Collaborating with parents during intervention with parental agreement: Practitioner perspectives on procedural justice

Abstract

With growing concerns about the efficacy and costs of intrusive child protection interventions and increasing recognition of citizen rights to participation in governance, jurisdictions are looking to collaborative alternatives that divert families from the courts and out-of-home care. In Queensland (Australia), "intervention with parental agreement" (IPA) is one such response. Under IPA, the statutory child protection authority can work collaboratively with families, without a court order, to respond to children assessed as "in need of protection." In this paper, we use procedural justice theory as a lens to explore how IPA policy is enacted in practice. Procedural justice relates to the quality of treatment a person receives and the fairness of the process than an authority uses during decision-making (Tyler, 2006). It is associated with voluntary cooperation and compliance; key practice concerns when working to address child maltreatment via parental agreement rather than court ordered intervention. We report on a qualitative study that utilized semistructured, in-depth interviews to capture the perceptions of 30 practitioners regarding the factors that shape the extent to which they enact IPA policy in a procedurally fair manner. Strategies for enhancing procedurally just enactment of IPA policy in practice are discussed.

‘Informed consent’ in consensual child welfare: some reflections on its controversial nature

“…Thirdly, informed consent is obviously influenced by social workers and how they interact with children and parents. This is to say that the way in which social workers carry out the procedures of the care order preparations is meaningful when it comes to the nature of consent (Venables & Healy, 2019) and it may be especially important for children in situations in which they rely on social workers more than on their parents. However, the relationship between social workers, children and parents is not 'good' in any simple way in this context.…”

“…Quite the contrary: they should be given a fair status as procedural elements and manifestations of human rights and ethics. The crucial challenge is to recognise the complexities and controversies therein (Gambrill, 2008;Venables & Healy, 2019). If they are not recognised and considered in practice, the involvement of children and parents is an illusion in any type of 'voluntary services'.…”

Parental participation in child protection case conferences

“…In the United States, for example, the “differential response” system embeds a move away from a forensic approach where it is considered safe to do so and embeds a family assessment model that leverages a strengths‐based perspective to engage a child's network of care in their welfare and protection (Schene, ). Venables and Healy () study traces out the ways in which the “intervention with parental agreement” approach is working to address child protection concerns without resorting to statutory intervention unless it considered necessary to do so.…”

“…On an international basis, these challenges have led to alternative ways of working with parents where there are child protection concerns. Models that emphasize ideas of “collaborative intervention” rather than participation are, for example, gaining momentum (Venables & Healy, ). Approaches such as these have required a reconfiguration of how child protection systems respond to concerns about risk.…”

“…More recently, Venables and Healy () have presented a convincing argument to replace participatory concepts with ideas drawn from procedural justice theory, which emphasize the value of working with concepts such as procedural fairness and respect for individuals and their dignity within a relational framework. Although Venables and Healy () illustrate well how these concepts can be operationalized in contexts where parents enter into collaborative arrangements with child protection professions on a voluntary basis (intervention with parental agreement) as an alternative to statutory intervention, the application of a practice framework underpinned by procedural justice theory may provide a more appropriate approach to working meaningfully “with” parents in child protection contexts.…”