Report: Decision making in Children's Social Care: Quantitative Data Analysis

Tupper, Alex; Broad, Ross; Emanuel, Natalia; Hollingsworth, Andy; Hume, Susannah; Larkin, Chris; Meer, Janna Ter; Sanders, Michael

doi:10.12968/cypn.2016.20.43

Cited by 2 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Social workers had the necessary assessment tools to assess risk and safety, but did not implement them because it is time-consuming and complex. Similar findings were reported by Tupper et al (2017). There was also no evidence of multidisciplinary decision-making processes to assess the child's progress during the supervision phase of foster care services (Ross et al, 2008).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 63%

“…Although analytic assessment tools are available, most participants did not use them because of a lack of time and high caseloads (Collins & Daly, 2011;O' Sulivan, 2011;Tupper et al, 2017). The lack of supervision gives social workers extraordinary discretion to make decisions and allocate their resources as they determine best (Dhludhlu & Lombard, 2017;Tupper et al, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The IDP is a plan that we manage, but does not measure the level of development of the child. We have to develop an indicator tool to measure the IDP.… (David) Tupper et al (2017) found in their study that despite the presence of assessment tools, social workers preferred to rely on skilled intuition to guide them in decision-making, as in this narrative excerpt:…”

Section: No We Don't Have Any Tools… We Only Do An Individual Develop...mentioning

confidence: 97%

“…The very nature of intuition means that it is susceptible to mistakes, bias and distortion, and hence requires the safeguards of high levels of reflexivity (O'Sullivan, 2011). The lack of supervision gives social workers extraordinary discretion to make decisions and allocate their resources as they determine best (Dhludhlu & Lombard, 2017;Tupper, Broad, Emanuel, Hollingsworth, Hume, Larkin, Ter Meer & Sanders, 2017).…”

Section: Decision-making Theoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Foster Care: Yes or No? The Decision-Making Processes of Social Workers Rendering Foster Care Services

Naicker¹,

Botha

2023

SWORK

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Decisions made by social workers play a crucial role in foster care. Despite the challenging conditions under which social workers work in South Africa, they continue to make decisions to place children in foster care. There is a lack of research on the decision-making processes of social workers rendering foster care services. A need to understand what decisions are made and how these decisions are made prompted this study. A qualitative approach was applied using the multiple case study design, with explorative, descriptive and contextual designs. Most social workers make decisions using a mix of intuition and empirical evidence, justifying the child's best interest as the basis for their decisions. This study contributes to the knowledge of the decision-making processes of social workers rendering foster care services. This knowledge can enable social workers to be consciously aware of their own decision-making processes during all the phases of rendering foster care services, facilitating transparent decision-making, with the best outcome for the foster child and his/her biological and foster family.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 63%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: No We Don't Have Any Tools… We Only Do An Individual Develop...mentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Decision-making Theoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Foster Care: Yes or No? The Decision-Making Processes of Social Workers Rendering Foster Care Services

Naicker¹,

Botha

2023

SWORK

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Using written judgements published on the internet, Aletras et al (2016) predicted, with near 80% accuracy, the word clusters associated with judges’ rulings on applications received by the European Court of Human Rights. By a similar concept, Tupper et al (2016) identified the words most associated with social worker decisions to accept incoming referrals for further action. These studies did not examine risk of real-world events, but in fact shed light on the factors leading professionals to their conclusions.…”

Section: Nlp: Potential Benefits For Social Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Natural language processing to identify case factors in child protection court proceedings

Coulthard

Taylor

2022

Methodological Innovations

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Social work case files hold rich detail about the lives and needs of vulnerable groups. Traditional case-reading studies to gain generalisable knowledge are resource-intensive, however, and sample sizes thereby limited. The advent of ‘big data’ technology, and vast repositories of centrally stored electronic records offer social work researchers novel alternatives, including data linkage and predictive risk modelling using administrative data. Free-text documents, however – including assessments, reports, and case chronologies – remain a largely untapped resource. This paper describes how 5000 social work court statements held by the Child and Family Court Advisory Support Service in England (Cafcass) were analysed using natural language processing (NLP) based on simple rules and mathematical principles. Thirteen factors relating to harm and risk to children involved in care proceedings in England were identified by automated computer techniques, and almost 90% agreement with professional readers achieved when the factors were clear-cut. The study represents an innovative approach for social work research on complex social problems. In conclusion, the paper discusses learning points; practical implications; future research avenues; and the technical and ethical challenges of NLP.

show abstract

Report: Decision making in Children's Social Care: Quantitative Data Analysis

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Foster Care: Yes or No? The Decision-Making Processes of Social Workers Rendering Foster Care Services

Foster Care: Yes or No? The Decision-Making Processes of Social Workers Rendering Foster Care Services

Natural language processing to identify case factors in child protection court proceedings

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About