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

End of project summary

Main messages

Currently there is limited research which considers the implementation of new policies in child protection practice. This study explores policy implementation in children’s social care using recent Welsh policy on Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) as a case study. This report presents our hypotheses and findings which illustrate how aspects of the context and the organisation have an impact on policy implementation. Findings help explain how child protection policies are implemented in practice by local authorities in Wales and shed light on how policies can be more effectively implemented in practice.  

Key findings and implications   

• Interview results and survey data confirmed that, a year after its release, practitioners were generally not aware of the new CSE guidance.
• There are ongoing inconsistencies between local authorities in implementing complex and lengthy policies without adequate time and resources to support practitioners to work in line with policies and guidance.
• The availability of formal and informal opportunities to foster collaboration and knowledge exchange between practitioners is a key to effective implementation.
• A supportive organisational culture is crucial for effective policy implementation and increases confidence and clarity on expectations and changes to practice.
• Participation of local managers in national policymaking processes is a key facilitator of implementation since it improves effective dissemination to local authority teams.
• A challenge for implementation is that in outlining good practice, guidance can be interpreted as suggesting workers should practice in a way that they already think they are. For example, the CSE guidance stated that practitioners should work in a child-centred manner because research evidence suggests this is often not the case, but most social workers who took part in this study already believed they practiced in this way. As a result, this element of the policy was unlikely to impact on practice. Policy implementation needs to create a concrete sense that changes are needed and what those changes are.
• Effective implementation of guidance requires significant investment in time and resources to address conflicting factors at contextual and organisational levels.