Questioning the uncritical acceptance of neuroscience in child and family policy and practice: A review of challenges to the current doxa

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Recent directions in child and family policy in many Anglophone countries, including Aotearoa New Zealand, are underpinned by the adoption of prevention science which is used to justify state interventions into the lives of families deemed vulnerable or troubled.METHODS: We conducted an examination of trends, firstly examining recent child welfare and protection policy. We discuss the science that underpins significant changes in policy and explore how this use of the available science dovetails with the dogma of the Western neoliberal agenda. FINDINGS: The invocation of science in the struggle to reduce child maltreatment may be reassuring to politicians, policy developers and practitioners alike but a critical analysis is largely missing in the discourse in Aotearoa New Zealand.CONCLUSIONS: Neuroscience is adopted largely uncritically in social policy in relation to child welfare and child protection. It can contribute to policy but other knowledge from social science findings about contextual factors in child maltreatment such as poverty, racism and class-based assumptions about parenting norms must not be ignored in social work practice.

Neuroparenting: the Myths and the Benefits. An Ethical Systematic Review

“…In this strand of the critical literature we can see how the translation of neuroscientific findings to practices and parenting advice is not a clear-cut top down infusion of science, but happens in interaction with preexisting values and norms. Although the reference to neuroscientific literature suggests that an objective basis had been established to distinguish between good and bad, normal and abnormal parenting [44], the advices mostly echo existing ideas about class, ethnicity, and gender. Biologising these differences in class, ethnicity and gender risks that already vulnerable groups might be further stigmatized instead of helped, increasing existing inequalities.…”

Harm, care and babies: An inequalities and policy discourse perspective on recent child protection trends in Aotearoa New Zealand

“…The social investment concepts of getting in early to prevent later costs, when equated with removal, assumed that removal leads to better outcomes over time for the child, when that conclusion is deeply contested (Doyle, 2011; Office of the Children's Commissioner, 2016). The trauma-informed/child-centred practice approaches encouraged in practice guidelines can obscure social understandings of family difficulties and diminish wholeof-family responses (Beddoe & Joy, 2017;Hyslop, 2017).…”

“…Keddell (2017b) found practitioners who were more risk-averse in decisionmaking also used more trauma-related concepts to explain family problems that focussed on poor future outcomes for the child, while those who focussed on present needs were less risk-averse. With the rapid uptake of trauma as a key concept, this may also have an effect if used in a deterministic manner, where future child effects are assumed certainties, and parental trauma is viewed as a source of risk rather than need (Beddoe & Joy, 2017;Gillies, Edwards, & Horsley, 2017). Instead of support, especially when combined with powerful ideas from neuroscience, this can be used instead to justify "gendered, raced and social inequalities, positioning poor mothers as architects of their children's deprivation" (Edwards, Gillies, & Horsley, 2015, p. 167).…”

What do you mean, I’m “resilient”?

“…As social workers, we have a commitment to promote prevention and early intervention, to not always be working in crisis mode (Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers, 2007). We understand, for instance, the social determinants of health, and the challenges to a holistic comprehension of wellbeing from expedient alliances between scientific thinking and political agendas (Beddoe & Joy, 2017;Healy, 2015). Our bi-focal lens enables us to embrace research literature from social work and allied disciplines that re-balance a focus from "just" trauma and individual coping, towards an appreciation of complex, intersecting influences that include the causes of the adversities as well as their impact (Bonanno et al, 2011;Bottrell, 2009;Diprose, 2015).…”