Group Decision-making in Child Welfare and the Pursuit of Participation

Hitzler, Sarah; Messmer, Heinz

doi:10.1177/1473325010372156

Cited by 43 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…The study by Brown et al (2011) points towards poor opportunities for young people to participate in board or management meetings of the residential care facility (Brown et al, 2011). Several studies show that there are both poor and good opportunities for young people to participate in collective care planning meetings (Cousins & Milner, 2006;Hitzler & Messmer, 2010;Stevens, 2008).…”

Section: Opportunities Of Young People To Participate In Decision-mmentioning

confidence: 99%

Participation of youth in decision‐making procedures during residential care: A narrative review

Brummelaar

Harder

Kalverboer

et al. 2017

Child & Family Social Work

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Participation in decision-making procedures of young people in care is considered a key element that affects their current or future living circumstances and might improve the quality of decisionmaking on and delivery of provided services.This narrative literature review, covering the period 2000-2016, focuses on the opportunities of young people to participate, the challenges and facilitators to participation, and the outcomes of care related to participation.Sixteen studies met our search criteria. Several studies show that young people seem to have limited possibilities to "meaningful" participation in decision-making. Various challenges and facilitators in the participation process emerge with regard to the level of the young person, the professional, and the (sociocultural) context. None of the studies provides evidence for a connection between the "amount" of youth participation in decision-making and/or treatment during the care process and the outcomes of residential care. Implications for research and practice are reflected upon.

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Section: Opportunities Of Young People To Participate In Decision-mmentioning

confidence: 99%

Participation of youth in decision‐making procedures during residential care: A narrative review

Brummelaar

Harder

Kalverboer

et al. 2017

Child & Family Social Work

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Existing research (discussed further below) also tells us that practitioners who have completed partnership training still meet challenges in their work (eg. Hitzler and Messmer 2010;Fowler et al 2012). These include difficulties associated with client readiness for change, maintain focus and purpose, and using specialist expertise while remaining faithful to partnership principles.…”

Section: Two Key Theoretical Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some of these focus on the client. Hitzler and Messmer (2010) found that client participation in decisions in child welfare services is affected by a number of complications, including reluctance to participate -a finding echoed by Coyne (2007). The evaluation of the UK's Children's Fund (Author 3) found that the most socially disadvantaged families found partnership the most difficult.…”

Section: Evidence Of Challenges Experienced In Partnership Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Partnership practice as collaborative knowledge work: overcoming common dilemmas through an augmented view of professional expertise

Hopwood

Day

Edwards

2016

Journal of Children's Services

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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to shed new light on how partnership practices that build resilience in families work. Two broad questions are explored: first, what are the forms of expertise required in practices that effectively build resilience through partnership?; and second, how can some of the challenges practitioners experience when working in partnership be addressed? Design/methodology/approach – A theoretical approach is taken, framing partnership as collaborative knowledge work between practitioners and clients. Concepts of relational expertise, common knowledge and relational agency are explored as means to understand the forms of expertise involved in partnership. An empirical example is provided from practices guided by The Family Partnership Model, an approach that has been widely implemented. Findings – These concepts help to address three key challenges experienced by practitioners: client readiness for change, maintaining focus and purpose and using specialist expertise in partnership. This approach elucidates features of partnership practice that distinguish it from expert-led models, while highlighting diverse forms of expertise in play. Originality/value – The framework presented in this paper is distinctive and can be used to identify how practitioners can avoid common dilemmas, even in challenging circumstances with vulnerable families where practitioner-client relationships may be perceived as fragile. It counters the idea that partnership work dilutes professional expertise. Instead, an enriched and augmented view of professional expertise is presented.

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“…Care planning conferences can be described as recurrent group decisionmaking procedures (Hitzler and Messmer, 2010), which, by law, minimally involve a state social worker, a professional service provider and the client or clients. Together, the participants of such a meeting are to discuss and adjust educational service provision in individual cases.…”

Section: Aims and Methods Of The Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Declientification: Undoing Client Identities in Care Planning Conferences on the Termination of Residential Care

Messmer

Hitzler

2011

British Journal of Social Work

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Heinz Messmer is a professor for social work and child welfare at the University of Applied Sciences North Western Switzerland. He holds his Doctor of Sociology from Bielefeld University and habilitated with a work on social conflict. His recent research interests focus on institutions of child welfare, social work practice and conversation analysis. Sarah Hitzler is a faculty member at the Department of Sociology at Bielefeld University, Germany. She holds an M.A. degree in Discourse and Argumentation Studies from Amsterdam University, and has recently completed her doctoral thesis on discourse management in care planning conferences. Her research interests lie in the fields of conversation analysis, group interaction and practices in aid and welfare institutions.Correspondence to Prof. Dr Heinz Messmer, University of Applied Sciences, North Western Switzerland, Thiersteinerallee 57, CH-4053 Basel, Switzerland. E-mail: heinz. messmer@fhnw.ch AbstractThat social welfare clients ought to be looked at not as given, a priori entities, but rather as categories produced in accordance with the policies, resources and options of the institutions involved is established today as a common ground for reflexive and reconstructivist perspectives in social work research. The disestablishment of the client role, however, up to now seems to have met a blind spot. This article will present findings from a conversation analytical study based on fourteen fully transcribed care planning conferences in the context of German long-term residential childcare, concentrating on five meetings explicitly designed to terminate the service provision. We will show how long-term residential care is regularly terminated by a range of interactional strategies complementary to those of client production that can be flexibly exploited in response to institutional and political context requirements. Conversation analysis is introduced as a method that can unveil the interactive practices professionals use in order to balance the constraints of institutional social work against the needs of the individual cases.

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Group Decision-making in Child Welfare and the Pursuit of Participation

Cited by 43 publications

References 16 publications

Participation of youth in decision‐making procedures during residential care: A narrative review

Participation of youth in decision‐making procedures during residential care: A narrative review

Partnership practice as collaborative knowledge work: overcoming common dilemmas through an augmented view of professional expertise

Declientification: Undoing Client Identities in Care Planning Conferences on the Termination of Residential Care

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