‘Our tariff will rise’: Risk, probabilities and child protection

Stanley, Tony

doi:10.1080/13698575.2012.753416

Cited by 28 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 16 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…While the classification of risk tends to be the work of child protection workers, and this very much shapes practice, this has been challenged by family-focused commentators (Keddell, 2011;Stanley, 2013;Turnell & Edwards, 1999), who argue that families should help determine the risks that face their children. Stanley (2013) argued that family definitions of risk were not routinely asked for by child protection workers who participated in his research.…”

Section: ) Have Argued Blameworthiness Takes Over At the Point Where mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Stanley (2013) argued that family definitions of risk were not routinely asked for by child protection workers who participated in his research. Rather, workers sought confirmation of their risk judgments from other professionals involved, and this contributed to "high risk" classifications being made by child protection workers.…”

Section: ) Have Argued Blameworthiness Takes Over At the Point Where mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The pressure to get it right dominates practice. Avoiding tragedy then can help explain why risk becomes a useful discourse for child protection workers to determine up front, and then set out to resolve (Stanley, 2013).…”

Section: ) Have Argued Blameworthiness Takes Over At the Point Where mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Practice Needs to Be Braver: The Role of Entry to Care Panels

Stanley¹,

Lincoln²,

McGee³

2014

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The English child protection system is a professionally orientated one. It is a system in which notions of risk and need are determined by professional child protection workers and managers, with significant decisions made about children known to be at risk. This includes decisions about fostering or alternative care. Yet, families tend to be left out of the various forums and debates where risk determinations and practice decisions actually happen. In this article, we examine how we have tried to address this imbalance by introducing an entry to care panel system. The panel can offer a helpful pause to rushed and pressured decisions to use care as an alternative to working with situations of risk. Child protection workers and their managers are invited to take a discursive look at how risk operates in each case. This has resulted in better child protection practice. We show how the type of panel we introduced played a significant part in evening out of the care numbers in two English local authorities. Our argument is for the panel to be seen as a practice initiative-An example of purposeful bureaucracy, where decisions reached or ratified are informed by risk and need discourses. We argue that this practice initiative has helped our workers to adopt a more critical approach to risk discourses in their child protection work. Practice based tools were introduced alongside of the panel to support this way of working. We show the gains for our practice, and importantly for the families we work with, as we work differently and more expansively with risk discourses.

show abstract

Section: ) Have Argued Blameworthiness Takes Over At the Point Where mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: ) Have Argued Blameworthiness Takes Over At the Point Where mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Practice Needs to Be Braver: The Role of Entry to Care Panels

Stanley¹,

Lincoln²,

McGee³

2014

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In the present special issue, Heyman and his colleagues (2013) describe the ways in which staff in forensic units are required to prevent the patients they discharge from harming members of the public, backgrounding other risks such as the likelihood of such patients experiencing a poor quality of life in the 'community'. Stanley (2013) notes the pressure on social workers to prevent parents from harming their children. Stanley (2013) argues that social workers deal with their anxieties by building up evidence that minimises uncertainty by confirming that, unless they take action, a child will be put at risk of being seriously harmed.…”

Section: Probability and Moral Judgementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Stanley (2013) notes the pressure on social workers to prevent parents from harming their children. Stanley (2013) argues that social workers deal with their anxieties by building up evidence that minimises uncertainty by confirming that, unless they take action, a child will be put at risk of being seriously harmed. In implementing this precautionary process, professionals downplay the harm that may result from a child's removal from their family.…”

Section: Probability and Moral Judgementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Probabilistic thinking and health risks: An editorial

Heyman

Alaszewski

Brown

2013

Health, Risk & Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This special issue is the third in a four-part series, Health Care Through the 'Lens of Risk', which focus on risk categorisation, valuing, expecting and time-framing respectively, and published or to be published in 2012 and 2013. The present editorial introduces the issue of probabilistic thinking about health in relation to an interview-based article and five substantial research papers, with further papers to appear subsequently in an annex in the next issue of Health, Risk & Society.

show abstract

Developing a statistical model for assessment of referrals of children at risk

Søbjerg

2022

Child Abuse Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Including statistical models in assessment of referrals about children at risk holds promising aspects. This article presents results from an empirical pilot study developing and testing a statistical decision support system in the form of a predictive risk model.The study involved mixed methods and included 208 referrals assessed by 13 social workers in two municipalities in Denmark. The research design involved comparing risk scores provided by the social workers before and after they received a score generated by the model. Social workers' perception of the model was studied through qualitative interviews before, during and after the test. The quantitative results of the study show that presenting a statistical risk score to social workers only marginally changes their initial assessment of a referral. In contrast, the qualitative findings appeared to show that social workers are ready to include statistics in the decision-making process, but that some elements need to be considered. These include the definition of risk being used and the linking of this definition with the available data as well as the needs of the social workers. It is important to remember that a statistical model can supportnot definethe assessment. Statistical decision support systems based on predictive risk models might prove rewarding in providing more accurate and homogeneous assessments in child protection. Important issues to consider when developing a model are the definition of risk, the data available to the model and communication of the risk calculated. Risk assessments are based on uncertainties and while statistics might limit the uncertainty, data do not eliminate ambiguity of risk assessment. Social workers should engage in the development of statistical tools, but it is important to acknowledge that decisions should always be made by the professional, not the model.

show abstract

‘Our tariff will rise’: Risk, probabilities and child protection

Cited by 28 publications

References 16 publications

Practice Needs to Be Braver: The Role of Entry to Care Panels

Practice Needs to Be Braver: The Role of Entry to Care Panels

Probabilistic thinking and health risks: An editorial

Developing a statistical model for assessment of referrals of children at risk

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About