Risky work: child protection practice.

• Author: Stanley, Tony

Abstract

The introduction of a differential response model to the New Zealand child protection system is an important social policy initiative. However, the differential response literature has yet to address the role that risk discourses play as organising and regulatory regimes in contemporary child protection work, and this paper addresses this gap. Child protection social work is strongly underpinned by discourses of risk, and this is best illustrated in the adoption of risk assessment tools that aim to assist the practices of risk assessment and its management. This paper traces the shifting and discursive functions of risk in child protection social work, and argues that Child, Youth and Family (CYF) (2) social workers are negotiating a complex and increasingly pressured practice environment where difficult decisions can be legitimised through the use of risk discourses. The author's doctoral study, which considered risk discourses and statutory social work practice decisions, is drawn on to illustrate how social workers may inadvertently compromise the differential response system--a system where the discursive functions of risk are likely to remain central and regulatory. There is a danger that CYF social workers might construct their role within such a system as increasingly the assessor and manager of high risk. This paper advocates for social work training and supervision as forums where practitioners can consider and better understand these risk discourses.

INTRODUCTION

The New Zealand child protection system is under siege from an anxious public and ever-increasing political scrutiny. In this way, New Zealand is in good company, as many other international jurisdictions struggle to cope with increasing demands placed on child protection services (Scott 2006). While social work practice has often been the focus of criticism in times of tragedy, and reviews and recommendations attempt to address practice deficits (Doolan 2004), these tragic events and swift organisational responses continue to significantly shape the work of child protection (Parton et al. 1997). This is best illustrated by the uncritical adoption of risk assessment and risk management policies and tools, both increasingly relied upon to assist the complicated and often uncertain work associated with child abuse and neglect.

Over the last 30 years, the discourses of risk have shifted and changed, and this paper traces these changes to consider the role that social workers have in constructing facts about particular risks. This paper is a discussion piece that aims to extend social policy debates around the discursive functions of risk in child protection work. It draws on interviews with social workers to illustrate this point (Stanley 2005, Stanley forthcoming). It is important for policymakers to consider the role that social workers actually have in carrying out policy initiatives in the area of child protection.

A recent social policy innovation in the New Zealand context is the adoption of a differential response model to assist with the organisation and service provision of child protection work (Connolly 2004, Waldegrave and Coy 2005). While this has significant implications for how the work of child protection will actually operate, there has been scant attention paid to how discourses of risk may serve the organisational and practice imperatives for social workers, while potentially rendering families less central to decision making. To date, this has been largely overlooked in the child protection literature (Webb 2006), and this is an important discussion in light of New Zealand developing and introducing a differential response to the work of child welfare.

Child protection work is now strongly underpinned by discourses of risk (Stanley 2005, Webb 2006), best illustrated by the introduction of risk assessment tools that aim to assist social workers to reach conclusions about risks for particular children and families. Risk assessment and its management are also organising principles that both structure social work practice and offer audit and monitoring functions. This paper draws on the family group conference (FGC) to illustrate how monitoring and audit functions operate discursively, and how statements about risk can be drawn on to support organisational imperatives. This paper advocates for social work training and supervision as forums where practitioners can consider and better understand these risk discourses.

In practice, the balancing of child protection and family support imperatives has produced a working context where ambiguity and uncertainty remain important--yet rather under-theorised--practice issues (Stanley 2005). Importantly, those engaged in social policy initiatives and practice debates must consider the role that CYF social workers have as strategists in making use of risk discourses. Such use has the potential to compromise policy initiatives like the differential response model.

THE DIFFERENTIAL RESPONSE MODEL

A significant development for New Zealand's child protection system has been the development and introduction of the differential response model (Waldegrave and Coy 2005). Designed to help determine the most appropriate service provision for families in a more timely manner, the model aims for CYF to make a preliminary assessment that would then lead to a range of outcomes, such as a child and family assessment or a statutory social work investigation. According to Waldegrave and Coy (2005), CYF social workers may face challenges in making initial assessment decisions to enact the possible pathways for families, given the societal pressure on CYF to protect and ensure the safety of children who come to CYF's attention. Further, risk discourses will be drawn on to assist in such determinations, and it is vital that policymakers, social workers and their supervisors are able to engage critically with such discursive functions of risk. The next section illustrates this shifting and discursive functioning of risk.

THREE DECADES OF CONCEPTUALISING RISK

What we understand to be a "risk" (or a hazard, threat or danger) is a product of historically, socially and politically contingent "ways of seeing". (Lupton 1999:35) Over the past 30 years, child protection work can be characterised by three risk periods. The 1970s was characterised by a growing anxiety towards children. Increasingly, children came to be seen as being "at risk". Risk was used to delineate those at risk from those posing a risk and, importantly, those not at risk. Risk entered the official discourse of child protection, and social workers were increasingly expected to diagnose and identify risks for particular children and families (Parton et al. 1997).

This was followed by a technological period in the 1980s and 1990s. This period was characterised by the development of risk assessment tools and risk management policies. Cases could be defined as high or low risk and, accordingly, receive particular responses and resources from state agencies. Formal risk assessment tools were introduced to facilitate this (Doueck et al. 1993, Gambrill and Shlonsky 2001). Increasingly, proceduralised models of practice were introduced to help social workers manage the uncertainty and ambiguity associated with assessment work. These procedures were able to be monitored and audited (Parton 1998), yet they served to mask the more unpredictable and uncertain parts of child protection assessment work.

Internationally, child protection systems favoured actuarial risk assessment tools to enhance certainty around risk assessment practice. Actuarial risk assessments take an insurance approach to assessment work (Kemshall 2002), where risks are aggregated and statistically calculated. Individuals gain access to services based on particular risk classifications, and resources are allocated accordingly. In contrast to actuarial models, New Zealand's child welfare system adopted a consensus-based approach to risk assessment work (Smith 1995).

More recently, a third risk period has emerged--a period of legitimacy, where discourses of risk can be drawn on to legitimise assessment decisions made about particular children and families. This is a significant shift in the relationship between families and social workers because participation is inhibited when there...