Lawmakers' use of scientific evidence can be improved

Core to the goal of scientific exploration is the opportunity to guide future decision-making. Yet, elected officials often miss opportunities to use science in their policymaking. This work reports on an experiment with the US Congress—evaluating the effects of a randomized, dual-population (i.e., researchers and congressional offices) outreach model for supporting legislative use of research evidence regarding child and family policy issues. In this experiment, we found that congressional offices randomized to the intervention reported greater value of research for understanding issues than the control group following implementation. More research use was also observed in legislation introduced by the intervention group. Further, we found that researchers randomized to the intervention advanced their own policy knowledge and engagement as well as reported benefits for their research following implementation.

Questioning the uncritical acceptance of neuroscience in child and family policy and practice: A review of challenges to the current doxa

INTRODUCTION: Recent directions in child and family policy in many Anglophone countries, including Aotearoa New Zealand, are underpinned by the adoption of prevention science which is used to justify state interventions into the lives of families deemed vulnerable or troubled.METHODS: We conducted an examination of trends, firstly examining recent child welfare and protection policy. We discuss the science that underpins significant changes in policy and explore how this use of the available science dovetails with the dogma of the Western neoliberal agenda. FINDINGS: The invocation of science in the struggle to reduce child maltreatment may be reassuring to politicians, policy developers and practitioners alike but a critical analysis is largely missing in the discourse in Aotearoa New Zealand.CONCLUSIONS: Neuroscience is adopted largely uncritically in social policy in relation to child welfare and child protection. It can contribute to policy but other knowledge from social science findings about contextual factors in child maltreatment such as poverty, racism and class-based assumptions about parenting norms must not be ignored in social work practice.