Critiquing a High Profile Serious Case of Daniel Pelka - Essay Example

Critiquing a High Profile Serious Case Report (Daniel PELKA) Introduction In this critique paper, the main objective is to evaluate the purpose and contribution of various interprofessional teams, and evaluate the professional, social, and personal issues that impact collaborative working. The paper further explores and discusses the decision negotiation process with a service carer as well as other group members. The critique paper focuses on the Daniel Pelka’s serious case review. Service User/Victim’s Personal Issues With evidence pointing out that Daniel Pelka’s death resulted from negligence and abuse at the age of 4 years and 8 months, many questions arise regarding parenting deficiency and taking advantage of the boy’s immature communication styles, knowledge, trust, beliefs, values, understanding and expertise. Negligence on the part of Pelka’s parents was evident in Pelka’s malnourished body and acute subdural haematoma during the time of his death. Since the boy had heamatoma for several months the indication is that his communication style was limited to effectively define his feeling. Conversely, his parents owed him a duty of ensuring he was healthy for their relationship to him was that of child-parent[Tho15]. Pelka, like many other children, experienced physical abuse under the care of his own parents. Statistics from Chldhelp [Chl15], indicate that the approximate number of child abuse reports in the United States per year are about 3 million with approximately 6 million children being affected. In these cases, physical abuse is the highest at about 28.3% prevalence while physical neglect is lowest at about 9.9%[Chl15]. Pelka’s physical neglect involved being locked in a sparsely furnished room as a way of punishment. Though Pelka could have spoken out to rebuke maltreatment, traumatic life experiences at his tender age could have contributed to chronic anxiety and fear. Through minimal fear experiences are termed as normal aspects of a child’s development, threatening situations result in lifelong consequences that interfere with a child’s brain development[Nat101]. In the US, a child in every seven children undergoes maltreatment, particularly in families associated with high stress levels owing to parental drug abuse, community violence, and social isolation. The implications are that some areas of a child’s brain development are affected, especially those involved in learning and emotions[Nat101]. In the case of Pelka, his mother was an alcoholic and moved with three different men all of whom were domestically abusive. In addition, Pelka and his other siblings grew up with their stepfather, and together with the mother acted er to inflict suffering and pain in him[Loc13]. The move by his mother and stepfather to harm Pelka were deliberate since at the age of 4 Pelka lacked the knowledge, understanding, and expertise to raise his voice and remind his parents of their duty to reasonably take care of him. At his age, he was quick to trust them as the adults and when abusive incidents were followed by threats, he never disclosed them. In this case, but-for Pelka’s parents’ abusive and injurious actions, he would not have died. The Cambridge University Press Archive [Cam10] reveals that negligence and abuse of children involves taking advantage of the fact that the child is too young to take care of self or be accused of contributory negligence, even when compared to children of similar capacity. At four years old, it was not Pelka’s duty to sustain reasonable care for his personal safety. In this case, there is nothing Pelka could have done to protect himself from the abuse since he did not even have the knowledge and understanding of how to deal with the situation. To emphasize the parents’ guilt in breach of their duty to Pelka, Buckley and Okrent [Buc04] elaborate the concept of foreseeability of injury. As Pelkas’ parents, foreseeability was present and this made it their duty to protect and not harm their child. Furthermore, observing foreseeability could have proved that their intention was not to harm the boy. Through proximate cause, the parents were linked to Pelka’s injuries in the head and malnourishment, which the court termed as damages. Damages in the form of bruises on Pelka’s skin proved he was being injured, while his growing thinner and thinner proved that he was malnourished. In most cultures, children are expected to hold onto the transferred values and beliefs. As a child, it was Pelka’s duty to obey his parents as part of his beliefs and culture. From the case, Pelka and his family had migrated from Poland to the United Kingdom. As an immigrant parent, Pelka’s mother brought with her parenting activities and belief systems that allowed the use of corporal punishment. These conflicted with the UK customs and laws, as maltreatment definition takes a completely different approach. Ritcher, Dawes, & Higson-Smith [Rit04] view the experience of immigrating children as introducing the concept that children are not just seen but also heard. This conflicts with the sociocultural values, coercive practices, and perceptions with the tendency