Can a Paradigm Shift from Risk Management to Critical Reflection Improve Child-Inclusive Practice?

Abstract

Child protection systems within Anglophone countries have been increasingly dominated by neoliberal managerial, risk-dominant paradigms over the past three decades. Assumed to deliver a cost-effective strategy to increase the safety of children, there are many ways this paradigmatic combination systematically undermines child welfare, participation, and well-being. This paper specifically focuses on the ways that risk assessment, neoliberal, and managerial discourses have infiltrated practice and operate to silence and exclude children’s voices. It draws on two case studies to showcase key findings of a comprehensive, state-wide research project called Empowering Children’s Voices, which was initiated by UnitingCare, a non-government organisation within Queensland, Australia, and conducted in partnership with researchers from Queensland University of Technology. It will be argued that a paradigm shift towards a critically reflective reinterpretation of risk can be far more effective at promoting child-inclusive practice and establishing children’s empowered voices as a protective factor against harm.

“How About Being Trustworthy Rather Than Asking Families to Trust?”: A Prerequisite for Child Protection Authorities Partnering with Indigenous Communities

“…While progress has been made on data collections and 'wrap-around' coordinated services, collaborative practice that respects the voice of advocacy groups, families and children is far from being mainstreamed across jurisdictions (Davis, 2019;Hamilton et al, 2022;Morley et al, 2022;Ross et al, 2017). 7 The five elements of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Placement Principle-prevention, partnership, participation, placement and connection-have been poorly implemented (Davis, 2019;Department of Social Services, 2020, 2021SNAICC, 2022).…”

“…Part of the problem is that child protection authorities are not open, learning organisations: They are state-centred, siloed, bureaucratised and risk-averse, struggling to process heavy caseloads and complex cases, and reliant on assessment and decision-making protocols that are oppressive (Dettlaff et al, 2020;Keddell, 2019;Lonne et al, 2013;Merkel-Holguin et al, 2022;Morley et al, 2022;Parton, 2014;Yang & Ortega, 2016).…”

Becoming good ancestors: A decolonial, childist approach to global intergenerational sustainability

“…The director enabled a breakthrough in a modern Western paradigm of beliefs about ‘protection’ which recognised the relational agency of the elderly and maintained that the aim was not ‘to manage a sterile, controlled house without risks and romances, but to enable a home environment where real people live real lives (Arentshorst et al, 2019: 248)’. On similar lines, Morley et al (2022) have argued that when it concerns child protection services in modern Western contexts, a paradigm shift from ‘risk management’ to ‘critical reflection’ can contribute to more child‐inclusive practices. I consolidate the continuum of these examples to signal that: participation is a means to protection .…”

Operationalising children's participation: Competing understandings of the policy to practice ‘gap’

“…In NSW, the most recent include Empowerment and Participation: A guide for organisations working with children and young people (NSW Office of the Children's Guardian, 2021), and Engaging Children and Young People in Your Organisation (NSW Office of the Advocate for Children and Young People, 2019). There is ample information on how to 'do participation' alongside critique of the extent to which rights have been operationalised (Canosa et al, 2022;Kosher & Ben-Arieh, 2020;Morley et al, 2022) including for young people in juvenile justice (Cunneen et al, 2016), and children in detention-seeking asylum (Bochenek, 2015).Children who already experience marginalisation are less likely than others to have their rights extended to them. Furthermore, participation in practice can fail to meet the expectations of policy when the assumptions that underpin the policy are not congruent with the socio-political landscapes in which practice occurs (Toros, 2020).…”