Child-centered approach in the context of the assessment of children in need: Reflections of child protection workers in Estonia

Objective

This article describes empirical results on how practitioners understand the concept of child-centered approach and how it is applied in practice, extending knowledge of the unresearched phenomena in Estonian child protection practice.

Method

A small-scale study included twenty child protection workers from different regions in Estonia, exploring the child-centered approach in assessment practices through in-depth semi-structured interviews.

Results

Results indicate that child-centered approach in the child protection workers' practice is characterized, firstly, by doing work for the child, and less by working with the child, including the fact that some practitioners are somewhat unclear about the meaning of child-centered principle. Majority of the participants underscored the importance of child involvement and partnership in the decision-making process, nevertheless, their case reflections showed that most of them did not include the child in the assessment.

Conclusions and implication for practice

Findings highlight several challenges in Estonian child protection system and suggest a need to find ways to support child protection workers' competence and confidence to conduct comprehensive assessments based on the child-centered approach, including the child in the assessment process.     

A new paradigm: Bringing a historical and sociopolitical trauma lens to the training for welfare practitioners working with Aboriginal families

This article argues that child protection agencies must provide mandatory training about the Aboriginal experience within the welfare state and the resultant trauma that exists in Australian Indigenous communities. This article highlights the areas of curriculum to be included in training for welfare practitioners working with Aboriginal families in the New South Wales child protection system. The training content explores the Stolen Generations’ trauma experiences of child loss and examines the dichotomy between past child welfare laws and present child protection laws and intergenerational racism. Another key component of the training comprises information about the impacts of trauma on brain development.     

Comparing child protection decision-making in England and Finland: supervised or supported judgement?

ABSTRACT

Systems for the protection of children have evolved differently across nation states. Studies have identified contrasting system ‘orientations’, related to how child protection problems are framed and how organisations respond in different contexts. In this study, the influence of national and organisational factors on practice-level decision reasoning by social workers has been compared. Interviews were conducted with 30 child protection social workers in sites across England and Finland, structured around two hypothetical case vignettes. While similarities were observed in how the social workers responded to the vignettes, there were differences in the nature and extent of managerial involvement described, with the English social workers appearing to rely on managerial input for decision-making to a greater extent than the Finnish social workers. These findings suggest evidence for two distinct organisational approaches to decision-making: ‘supervised’ and ‘supported’ judgement. Here, supervised judgement describes a hierarchical, ‘top-down’ form of decision-making, while supported judgement describes a more horizontal and shared decision-making approach. The lens of comparative methodology has revealed how these organisational factors come into play in different child protection systems. The practice implications of supervised, manager-led approaches to decision-making, as contrasted with supported, team-led approaches, are discussed.     

Issues in European child protection research

This paper considers the issues which emerged from studies relating to child protection in Europe and looks at the value and utility of cross-national comparisons in this field of social welfare. In one study, social workers in eight systems of child welfare took part in a study of practice based on a case vignette. In another, parents in three countries described their experience of child welfare interventions. The paper looks at elements of the structuring and functioning of child welfare and child protection, based on a triangulation of the experience of users and the experience of practitioners. Drawing examples from the research, the author considers how a knowledge of structures, culture and ideology can throw light on the functioning of child welfare services.     

Participatory discourse: Engagement in the context of child protection assessment practices from the perspectives of child protection workers,parents and children

ObjectiveThis article describes empirical results of the views of child protection workers, parents and children along different dimensions including interpretation of engagement, approaches with families in the engagement process, collaboration and relationship, barriers and factors promoting engagement.MethodA qualitative study was undertaken of a sample of eleven child protection workers, eleven parents and eleven children in one county in South-Estonia. The study explored the participants' experiences and perspectives of the engagement, within the context of assessment in child protection practice, through in-depth semi-structured interviews.ResultsResults indicate that child protection workers demonstrate an over-reliance on expert- and deficit-based approaches, indicating a requirement for a focus on traditional social work assessment, concentrating on problems, and more investigative, coercive, and judgement-focused approaches. Both workers and parents valued the quality of relationships, emphasising trust, dialogue and support as important elements of engagement. According to children, they were not always considered as a subject in the assessment process, including their needs as the primary focus; children expressed the wish to be more heard and understood, with their opinions being taken into account.ConclusionsFindings propose that child protection workers are ‘stuck in the past’, in traditional deficit-based discourse, however families prefer ‘modern’, strengths-based perspectives.     

