Abstract
The overall aim of this book is to outline and discuss ideas, methods and tools that will aid understanding of how context and decision-maker behaviour affect child welfare and protection and how such understanding might lead to improvements in such decision-making. It builds on a special issue of the journal Child Abuse and Neglect which was edited by four of the editors of this book in 2015 (Fluke et al., 2015).
The book draws heavily on the psychology of decision-making research literature together with research on decision making in child welfare and protection and is intended for academic researchers and graduate students in social work, psychology, pedagogy and related disciplines such as behavioural economics. It consists of fourteen chapters which are divided into five parts: (1) Frameworks and models in decision-making and judgment in child welfare and protection (2 chapters); (2) Methodology for the study of decision-making in child welfare and protection (2 chapters); (3) Ecological models of decision-making in child welfare and protection (6 chapters); (4) Decision-making in child welfare and protection practice(3 chapters); and (5) Future directions: implications for policy, practice and research (1 chapter written by the editors).
The book demonstrates that interest in this area and the amount of research and publications has increased considerably over the past few years. It also demonstrates that the focus of attention has moved on from being almost exclusively focused on assessment to a a wider concern with the ways that policies, biases, attitudes, and beliefs operate to create considerable variability in decision-making throughout the different systems of service delivery. It is the variability which is both of central interest and which has also acted to generate interest in this area of research. For an important feature of child welfare and protection systems is their variability when comparing countries, counties and even within local authorities, as has been noted for many years (for example Packman, 1968). As these chapters demonstrate there are many reasons for variability in decision-making, including variability between different caseworkers. Some of the causes of variability will be important and necessary because they reflect the particular context in which the decisions are made. However, the researchers here are keen to advance our ‘scientific exploration of sources of systematic variability’ (p. 302) in order to inform when variability is the appropriate response to differences in context and when it may be due to a lack of systematic use of information by practitioners, or to identify any other unwanted sources of variability.
The book provides a very useful and up to date overview of research and thinking in this area and one which is likely to witness further development over the next few years. However, the area is complex and some of it a little specialist and technical and the gaps in knowledge are still significant, so that, as the editors recognise, further work is needed. What seems to be lacking in the book is any serious engagement with some of the more sociological work on how decisions are made in child protection and their implications for children, parents, policy and practice (for example Dingwall et al., 1983; Fong, 2020). Such approaches adopt a range of different methodological approaches and would bring an added richness to our understanding.