Can Knowledge Exchange Forge a Collaborative Pathway to Policymaking? A Case Study Example of the Recognition Matters Project

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariane Critchley ◽  
Mary Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Knowledge Exchange ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Research Impact ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Social Work Practitioners ◽  
Collaborative Knowledge

Abstract Knowledge Exchange is considered a way that research might be operationalised beyond the academy, both within policy and practice. This article seeks to analyse knowledge exchange as a method of bringing field, research and policy together. It does so through the case study of a social work knowledge exchange project, ‘Recognition Matters’. This co-produced project brought together two separate research studies undertaken by the authors. These studies focused on different elements of child welfare and protection: pre-birth child protection and Family Group Conferencing, respectively. The research findings were creatively woven together with the retelling of a mother’s story of child protection proceedings, alongside the practice wisdom and experience of three social work practitioners. In this article, the authors firstly consider the conditions for collaborative knowledge exchange as a commitment to social justice. Using the case study described, the value of this approach as a mechanism for social work to engage in policymaking is then explored. It is argued that in the context of significant challenges to the realisation of social justice, collaborative knowledge exchange activities may represent a genuine avenue for transforming social policy and creating meaningful research impact.

The capability approach: what can it offer child protection policy and practice in England?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brid Featherstone ◽  
Anna Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Capability Approach ◽  
Family Welfare ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Protection Policy ◽  
Neoliberal Ideology ◽  
Child Protection Policy ◽  
The Capability Approach

This chapter examines what the capability approach can contribute to child protection policy and practice in England as an alternative conceptual framework for social work that challenges the dominance of neoliberal ideology in ways consistent with the promotion of human rights and social justice. After providing an overview of the historical and political contexts of child protection policy in England, the chapter considers the ways poverty and parenting are constructed in the dominant discourses as well as the policies and practices that have developed within this context. It also analyses the impact of interventions on parents and argues that contemporary child protection policy and practice in England is based on a narrow approach to child and family welfare and the role of social work. It concludes with recommendations for policy and practice that aims to promote greater social justice.

Social Work Practice Outcomes

2014 ◽  
pp. 166-185
Author(s):  
Colin Pritchard ◽  
Richard Williams
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Psychosocial Development ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Mixed Methods Research ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Child Homicide ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Beneficial Impact

The key issue in all human services is outcome. The authors report on a series of four mixed methods research studies to conclude that good social work can bring about positive measurable differences to inform policy and practice. The first focuses on how effective Western nations have been in reducing Child Abuse Related Deaths (CARD); the second explores a three-year controlled study of a school-based social work service to reduce truancy, delinquency, and school exclusion; the third examines outcomes of “Looked After Children” (LAC); the forth re-evaluates a decade of child homicide assailants to provide evidence of the importance of the child protection-psychiatric interface in benefiting mentally ill parents and improving the psychosocial development and protection of their children. These studies show that social work has a measurable beneficial impact upon the lives of those who had been served and that social work can be cost-effective, that is, self-funding, over time.

Social Work and Youth Justice in a Global Context

2014 ◽  
pp. 149-165
Author(s):  
Bill Whyte
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Youth Justice ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Global Challenges ◽  
Social Work Practitioners ◽  
International Obligations

Social work in youth justice is directed by international standards based on an implied socio-educative paradigm that conflicts with the dominant criminal justice paradigm in operation in most jurisdictions. This creates global challenges in establishing “child-centred” policy and practice for dealing with young people under the age of 18 years in conflict with the law. Social work practitioners, directed by international imperatives and professional ethics, operate between shifting and often conflicting paradigms. It is essential they are familiar with international obligations and operate as “culture carriers” providing an ongoing challenge to systems of youth justice. This chapter examines these issues and, in the absence of consensus or of a shared paradigm for social work practice across jurisdictions, considers what a socio-educative paradigm for practice might look like.

scholarly journals Child Protection With Muslim Communities: Considerations For Non-Muslim-Based Orthodoxies/Paradigms in Child Welfare and Social Work

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 1201-1218
Author(s):  
Patrick O’Leary ◽  
Mohamad Abdalla ◽  
Aisha Hutchinson ◽  
Jason Squire ◽  
Amy Young
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Social Work Practitioners ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
Legal Contexts ◽  
Muslim Communities

Abstract The care and protection of children are a concern that crosses ethnic, religious and national boundaries. How communities act on these concerns are informed by cultural and religious understandings of childhood and protection. Islam has specific teachings that relate to the care and guardianship of children and are interpreted in diverse ways across the Muslim world. Islamic teachings on child-care mostly overlap with Western understandings of child protection, but there can be some contested positions. This creates complexities for social workers intervening in Muslim communities where the basis of their intervention is primarily informed by a non-Muslim paradigm or occurs in secular legal contexts. The purpose of this article is to address at a broad level the issue of how overarching concepts of child protection and Islam influence social work practice with Muslim communities. It addresses a gap in practical applications of the synergy of Islamic thinking with core social work practice in the field of child protection. For effective practice, it is argued that social work practitioners need to consider common ground in Islamic thinking on child protection rather than rely on Western frameworks. This requires further research to build evidence-based practice with Muslim families.