Creating Cultural Safety as an Aboriginal Teacher in a Class of Non-Aboriginal University Students

ABSTRACT

Creating a culturally safe learning environment is critical for Aboriginal teachers in universities. This paper explores my experience as a new lecturer convening an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social work course at an Australian university. As an Aboriginal woman teaching to a large class of non-Aboriginal students, establishing cultural safety became a priority early on. Through reflecting on my journey from feeling vulnerable at the beginning of the course, to developing a safe and collaborative learning and teaching experience, this paper presents the rare perspective of an Aboriginal academic in the teaching space, and offers practical ways to develop cultural safety in university classrooms.

IMPLICATIONS

• Aboriginal social work teaching academics need to feel culturally safe in the classroom setting to sustain them in their role.

• Engaging non-Aboriginal students to feel safe through collaborative learning enhances the learning and teaching experience for everyone and contributes to cultural safety for Aboriginal academics.

• Aboriginal academics teaching Aboriginal-specific content risk being traumatised through intensive and consistent exposure to traumatic content that may be personal to them.

• Universities need to provide practical support to new teaching academics to best equip and prepare them for the role.

     

‘Building Bridges’

Abstract

‘Building bridges’ is a metaphor we have used to describe a collaborative research process involving social work academic and senior practitioners from government and non-government child protection and family service organizations in Victoria, Australia. The purpose of the research was to develop a ‘practice-generated approach to policy implementation’ in child protection practice. The research sought to explore the appropriateness of social constructionist approaches for child protection practice that might enhance the existing risk paradigm. This article aims to critically evaluate the process of ‘building bridges’ and its outcomes, by focusing on how potential and actual differences between organizational contexts, namely universities and various service-providing organizations, may influence relationships between theory and practice. We critically reflect on our research process comparing it with idealized forms of collaborative research discussed in the literature.     

Acceptability of an Aboriginal Wellbeing Intervention for Supporters of People Using Methamphetamines

Families and workers often suffer significant stress while supporting people who are experiencing problems related to methamphetamine use yet there is little evidence on how best to help. Small pilot studies can provide valuable information about potential ways to intervene. This paper presents a pilot study of an Aboriginal family wellbeing intervention with workers in an Aboriginal health service. The pilot indicated that participation in the intervention improved the psychosocial empowerment and wellbeing of workers, that these workers perceived the program as relevant to families, and that this was an intervention they felt they could deliver to clients themselves.

IMPLICATIONS

• An Aboriginal family wellbeing intervention was piloted and found to improve the empowerment and wellbeing of workers. Participants regarded it as highly relevant for families supporting people using methamphetamines and other drugs.

• This research has added to our knowledge about how to assist those supporting Aboriginal people using methamphetamines and other drugs.

     

A Child Welfare Course for Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal Students: Pedagogical and Technical Challenges

SUMMARY

This chapter describes the development of a Web-based undergraduate child welfare course for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal learners. Rather than simply incorporate an Aboriginal perspective into Eurocentric pedagogies and course structures, the authors disrupt the dominance of Western ways of knowing in education by designing the course to situate Western knowledge as a way of knowing rather than the way of knowing and the frame from which all other perspectives are understood. In this research the authors describe the differences between Aboriginal and European thought and reveal how Web-based courses can be designed in ways that do not perpetuate Eurocentrism.     

Blaming the messenger: The media,social workers and child abuse

Abstract

This paper explores the agenda-setting role of the media in child abuse, citing local and international examples. The author argues that much media coverage of child abuse promotes a conservative, pro-family political agenda, offering a narrow individualistic/legalistic view of child abuse as opposed to a broader structural definition. This conservative agenda is particularly reflected in media hostility to social workers involved in child abuse cases. Attention is drawn to the major manifestations of this criticism, and to some of the reasons why social workers experience disproportionate media censure. Suggestions are then made regarding the potential for a more effective and pro-active social work response.     

