife.com/repositorium/essays/psychology/v/victoria-sponge-essay.html
Zen Educate. (n.d.). Safeguarding and child protection as a TA. https://www.zeneducate.com/resources/teaching-hub/safeguarding-and-child-protection-as-a-teaching-assistant
Zhang, X. (2024). How does time in care impact young people's educational attainment? ADR UK. https://www.adruk.org/news-publications/news-blogs/how-does-time-in-care-impact-young-peoples-educational-attainment/
Topics: #epistemology #childprotection #safeguarding #phenomenology #epistemicjustice #socialwork #teachingassistants #professionalp practice #decisionmaking #uncertainty
© 2026 Steve Young and YoungFamilyLife Ltd. All rights reserved.
This essay was developed collaboratively using AI assistance to research academic sources and refine content structure, while maintaining the author's original voice, insights, and "Information Without Instruction" philosophy. No part of this essay may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the copyright holders, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
For permission requests, contact: info@youngfamilylife.com