An Examination of Oversight and Review in the Child Welfare System

Blome, Wendy Whiting; Steib, Sue D.

doi:10.1300/j479v01n03_02

Cited by 23 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…This supports the findings of numerous other studies (Blome & Steib, 2008;Munro, 2011;Parton, 1998Parton, , 2012. In particular, the accountability and administrative requirements associated with IPA were perceived to limit the time that Department officers had to work directly with families.…”

Section: The Responsibility For Keeping Children Safe and Risk-adverssupporting

confidence: 86%

“…Department respondents identified that focusing on administrative requirements limited their ability to spend time with families in a therapeutic manner. (Blome & Steib, 2008;Munro, 2011;Parton, 1998Parton, , 2012. For example, the Munro Review in the UK (Munro, 2011) found that systems that prioritise record keeping, as a form of defensible decision-making (Dingwall Ecklehaar, & Murray, 1983), shift attention away from working effectively with families.…”

Section: Impact Of Statutory Authoritymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Collaborative practice in statutory in child protection practice: Parental agreements and procedural justice

Venables¹

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Internationally, there is a growing trend to introduce alternative pathways for children and their families involved with statutory child protection systems. These alternatives focus on developing partnerships with families in order to promote children's safety and well-being within their homes. The form that alternative pathways take varies by jurisdiction.In Queensland (Australia), where this study takes place, the State Government has identified the use of parental agreements to be the least intrusive option available to the child protection authority when a child has been substantiated, via a full investigation, as in need of protection. These agreements are known as 'Intervention with Parental Agreement' (IPA) and allow for the statutory authority to work in partnership with families to address child protection concerns, without the use of a court order. Little is known about how IPA occurs and the extent to which its collaborative ethos is realised in practice.This study aims to provide a detailed understanding of collaborative practice in statutory child protection, using the example of IPA. The study has a key focus on procedural justice, that is the quality of treatment that people receive from an authority during decision-making processes (Tyler, 2006). Using a two-phase, qualitative methodology the study explores the perspectives of practitioners and parents involved in IPA practice.Phase one involved semi-structured interviews with 33 practitioners from the Queensland child protection authority, tertiary family support services and a service responsible for providing cultural guidance in cases that involve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families. Phase two of the study involved semi-structured interviews with four parents. The interviews captured their unique experience of being subject to IPA, with a focus on their procedural justice judgements.The findings of the study indicate that the crisis-driven nature of statutory child protection in conjunction with the dominance of a risk-adverse culture is perceived by practitioners to be a barrier to collaborative practice. However, the local office culture within branch offices of the child protection authority and relationship-driven models of practice were found to facilitate collaboration in IPA practice.In particular, the nature and quality of three key partnerships of practice was found to shape how IPA practice occurred. These partnerships are: intra-agency partnerships, particularly those between statutory officers at the branch office level; inter-agency 2 partnerships; and those between practitioners and parents. The findings highlight that each of these partnerships are characterised by hierarchical relationships between the different stakeholders. Within all three of these partnerships, procedural justice emerged as an important factor for facilitating positive and collaborative working partnerships. This demonstrated that procedurally fair treatment is important to both parents and practitioners during IPA practice.All of the p...

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Section: The Responsibility For Keeping Children Safe and Risk-adverssupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: Impact Of Statutory Authoritymentioning

confidence: 99%

Collaborative practice in statutory in child protection practice: Parental agreements and procedural justice

Venables¹

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“…Consideration of how the system, not simply the worker, can better engage with families to achieve a better fit between needs and services is critical. Blome and Steib (2008) draw attention to the onerous systems of accountability and review in the USA child welfare system and the high level of staff resources, at all levels, dedicated to this function. This bureaucratization of child welfare is akin to the system in England in which worker resources are often focused on assessing and managing risk rather than addressing the needs of children and families (Parton, 1998).…”

Section: A Call For Better Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The shared experiences of parents involved with child welfare systems in both the USA and England suggest that the findings from the Munro Review may be relevant to both countries. As in the case of England, incremental and piecemeal changes in response to child deaths in the USA have resulted in weighty and bureaucratic systems (Blome & Steib, 2008) that may be long overdue for a similar federal-level review.…”

Section: A Call For Better Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Better practices in parent engagement: lessons from the USA and England

Damman

2013

European Journal of Social Work

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This paper undertakes an international comparison of parent engagement in the USA and England. Research from both countries is reviewed to establish the extent to which parent engagement is achieving the benefit of an improved fit between need and services and what, if any, differences exist between the experiences of parents in the USA and England. Despite some unique differences, research from both countries identifies similar experiences among parents. Those studies indicate that parent engagement is not yet contributing to the provision of services that are more timely, appropriate, or adequate in meeting parent need. The barriers to achieving a better fit between needs and services are explored and system-wide issues that limit the effectiveness of engagement with parents are discussed. The paper presents the Munro Review of Child Protection in England as a catalyst for change in improving the child welfare system's approach to parent engagement and establishing a better fit between needs and services. Consideration of the applicability of the Munro Review findings to the USA child welfare system or replication of such a review is proposed.

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“…Participation of an engaged citizenry has long been recognized as a pertinent part of planning governmental programs and interventions (e.g., Kinney, 2008;Roberts, 2004;Stivers, 1990), specifically in the area of child welfare (Bryan, Jones, Allen, & Collins-Camargo, 2007;Blome & Steib, 2007;Schorr, 2000). One way this participation has manifested in child welfare is through the formation of Citizen Review Panels (CRPs).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%