Child Protection Workers’ Perceptions of Foster Carers and the Foster Care System: A Study in Queensland

Abstract

Child protection workers are key players in the statutory system for the protection of children and young people. For this reason, their perceptions of the operation of the system are important. This study, conducted in Queensland, Australia, explored the views of child protection workers regarding foster carers and the foster care system. The present study revealed the difficulties the child protection workers encountered in engaging with foster carers. These difficulties were due to the structure of the child protection system and the conflicts experienced by workers in balancing the needs of children and young people, their primary clients and the carers of those children and young people. Several recommendations for policy and practice are made.     

Teaching cultural humility for social workers serving LGBTQI Aboriginal communities in Australia

ABSTRACT

It is well documented that colonization and subsequent repressive policies have wrought devastating changes in the lives of Aboriginal people in Australia. Social workers are an essential group for improving social justice and self-determination for Australian Aboriginal people. The Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) acknowledges that Aboriginal people make a unique contribution to the life of the nation and mandates that social work educational programs provide culturally responsive content that acknowledges the value and contributions of Aboriginal people. Social work educators need to embed this content without reinforcing stereotypes or being tokenistic. This is a challenge when teaching about intersecting identities, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, and intersex (LGBTQI) Aboriginal people. We outline the terms used in this space and propose that cultural humility is an acceptable framework to consider. We introduce key conceptual terms used in LGBTQI Aboriginal communities. Finally, we provide recommendations for engaging with LGBTQI Aboriginal peoples.     

Child protection decision-making: social workers’ perceptions

ABSTRACT

Decision-making is located at the heart of social work as a core professional activity, because much of what social workers do concerns decisions about future courses of action. Drawing on elements of the learning together systems model and Falkov’s Systemic Family Model, this study investigated social workers’ perceptions regarding how child protection decisions are made. Evidence was drawn from a constructivist–-interpretivist qualitative research design, involving 16 semi-structured interviews with qualified and experienced social workers and 20 direct, non-participant observations of child protection meetings. Evidence from the study suggests that professionals and family members do not rely entirely on the guidance on the threshold criterion of the likelihood and significance of risk of harm when making decisions. Instead, they use discretionary intuition and analytical judgement, involving multidimensional criteria which includes consensus between professionals and with family members; individual professional’s state of mind; other agencies and professionals’ priorities as well as external factors such as the availability of resources. Conclusion can be drawn that existing guidance on decision-making is inadequate, hence the discretionary use of a combination of intuitive heuristics and analytical thinking in a complementary manner. This study, therefore, contributes to considerable conceptual clarity regarding the complex child protection decision-making process.     

Case Reading as a Practice and Training Intervention in Domestic Violence and Child Protection

This article explores the role of a case-reading tool, developed by the Safe and Together Institute, deployed across five Australian states, and which engaged workers from child protection (CP) and specialist domestic and family violence (DFV) services. It aimed to assess the extent to which DFV is identified in CP case files and to assess the quality of case practice from a DFV-informed perspective, as documented in the case file. The Safe and Together approach to child welfare provides a robust foundation upon which practitioners from statutory and nonstatutory backgrounds can work collaboratively and reach consensus about how best to ensure the safety and wellbeing of children living with DFV. The case reading is both a process of transformative working for practitioners and an analytical tool through which their agencies can affect systemic change.

IMPLICATIONS

• A national audit of 20 child protection case files using the Safe and Together case-reading process indicated that documented child protection practice sits at the lower end of a domestic and family violence-informed Continuum of Practice.

• Analysis indicates a need to improve: child protection engagement with fathers who use DFV, assessments of their parenting role and its impact on children and family functioning; identification of adult survivors’ protective capacities and their impact on children.

• Research in this area may have broader implications for other professions and government policy both nationally and internationally.

     

Where can I mourn? Psychodynamic contributions to working in residential child care

ABSTRACT

Loss permeates the experience of being placed in residential child care, yet residential workers are rarely trained to work with young people who are grieving the loss of family and home. This article will provide an overview of psychodynamic theories of mourning, and will discuss how grief work can be facilitated for children and youth in residential child care.     

