The Emotional Dimension in Risk Assessment: A Cross-Country Study of the Perceptions of Child Welfare Workers in England, Norway and California (United States)

Skivenes, Marit; Skramstad, Heidi

doi:10.1093/bjsw/bct177

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…One of the suggested explanations is that traditional theories of attachment favours the mother and child relationship (Zanoni et al 2013). In another analysis of the same vignette interviews, we found that the child welfare workers focused on the emotional bonds between mother and child, and not between father and child (Skivenes and Skramstad 2014).…”

Section: Discussion a N D C O N C L U D I N G R E M A R K Smentioning

confidence: 75%

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Child welfare workers' views of fathers in risk assessment and planned interventions, a comparison between English and Norwegian workers

Skramstad¹,

Skivenes

2015

Child & Family Social Work

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A B S T R AC TIn a comparison of 53 child welfare workers' risk assessment based on a vignette case about a 9-year-old girl, less than one-third of the child welfare workers in England and Norway, intended to work with fathers. Only 28% and 14%, respectively, suggested involving the stepfather, in spite that, the vignette said he lived with the girl and her mother. The invisible fathers in child welfare have been well documented, but fathers and stepfathers in particular, were surprisingly invisible in the Norwegian context, known for its strong focus on gender equality and institutionalized support for the father role. The child welfare workers seemed to prefer working with the mother and other professional agencies, rather than involving the father(s) and other family members. Although this may reflect the reality of families within child welfare, they are in contrast with the prevailing family ideology and practices in the society at large, both in England and in Norway.

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Section: Discussion a N D C O N C L U D I N G R E M A R K Smentioning

confidence: 75%

“…). In another analysis of the same vignette interviews, we found that the child welfare workers focused on the emotional bonds between mother and child, and not between father and child (Skivenes and Skramstad ).…”

Section: Discussion and Concluding Remarksmentioning

confidence: 94%

Child welfare workers' views of fathers in risk assessment and planned interventions, a comparison between English and Norwegian workers

Skramstad¹,

Skivenes

2015

Child & Family Social Work

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“…The variability between staff in the four countries may suggest that workers are engaged in different activities during this deliberative process (as is the case in Finland); that different factors are necessary to consider due to differences set by legislation; and that different thresholds of risk or concern may be at play. Some studies indicate that workers in different countries identify many of the same risk factors in a case but that the assessment of the level of risk and the actions they take depends on the legal and service options and processes available (Skivenes & Skramstad, 2013;Skivenes & Stenberg, 2013). It is also a finding that the managerial role is important for organizing work pressure (Wilson, 2009, cf.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Time, Institutional Support, and Quality of Decision Making in Child Protection: A Cross-Country Analysis

Berrick

Dickens

Pösö

et al. 2016

Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Gover

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This paper examines perceptions of time and institutional support for decision making and staff confidence in the ultimate decisions madeexamining differences and similarities between and within the serviceoriented Nordic countries (represented by Norway and Finland) and the risk-oriented Anglo-American countries (represented by England and California). The study identifies a high degree of work pressure across all the countries, lines of predominantly vertical institutional support and relatively high confidence in decisions. Finland stands out with higher perceived work pressure and with a horizontal support line, whereas England stands out with workers having a lower degree of confidence in their own and others' decisions. KEYWORDSChild protection; decision making; support; time pressure; worker experiences State involvement in family life is frequently framed as supportive of parents' rights and obligations to rear their children. Financial assistance, protective labels on medication, or compulsory education might all be viewed as supportive of parents' efforts to help their children grow and thrive (Sugarman, 2008). Under some circumstances, however, state actors place limits on parents. When parents, themselves, are seen as unsafe, most modern welfare states have systems in place to respond. In the most extreme cases, the State may separate children from their parents temporarily or permanently. When States engage with family life such that children are placed in out-of-home care, the stakes are high. Decisions regarding parent-child separation, typically recommended by a child protection worker in a state agency and approved by a judge (cf. Burns et al., forthcoming; Gilbert, Parton, & Skivenes, 2011), must be of the highest quality and fully justified. The research literature tells us little about the actual quality of decision making related to child removal in child protection systems. Ample evidence now exists relating to the determination of risk for future maltreatment (see, e.g., Johnson, Clancy, & Bastian, 2015), but whether a decision to involuntarily separate a child from his or her parent is "right" or "wrong" is, in part, normative, based upon the values and standards established in a local or state jurisdiction. In instances of extreme and imminent danger to the child, the "right" decision might be more widely accepted, though whether and how staff measure extreme or imminent circumstances is still highly contested (Baird & Wagner, 2000;Gambrill & Shlonsky, 2000). Absent an objective indicator of "accuracy" in the context of child removal, other factors such as time for deliberation, institutional support, and accountability can provide a context for reasoned assessments.How staff make decisions is a more commonly studied phenomenon in the street-level-bureaucracy literature. Some have raised questions about child welfare staff's incomplete review of evidence and arguments and the potential for biased information gathering (e.g., Munro, 1999Munro, , 2008. Other signals from the field ...

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“…A prominent example might be attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969), which was formulated based on empirical research and clinical experience conducted largely in Western countries and is now seen as a universal theory of child development. As such, attachment serves as a central lens through which social workers and child protection officers assess risk and make decisions in cases of alleged child maltreatment, in Israel as well as in other Western countries (e.g., Keddell, 2017; Skivenes & Skramstad, 2013). Attachment theory as a fundamental premise for risk assessment can result in an intense focus on a particular form of parenting (or a deficit thereof) as the main source of emotional safety or a cause of children's problems, rather than being the outcome of complex interrelationships between individual, family, and contextual issues such as cultural values, poverty, political violence, unemployment and discrimination, and available services (Taylor, 2004).…”

Section: Deconstructing Myths In the Risk Discoursementioning

confidence: 99%

A Context‐Informed Perspective of Child Risk and Protection: Deconstructing Myths in the Risk Discourse

Nadan

Roer‐Strier

2020

J of Family Theo & Revie

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This article discusses context‐informed conceptualization in the study of children's risk and protection. It begins by defining this perspective, challenging the universalistic approach and the view of cultures as uniform, monolithic and static and acknowledging hybridity, complexity, and the dynamics of change and power relations. In the second part of the article, we exemplify three contexts (religion and spirituality, racism and exclusion, political conflict and violence) that emerged from our large‐scale qualitative research project in Israel exploring perceptions of child risk and protection in different contexts. In the third part of the article, we rethink the ontological nature of the categories of child “risk” and “protection.” We outline and deconstruct three prevalent myths identified in the risk discourse, discuss the stance of the observer and the issue of power, the discrepancies and value mismatch between parents and professionals, and the concept of complexity in the risk discourse.

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The Emotional Dimension in Risk Assessment: A Cross-Country Study of the Perceptions of Child Welfare Workers in England, Norway and California (United States)

Cited by 7 publications

References 16 publications

Child welfare workers' views of fathers in risk assessment and planned interventions, a comparison between English and Norwegian workers

Child welfare workers' views of fathers in risk assessment and planned interventions, a comparison between English and Norwegian workers

Time, Institutional Support, and Quality of Decision Making in Child Protection: A Cross-Country Analysis

A Context‐Informed Perspective of Child Risk and Protection: Deconstructing Myths in the Risk Discourse

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