Risk, Instrumentalism and the Humane Project in Social Work: Identifying the Informal Logics of Risk Management in Children's Statutory Services

Broadhurst, Karen; Hall, Christopher; Wastell, David; White, Sue; Pithouse, Andrew

doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcq011

Cited by 194 publications

(212 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…An instrumental understanding was associated with rationality and belief that there is an optimal behaviour that can be achieved in a systematically organized environment. Previous research on EBP in social work has described this approach in terms of a rational choice model (Van de Luitgaarden, 2009;Broadhurst et al, 2010), where the increasingly formal structure for work performance and decision making is conceived to generate knowledge independent of individual human assessment (Bohlin andSager, 2011). Webb (2001) has argued that a rational choice model is unsatisfactory for social work because the separation of facts and values inherent in this model undermines professional judgement and rules out the subjective dimension needed to interpret human actors' experience.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ways of Understanding Evidence-Based Practice in Social Work: A Qualitative Study

Avby

Nilsén²,

Dahlgren³

2013

British Journal of Social Work

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Gunilla Avby has a Master of Arts with a major in Education and a Bachelor in Human ResourceDevelopment. She has extended working experience from the adult learning area, especially with a focus on executive training in the public sector. Her research interest lays in workplace learning and she is currently doing Ph.D. research into knowledge use among social workers. Per Nilsen is an associate professor of Community Medicine. His research has focused on health care interventions aimed at achieving health-related behaviour change and he has a particular interest in behaviour change mechanisms. Madeleine Abrandt-Dahlgren is professor in Medical Education. Her main research interest concerns student learning in higher education with a particular view to professional learning in different fields, as well as the relationship between higher education and working life.Corresponding author's contact details: Gunilla Avby, Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning, Linköping University, SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden. E-mail: gunilla.avby@liu.se AcknowledgementNo funding has been received for this study.Ways of understanding evidence-based practice in social work: a qualitative study AbstractThis qualitative, empirical study explores and describes the variation in how evidencebased practice (EBP) is understood in social work. A phenomenographic approach to design and analysis was applied. Fourteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with politicians, managers and executive staff in three social welfare offices in Sweden.The main findings suggest that there are qualitatively different ways in which EBP is understood, described in five categories: (i) fragmented; (ii) discursive; (iii) instrumental; (iv) multifaceted; and (v) critical. The outcome space is hierarchically structured with a logical relationship between the categories. However, the informants found it difficult to account for EBP, depending on what was expressed as deficient knowledge of EBP in the organization, as well as ability to provide a seemly context for EBP. The results highlight the importance of acknowledging these differences in the organization to compose a supportive atmosphere for EBP to thrive rather than merely assume the case of evidence-based social work. The categories can be utilized as stimuli for reflection in social work practice, and thereby provide the possibility to promote knowledge use and learning in the evolving evidence-based social work.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ways of Understanding Evidence-Based Practice in Social Work: A Qualitative Study

Avby

Nilsén²,

Dahlgren³

2013

British Journal of Social Work

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“…In the current policy climate, with its cautious embrace of a 'return' to 'humane social work', their views are particularly significant (Broadhurst, Hall, Wastell, White, & Pithouse, 2010;Featherstone et al, 2014). This 'return' is, in many ways, a corollary of the rise of strengths-based approaches in child protection.…”

Section: Experiencing a Different Kind Of Servicementioning

confidence: 99%

Reducing recurrent care proceedings: initial evidence from new interventions

Cox

Barratt

Blumenfeld

et al. 2017

Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law

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The English family justice system faces a crisis of recurrence. As many as one in four birth mothers involved in public law care proceedings in English family courts are likely to reappear in a subsequent set of proceedings within seven years. These mothers are involved in up to one-third of total care applications, as they are -by definition -linked to more than one child . Few birth mothers experiencing the removal of a child to care are offered any follow-up support, despite often facing multiple challenges including poverty, addiction, domestic violence and mental health problems. Since 2011, however, a number of new services have been established to begin to address their unmet needs. This article summarises the findings of the first academic-led evaluation of two of these initiatives. Presenting evidence from a mixed-methods evaluative study, it concludes that the new services were able to foster relationships that 'worked' in reducing recurrent proceedings. None of the women engaging with the services went on to experience what could be described as a 'rapid repeat pregnancy' within the evaluation window. Just as significantly, a number of clients reported some improvement in their psychological functioning, and the practitioners involved reported positively on their experience of delivering and managing innovative services. The article closes with a discussion of the challenges of evaluating personalised, strengths based interventions and the possibilities of evidencing empowerment in these cases.

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“…As rates of referral to child protection services increase dramatically, intense pressure on child protection systems have led many countries to significantly reconstruct their service systems in these ways, particularly in the wake of the fiscal constraints imposed by the worldwide recession. Such changes commonly focus on spreading the responsibility for child abuse responses beyond statutory agencies and introducing new technologies in attempts to make practice responses more systematised and targeted to those most at risk [57,58]. The state's role moves from being a "social state" to a "facilitating state", merely a coordinator of services, rather than a body responsible for their existence, functioning or resourcing [59].…”

Section: Orientations Risk and Neo-liberalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, risk assessment and its associated "risk logics" have become the focus of child protection systems nearly worldwide and, with it, an economic-rationalist assumption that risks are measurable, predictable and avoidable [57,64]. Considering risk assessment highlights two debates in decision-making: how risk assessment tools are derived and used and whether they include strengths or safety perspectives.…”

Section: Risk and Safety In A Risk Societymentioning

confidence: 99%

Current Debates on Variability in Child Welfare Decision-Making: A Selected Literature Review

Keddell

2014

Social Sciences

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This article considers selected drivers of decision variability in child welfare decision-making and explores current debates in relation to these drivers. Covering the related influences of national orientation, risk and responsibility, inequality and poverty, evidence-based practice, constructions of abuse and its causes, domestic violence and cognitive processes, it discusses the literature in regards to how each of these influences decision variability. It situates these debates in relation to the ethical issue of variability and the equity issues that variability raises. I propose that despite the ecological complexity that drives decision variability, that improving internal (within-country) decision consistency is still a valid goal. It may be that the use of annotated case examples, kind learning systems, and continued commitments to the social justice issues of inequality and individualisation can contribute to this goal.

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Risk, Instrumentalism and the Humane Project in Social Work: Identifying the Informal Logics of Risk Management in Children's Statutory Services

Cited by 194 publications

References 34 publications

Ways of Understanding Evidence-Based Practice in Social Work: A Qualitative Study

Ways of Understanding Evidence-Based Practice in Social Work: A Qualitative Study

Reducing recurrent care proceedings: initial evidence from new interventions

Current Debates on Variability in Child Welfare Decision-Making: A Selected Literature Review

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