scholarly journals Social Innovation and Social Work: A Case Study of the Early Intervention Support Service

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Winter ◽  
Laura Neeson ◽  
Daryl Sweet ◽  
Aimee Smith ◽  
Sharon Millen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Early Intervention ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Support Service ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Child And Family Services ◽  
Set Up

Abstract In a national and international context where there is a concern about the effectiveness of social care services for children and families to address chronic, enduring social problems and where there are finite resources available, the concept of social innovation in social work policy and practice to address need in new ways is receiving increased attention. Whilst an attractive term, social innovation in child and family services is not without its challenges in terms of conceptualisation, operationalisation, implementation and evidencing impact. This article reports on the development and evaluation of the Early Intervention Support Service (EISS), a newly designed family support service in Northern Ireland set up as part of a government-supported innovation and transformation programme that aims to deliver a voluntary, targeted, flexible and time-limited service to families experiencing emergent problems. Using the EISS as a case study, the challenges, benefits in terms of addressing policy imperatives and future direction of social innovation in social work practice are reflected upon.

The Poverty-Aware Paradigm for Child Protection: A Critical Framework for Policy and Practice

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 1167-1184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuval Saar-Heiman ◽  
Anna Gupta
Keyword(s):  
British Journal ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Previous Issue ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Protection Policy ◽  
Critical Theories ◽  
Protection Systems ◽  
Child Protection Policy

Abstract This article aims to present a Poverty-Aware Paradigm for Child Protection (PAPCP). The increasing scholarly recognition of the damaging impact of poverty, inequality and the neoliberal politics of ‘risk’ on child protection policy and practice, has highlighted the need for a justice-based and poverty-aware analytical framework for child protection social work. In order to create such a framework, we build upon Krumer-Nevo’s Poverty-Aware Paradigm (PAP)—that was first presented in a previous issue of the British Journal of Social Work—and adapt its paradigmatic premises to the context of child protection social work. By addressing ontological, epistemological and axiological questions underpinning the construction of risk and the practices utilised to deal with it, the article provides a clear, practical and applicable link between critical theories and everyday child protection practice. The PAPCP is presented against the background of the risk-focused paradigm currently dominating the child protection systems in both the authors’ countries—Israel and England.

Leaving Care and at Risk of Homelessness: The Lift Project

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-17
Author(s):  
Mike Clare ◽  
Becky Anderson ◽  
Murielle Bodenham ◽  
Brenda Clare
Keyword(s):  
Child Protection ◽  
Learning By Doing ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Care Services ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Care Leavers ◽  
Care Outcomes ◽  
First Time

The paper reflects on developments in leaving care policy and practice in Western Australia (WA) and nationally from the mid-1990s. The review of national and some international literature suggests that current Australian policy and practice shows a ‘systems stuckness’ that requires a more potent form of annual auditing and reporting of jurisdictional leaving care outcomes. The review of mostly Australian publications focusing on leaving care and the risk of homelessness includes reflections on recent developments in leaving care services in England, which recognise and restore relationship-based services for care leavers. Finally, the history, vision and initial impact of the Living Independently for the First Time (LIFT) Project, a case study of learning by doing, is outlined. The authors and their colleagues from the Department for Child Protection and Family Support (Midland District), Swan Emergency Accommodation (now known as Indigo Junction) and the Housing Authority of WA have collaborated to design and develop the LIFT Project. This initially unfunded action-research strategy involves inter-agency policy and practice designed to prevent homelessness of vulnerable care leavers.

scholarly journals The Power of One: Why auto-ethnography, solo service-user voice and reflective case study analysis are useful strategies for researching family-centred social work practice

2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 15-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anita Gibbs
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Service User ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Study Analysis ◽  
Research Strategies ◽  
Case Study Analysis ◽  
Social Work Practitioners ◽  
Auto Ethnography

Family-centred social work practitioners often reflect upon and talk about their everyday work with families, but they rarely write about it, other than in case notes or for formal reports. If social work practitioners were to adopt a range of easy-to-use research strategies that focus on either one service-user, or one family case, or one practitioner experience, then they may be empowered to write and publish more about their work. This may then lead to a series of practitioner pieces aimed at improving knowledge and methods in family-centred social work practice. This article explores three ‘One Voice strategies’: those of auto-ethnography, solo service-user voice and reflective case study analysis, and their usefulness to researching family-centred social work practice. It argues that using such strategies are valid in everyday social work and that practitioners can make a difference to our knowledge of effectiveness in practice by telling us about just one story – the power of one!

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