Since the early 1980s the child protection and care system of Victoria, Australia, has seen the elaboration and diversification of decision making forums, with variable levels of participation by parents and older children. This paper identifies four forums which occur at different stages of the protective process and are held under different auspices and with different membership and purposes. This paper describes and compares these mechanisms with a view to clarifying their distinctive contributions and commonalities, and elaborates issues relating to how ‘family’ is conceptualized, underlying tensions in protective worker‐family relationships, the process of participation, and the management of multiple case planning processes. The paper discusses problems that arise as multiple mechanisms become institutionalized within the same child protection system, and some limitations of participatory case planning in producing systems change.
Australian social workers, like their American peers, have questioned the relevance of brief intensive-family-preservation services (IFPS) to child neglect. Three scenarios involving physical and environmental neglect are compared and contrasted, and the experience of an Australian pilot IFPS program is explored, highlighting the use made of the worker's time in the home, the significance of family history, social support, and issues in termination and follow-up. The case studies suggest three subtypes of neglect, each of which has different implications for the delivery and organization of IFPS.
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