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Child protection practitioners and decision-making tools : observations and reflections from the front line

Gillingham, Philip and Humphreys, Catherine 2010, Child protection practitioners and decision-making tools : observations and reflections from the front line, British journal of social work, vol. 40, no. 8, pp. 2598-2616.

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Title Child protection practitioners and decision-making tools : observations and reflections from the front line
Author(s) Gillingham, Philip
Humphreys, Catherine
Journal name British journal of social work
Volume number 40
Issue number 8
Start page 2598
End page 2616
Total pages 19
Publisher Oxford University Press
Place of publication Oxford, England
Publication date 2010-12
ISSN 0045-3102
1468-263X
Keyword(s) risk assessment
structured decision making
child protection
ICT
Summary Decision-making tools, particularly risk-assessment tools, have been implemented by governments around the world, perhaps most notably in the field of child protection, though little attention has been paid to how practitioners use them. This article presents the findings from ethnographic research that explored how child protection practitioners in the Department of Child Safety, Queensland, Australia, used four Structured Decision Making tools developed by the Children's Research Centre in Wisconsin in their daily practice in the intake and investigation stages of a case. The findings that the tools were not being used as intended by their designers and, in fact, tended to undermine the development of expertise by child protection workers has profound implications for the future development of technological approaches to child protection and, more broadly, human services practice.
Language eng
Field of Research 160701 Clinical Social Work Practice
Socio Economic Objective 940502 Professions and Professionalisation
HERDC Research category C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal
ERA Research output type C Journal article
HERDC collection year 2010
Copyright notice ©2009, The Authors
Persistent URL http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30031573

Document type: Journal Article
Collection: School of Health and Social Development
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Created: Fri, 10 Dec 2010, 12:05:51 EST by Penny Andrews