scholarly journals Wanted: Moral Courage in Canadian Child Welfare

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cindy Blackstock
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
First Nations ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Moral Courage ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Canadian Child ◽  
The Right ◽  
Good Research

Child welfare stifles change and innovation in a system that desperately needs it by promoting conformity and awarding subordination to bad ideas (Blackstock, 2009). If neglect means not doing the right thing for children even when you know better and can do better, and have the resources to do it, then too often child protection neglects First Nations children and their families. This essay explores whether emancipating moral courage in child protection is the key to ensuring good research translates into real benefits for First Nations families. This paper begins with a description of moral courage in child protection across the decades before drawing on my own experiences with moral courage in the child welfare field. It concludes with stories of how moral cowardice diminishes children and how moral courage uplifts them. Implications for research, policy and practice are discussed.

Preventing and responding to errors in US child protection

2020 ◽  
pp. 235-254
Author(s):  
Jill Duerr Berrick ◽  
Jaclyn Chambers
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Predictive Analytics ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Protection Policy ◽  
Risk Assessment Tools ◽  
The Us ◽  
Child Protection Policy

This chapter demonstrates how concerns about avoiding errors and mistakes have been at the centre of child protection policy and practice in the US for many years. In particular the chapter focuses on providing a summary of the state of the art relating to risk assessment tools and predictive analytics as strategies to reduce error in child welfare decision making. It also examines whether our understanding of ‘error’ needs to shift to account for the unknowns. When social workers make decisions based upon fundamental principles, and when they determine that it is in the interests of a child to privilege one principle over another, the result may appear in hindsight as an “error”, but when made as a decision guided by one widely-held principle which was in direct conflict with another. Examining child welfare decision making as a process of selecting and then privileging one principle over another narrows what we might otherwise think of as an ‘error’ and instead recasts some decisions as exceedingly difficult to get ‘right’.

Child protection in England: an emerging inequalities perspective

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 107-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Bywaters ◽  
Tim Sparks
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Child Welfare Services ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Welfare Services ◽  
The Past ◽  
Looked After Children ◽  
Policy Statements ◽  
Policy Direction

Purpose In the past 40 years, both health policy and educational policy in England have adopted commitments to reducing socially created inequalities. However, an inequalities perspective has only begun to emerge in relation to child protection, and child welfare services more widely. The purpose of this paper is to chart evidence of these green shoots of a new policy direction which focusses on two aspects: equalising service provision and outcomes for looked after children. Design/methodology/approach The paper provides an analysis of trends in policies as expressed in official documents, research studies and policy statements. Findings The paper outlines the argument for a more comprehensive approach to addressing inequalities in child protection and child welfare services, and concludes by suggesting some implications for policy and practice. Originality/value The paper develops the concept of an inequalities perspective in child protection and outlines key implications.

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