to accommodate abuse and violence, given the perpetuation and reasoning arising from society customs[Mai97]. Ritcher, Dawes, & Higson-Smith [Rit04] reveal that child abuse is propagated by factors such as the social position of women and children in the society and this varies from one nation or region to the other within and across different ethnic groups. The implication is that child abuse notions amongst most immigrants are founded on culturally validated definitions and not rules found within their host countries. For Pelka’s parents, maltreatment did not constitute abuse in their culture, but according to the UK child rights, the perception was different causing each 30 years of imprisonment. For this reason, it was not possible to ignore the parents’ involvement in Pelka’s maltreatment despite coercing his siblings to say otherwise. Professional Issues According to Rodger [Rod13], the role of child protection is not just a matter of the family members. On the contrary, it involves different professionals, including researchers, criminologists, policy makers, social workers, psychologists, and legal institutions. The legal system plays the significant role of identifying and correcting discrepancies and variations in the definitions of maltreatment and legal responses. In addition, the legal systems critique the boundary and relationships controversies arising between civil and criminal justice system on one hand and child welfare agencies on the other, and evaluate any other possible areas for reforms.[The061] Through the interprofessional team approach of dealing with child abuse, a child’s response to traumatic situations is effectively identified and managed. Some of the response patterns affect a child’s cognition, physiology, affects, neurophysiology, and behaviour[Per03]. The more the team understands the situation of the abused children, the better the understanding of the traumatic experiences and the higher the level of compassion towards such children. Additionally, detailed understanding of traumatic experiences prompts considerate interactions and effective problem solving. Management of Roles and Responsibilities in Pelka’s interprofesional team Pelka’s abusive situation involved different professionals most of whom never acted on time[USD01]. For instance, despite police and Children Social Care interventions for the increasing number of domestic abuse and uncontrolled alcoholism, there was little change on the parents and little input to protect the children from the risks associated with their volatile home[Hoc14]. The Police represent the law enforcement and have the duty of investigating to determine any criminal law violation, and apprehend the offender then file appropriate charges. Since the police are part of the interprofessional team responding to the abused child, they can involve the Children Social Care professionals such as social workers, and health professionals to examine and treat any injuries. Effective social work and children social care work with children through offering protection, counselling, interviews, and encouragement[Pre14]. For the healthcare professional, evaluation of the child is crucial in order to put them under medication especially where physical injuries were involved. In addition, the health care professionals missed the chance of protecting Pelka when they diagnosed him as having broken his arm from an accident in 2011 and never raised suspicion of being abused or maltreated at home[Gre143]. The paediatric also failed to associate the boy’s malnourishment to parental negligence despite Pelka’s evident weight loss. In addition, the fact that Pelka had lost weight was not recognized and never featured in the differential diagnosis of the presented problems. Further, the teachers were also accused of missing the obvious signs that the boy weighed just 9lbs during his death[Fri15]. Again, the teachers failed to identify Pelka’s bruised body on the skin, central forehead, upper right of midline, elbows, thigh, knees, and ankle among other parts[Rob14]. Advantages and disadvantages of Interprofesional team One drawback of interprofessional teams is poor communication, both verbally and written. According to Press Association [Pre141], Pelka’s case was marred with instances of delayed information sharing among agencies, insufficient training, and issues with staffing to effectively intervene in the case of child abuse and negligence case. Delays in information sharing were evident among health professionals, social workers, and Daniel’s teachers. Such delays were unacceptable and were linked to challenges in dealing with huge information volumes regarding domestic violence and insignificant administrative support within the child social care department. In addition, lack of relevant knowledge led to poor management oversight that led to poor administrative support and neglected circulation of minutes regarding Pelka’s strategy meeting. Team Working and Leadership At the school level, the communication of information in an effective way is hindered by absence of effective leadership within the school and inadequate training for school staff, and little or no external scrutiny of