scholarly journals To exit or not to exit: Evaluating a case management pathway in a Global South context to decrease service dependency

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henley Lee ◽  
Emily Thompson ◽  
Sonthea Pheun ◽  
Sreyrath Thou ◽  
Zoey Henley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Case Management ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Global South ◽  
Evaluation Framework ◽  
Case Review ◽  
Initial Screening ◽  
Child Protection Services ◽  
The Core ◽  
Case Planning ◽  
Core Components

An evaluation was undertaken of a case management pathway for a child protection organization in Cambodia to decrease service dependency. Save the Children’s ‘Steps to Protect’ was used as an evaluation framework to identify how the organization met the criteria for the core components of case management. These included identification and initial screening, case planning, implementation, and case review, and the findings show that a well-defined, staged process for case management actively reduces service dependency. The recommendations are that a staged case management pathway should be developed in child protection services as an approach for reducing service dependency.

Understanding and improving discretionary judgment and decision-making in child protection practice: Towards a whole-of-system policy evaluation

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-127
Author(s):  
David Hodgson ◽  
Lynelle Watts ◽  
Donna Chung
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Policy Evaluation ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Systems Approach ◽  
Judgment And Decision Making ◽  
Evaluation Framework ◽  
Child Protection Services ◽  
Conceptual Argument ◽  
Protection Systems

Discretionary judgment is a necessary and desirable attribute of child protection practice and decision-making. Increasingly, approaches towards accountability in child protection services act to constrain the use of practitioner discretionary judgement through ever increasing layers of standardisation and technical-rational approaches to practice. This situation is at odds with the need for professionals to adaptively respond to practice environments that are characterised by uncertainty and complexity. At the same time, there are known weakness and problems that are reported in the decision-making literature, begging questions about how to best support and evaluate for effective and accountable discretion and decision-making across a whole system. In this paper discretion is conceptualised as a structural and epistemic phenomena that is constrained and restricted under the weight of standardisation. A five-part conceptual framework for a systems approach to policy evaluation is presented, and it is argued that this framework would support the capacity for effective discretionary judgement and decision-making to emerge as a property of the system overall. This paper is a theoretical and conceptual argument for a systemic policy evaluation framework that is supportive of discretionary judgment and decision-making in child protection systems shifting the emphasis away from technical-rational compliance.

scholarly journals The core components of education 4.0 in higher education: Three case studies in engineering education

2021 ◽  
Vol 93 ◽  
pp. 107278
Author(s):  
Jhonattan Miranda ◽  
Christelle Navarrete ◽  
Julieta Noguez ◽  
José-Martin Molina-Espinosa ◽  
María-Soledad Ramírez-Montoya ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Engineering Education ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
The Core ◽  
Core Components

scholarly journals Protection of Children in Difficulty in China during the COVID-19 Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 279
Author(s):  
Fang Zhao ◽  
Ning Zhu ◽  
Juha Hämäläinen
Keyword(s):  
Child Protection ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Integrated System ◽  
Protection System ◽  
Political Awareness ◽  
Child Protection Services ◽  
The Media ◽  
Professional Systems ◽  
Depth Interviews

This study investigated the resilience of the Chinese child protection system in responding to the special needs of children in difficulty under the specific circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study applied qualitative document analysis of child protection administrative documents, in-depth interviews with 13 child protection professionals, and an in-depth case study of 14 children living in difficulty, complemented by relevant information available in the media. The results indicate that there are good policies in China’s child protection services but the organizational and functional fragmentation complicates implementation, suggesting a need for the development of bottom-up practices. The essential conclusion supported by these results is that the child protection system should be regarded and developed as a systematic project combining the legal, policymaking, and professional systems of child welfare services as well as governmental and non-governmental forces. As the COVID-19 pandemic has raised awareness of the need to develop the field of child protection holistically as an integrated system in terms of social sustainability in China, an international literature-based comparison indicates that the pandemic has also raised similar political awareness in other countries.

scholarly journals ‘Rising demand and decreasing resources’: Theorising the ‘cost of austerity’ as a barrier to social worker discretion

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
CIARÁN MURPHY
Keyword(s):  
Social Worker ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Child Protection Services ◽  
Radical Reform ◽  
Critical Realist ◽  
Documentary Analysis ◽  
Effective System ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Cost

Abstract The Munro Review of Child Protection asserted that the English child protection system had become overly ‘defensive’, ‘bureaucratised’ and ‘standardised’, meaning that social workers were not employing their discretion in the interests of the individual child. This paper reports on the results of an ethnographic case study of one of England’s statutory child protection teams. The research sought to explore the extent of social worker discretion relative to Munro’s call for ‘radical reform’ and a move towards a more ‘child-centred’ system. Employing an iterative mixed methods design – encompassing documentary analysis, observation, focus group, questionnaire, interview and ‘Critical Realist Grounded Theory’ – the study positioned the UK Government’s prolonged policy of ‘austerity’ as a barrier to social worker discretion. This was because the policy was seen to be contributing to an increased demand for child protection services; and a related sense amongst practitioners that they were afforded insufficient time with the child to garner the requisite knowledge, necessary for discretionary behaviour. Ultimately, despite evidence of progress relative to assertions that social worker discretion had been eroded, the paper concludes that there may still be ‘more to do’ if we are to achieve the ‘child-centred’ and ‘effective’ system that Munro advocated.

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