The terrors of night and the arrows of day. Social workers' processes in the aftermath of murder

This paper provides extended extracts from interviews conducted with three social workers interviewed for a study enquiring into social workers' experiences of stress. For the purposes of this study, experienced practitioners were asked to recall a time that stood out for them in their minds as causing them stress. They were asked to describe the experience, to say how it had affected them, how they responded to it and what they had found helpful and unhelpful when attempting to deal with the experience. The three participants quoted in the paper all talked of their involvement with service users who had killed others. They describe personal and organisational responses to the murders and tell of internal processes and responses from others that were found to be helpful and unhelpful. The 'haunting' quality of such experiences is apparent throughout accounts, as is the relevance of psychodynamic theory and concepts. The importance of creating and using a therapeutic space in which it is possible to have ideas about how such stress can be thought about is emphasised.     

Social Workers’ Preparation for Child Protection: Revisiting the Question of Specialisation

Abstract

Child welfare work is a key field of practice for social work graduates and for graduates of a growing range of disciplines. In the present paper, the authors drew on a survey of 208 child welfare workers and interviews with 28 senior personnel in child and family welfare agencies to analyse perceptions of the educational preparation of social workers and other human science graduates for this field of practice. The findings indicated that child welfare workers and employers are ambivalent about the value of social work and other generic social science and human services programmes as preparation for tertiary or statutory child protection practice, which involves investigation, assessment, and intervention in child abuse and neglect. The authors argue that the social work profession must better balance generic and specialist aspects to prepare graduates for practice in specialist fields of high social work involvement, particularly in tertiary child protection work.     

A balancing act: a grounded theory study of the professional judgement of child protection social workers

ABSTRACT

This paper explores professional judgement of social workers working to protect children. Based on 22 in-depth interviews with social workers, a grounded theory methodology is adopted. The policy context for child protection practice is outlined and analysed. This study then explores how information, responsibility and in particular anxiety, are transacted between social workers and other professionals. Additionally, this study explores the delicate balances social workers are required to negotiate, focussing on two elements of the findings, ‘closeness- distance’ and ‘power over- power together’. The delicacy of the balances negotiated by social workers leads to a powerful analogy of social workers as tightrope walkers, and strategies to seek balance are identified. The implications for practice are explored. The internal mental processes of social workers require closer attention, a cautious approach should be taken to rational-technical solutions and social workers should be better prepared to respectfully challenge other professionals.     

Beyond the rhetoric: A 'working' version of child protection practice

This paper discusses a study of child protection practice in an Irish health board. By its use of a qualitative research paradigm, it seeks to fill an identified gap in the existing knowledge base by illustrating what social workers in child protection really 'do'. The normative framework employed by practitioners, through which they endorse or invalidate 'abuse' referrals, and adjudicate on their seriousness, is illustrated. The gulf between the official discourse portrayed in procedural guidance and the day-to-day reality of child protection practice becomes clear, and the way in which this creates space for, on the one hand, the application of moral reasoning, and, on the other, professional ambivalence, is analysed.     

Developing Culturally Responsive Supervision Through Yarn Up Time and the CASE Supervision Model

ABSTRACT

This article explores a culturally focused supervision training program supporting Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal supervisors to provide cross-cultural supervision for Aboriginal staff within mainstream and Aboriginal community and human service organisations. The key features of the training program, Yarn Up Time and the CASE supervision model are a culturally respectful approach to cross-cultural professional supervision practice with the purpose of contributing to the development of culturally responsive supervision with Aboriginal staff and their clients. The article concludes with feedback from participants who attended the training and supports the future advancement of cross-cultural supervision practice and models in Australia.

IMPLICATIONS

• There continues to be a need for more culturally responsive supervision for Aboriginal staff and for non-Aboriginal social work practice with Aboriginal people.

• Yarn Up Time and the CASE model is a culturally appropriate approach for supervising Aboriginal staff and non-Aboriginal social workers’ supervision of social workers’ practice with Aboriginal communities.

• Social work supervisors need to be able to use an effective cultural supervision model to support Aboriginal staff in Yarn Up Time.