children on the basis of ensuring safety, and effective child protection system. Evidence from Pelka’s case indicate the presence of inconsistent identification and reporting of Pelka’s unexplained absenteeism, and bruises all over his body. This is despite the fact that different teachers interacted with Pelka on any day, but every one of them assumed that the other would report and not them. Again, the health professionals were unable to define an accurate way of assessing Pelka’s needs and risks and providing information regarding Pelka’s family situation to the school nurse. There were no family records for the school nurse and this made it difficult to consistently work with the family. Social Issues Despite being immigrants to the UK, Pelka’s parents could speak little English and this eliminated any reasoning that they could not speak or understand English[BBC13]. For instance, when asked what happened to her son, Luczak used English to explain that he fell over. Besides language barriers, cultural differences could have been thought of as being the reason for abusive and neglectful parents. However, these cultures differed from that in the UK and formed the basis for finding them guilty and sentencing each 30 years imprisonment[Coo13]. As a child, Pelka was disengaged in his education since he had numerous days of absenteeism and obsession with food to the extent of not concentrating in class, and eating everything he got including wasted food from bins, and food stolen from others.Although Pelka’s parents had a polish origin, Pelka was born in England where he was subjected to starvation, forceful feeding on salt, and bedroom-imprisonment that left him resembling a concentration camp victim. Under the British Children Social Care interventions, this matter belonged to Britain, where they were convicted 30 years of imprisonment[Dol13]. Recommendations to improve best practices for teamwork First, it was the teachers that recognized the deteriorating health and extreme obsession with food in Pelka, though this was not effective and timely to save Pelka’s life. Pelka’s life would have been saved if the teachers were quick to note he was experiencing child abuse. I recommend that teachers receive the right training with regards to child protection, especially in large schools. Upon being informed about Pelka’s situation, the school administration sought for the services of a general practitioner. I would recommend working towards reducing disconnect between teachers and social services professionals. The establishment of effective teams between teachers and social service providers guarantees that each party understands its roles and responsibilities, thus cultivating motivation and involvement in safeguarding children. Additionally, Social workers should work closely with police to facilitate tracking down cases that result in criminal convictions[Sea13]. For efficiency, social services professionals should adopt a child-focussed approach to assess negligence and take historical information regarding child’s developmental needs and parental failures such as parental substance abuse[Hor05]. Taylor & Daniel,[Tay05] reveal that social workers and teachers must relate closely with health practitioners to guarantee that the child receives the proper intervention and recover from abuse. Good Communication I recommend the adoption of the Wilbur Schramm Theory that views human communication process as one where people should put meaning into message and understand the relationships amongst themselves. According to Schramm, the emphasis on relationship is because it affects the two parties communicating, especially within a social context. In Pelka’s case, the persons involved exhibited different levels of shortcomings that led to public and media reaction. For instance, Pelka’s teachers were not inquisitive on time, and neither did their use their authority well. Teachers are expected to avoid any form of artificial censorship of whatever information they hear or any unusual signs present in their students. In addition, artificial censorship was evident in the paediatrics who evaluated Pelka upon his admission to hospital. These health professionals did not exhibit an inquisitive mind or use their authority to request for better explanations from Pelka regarding his situation. Evidently, Pelka was a young child and the expectation was that all adults involved in his life should have paid more attention to details and quickly make sense of what was going on in his life[Vin10]. To avoid such situations, adults relating to children must be ready and willing to demand from themselves timely, and finely balanced professional judgements that focus more on the delivery and support of best practice. However, effective communication in children services demands that agencies are provided with sufficient staff and resources to avoid unwanted pressures that excuse poor practice. Without such pressures, information communication and sharing could be characterized by clarity, credibility, continuity, capability, and relevant content, thus promoting effective teamwork, and reliable patient safety[Kel10]. 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