Risk assessment, the professional judgement model and organizational anxiety – a practitioner response to ‘In the eye of the storm: The implications of the Munro Child Protection Review for the future of probation’ by Wendy Fitzgibbon

Abstract

This article is a response to Wendy Fitzgibbon's article 'In the eye of the storm: The implications of the Munro Child Protection Review for the future of probation'. Fitzgibbon's article (Fitzgibbon, 2012) offers a reflection on the similarities between the problems Eileen Munro identified in child protection practice, and those in probation. She questions whether a Munro Review is necessary for probation. The focus of Fitzgibbon's article, like that of Munro's Review, is on what is wrong with practice and policy, and what changes are needed -and what is likely given the current political and economic climate. This response seeks to further examine the challenges to best practice that Fitzgibbon explored, whilst looking ahead to the positive changes the

Relational positionism: a constructive interpretation of morality in Luhmann's social systems theory

“…For organizations, it can lead to different internal process responses, organizational trust and organizational practices (e.g. Fellowes, 2012). The active reinterpretation in Murdoch and the background elements from An alayo shows analogies with Luhmann's social systems functions of attention (moment-to-moment awareness and memory) that come back in the time or process aspects and the structure aspects, respectively.…”

“…As such, anxiety also emerges in functional systems (Luhmann, 1990) and organizations. Individual and organizational anxiety are shown to have the same structure of appraisal processes, primary beliefs and commitments, secondary resources, and different but analogous responses (biological, psychological and behavioral for individuals; and internal process, organizational trust and organizational practice, respectively) (Baruch and Lambert, 2007) and organizational anxiety have been empirically illustrated (Fellowes, 2012).…”