There are no absolute criteria for judging what constitutes significant harm. An assessment of the severity of ill-treatment may depend on the degree and extent of physical harm, the duration and frequency of abuse and neglect, the extent of premeditation, and the presence or degree of threat, coercion, sadism, or bizarre and unusual elements. Any of these factors may be linked to relatively severe effects on the child, and/or greater difficulty in helping them overcome the adverse impact of the maltreatment. Sometimes, a single traumatic event may constitute significant harm, for example, a violent assault, suffocation or poisoning. More often, significant harm is a combination of significant events, both acute and longstanding, which interrupt, change or damage the child’s physical and psychological development. Some children live in family and social circumstances where their health and development are neglected. For them, it is the corrosiveness of long-term emotional, physical or sexual abuse that causes impairment to the extent of constituting significant harm. In each case, it is necessary to consider any maltreatment alongside the family’s strengths and supports.
To understand and identify significant harm, the following points should be considered:
- the nature of harm, in terms of maltreatment or failure to provide adequate care
- the impact on the child’s health and development
- the child’s development within the context of their family and wider environment
- any special needs, such as a medical condition, communication impairment or disability that may affect the child’s development and care within the family
- the capacity of parents to meet the child’s needs adequately
- the wider and environmental family context.
The child’s reactions, perceptions, wishes and feelings should be ascertained and taken into account according to the child’s age and understanding. This depends on communicating effectively with children and young people, including those who find this difficult because of their age, an impairment or their particular psychological or social situation. It is essential that any accounts of adverse experiences coming from children are as accurate and complete as possible. Accuracy is key, for without it effective decisions cannot be made and, equally, inaccurate accounts can lead to children remaining unsafe, or to the possibility of wrongful actions being taken that affect children and adults’.
The Children Act 1989 and the Adoption and Children Act 2002 define ‘harm’ as ill-treatment or the impairment of health or development, including, for example, impairment suffered from seeing or hearing the ill-treatment of another; ‘development’ means physical, intellectual, emotional, social or behavioural development; ‘health’ means physical or mental health; and ‘ill-treatment’ includes sexual abuse and forms of ill-treatment which are not physical.
