Liz Davies is an Emeritus Reader in Child Protection at London Metropolitan University and a registered social worker. She began her academic post in 2002, and gained her PhD, entitled Protecting children - a critical contribution to policy and practice development. Following her work, in the 1970s, as a mental health social worker, she was team manager in the London Borough of Islington where she exposed widescale abuse of children within the care system. In the 1990s, as child protection manager and trainer in the London Borough of Harrow, she developed a specialism in conducting serious case reviews as well as in the investigation of organised crime and abuse networks. Liz co-authored Proactive child protection and social work (2008) and Communicating with children and their families (2013) both widely used as academic texts. She trained police and social workers for over 15 years in Achieving Best Evidence skills and published training manuals in joint investigation and investigative interviewing. As an academic for 13 years, she designed and delivered social work courses on communication in social work, protecting children and children's social policy and also supervised PhDs. As a regular contributor to television, radio and print media, she has long campaigned to achieve justice for survivors of abuse, most recently working with the WhiteFlowers survivor and whistleblower network. In 2015, she supported the re-launch of the BASW London Forum and contributes to the BASW Children and Families Committee. Her website is www.lizdavies.net
Protecting children from abuse and neglect is a serious and complex area of social work practice and understanding the critical skills of communicating with and listening to children's voices, and those of their advocates and survivors, is essential. In this new edition of a highly-regarded book, the authors offer a strengthened children's rights perspective and explore four main categories of child abuse - emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect and physical abuse. The book also considers legal safeguards and protective processes to increase the creativity and confidence of those undertaking such work. Locating knowledge and skills within a series of case examples from real life practice and serious case reviews, this book is an indispensable resource for students, professionals and others concerned with protecting children. This second edition has been comprehensively revised and updated to include current research evidence and a focus on the neglected protection needs of sexually exploited young people, children in custody, disabled children, young carers and unaccompanied child migrants.
