Managers of Child Protection Agencies welcome's a structured framework for assessment of referrals
Child welfare services in Norway have been criticised on the grounds that child protection investigations are carried out too unsystematically and is not adequately documented.
Implementation of any framework or procedure to change practice is a complex endeavour. In addition to changing the service providers’ behaviour, there is also the matter of restructuring organizational contexts.
The public debate in newspapers, journals and other child protection forums in Norway has appeared to be somewhat polarized and heated.
A key to achieving change lies with the professionals in the workforce. It is crucial that the workforce recognizes or accepts the premise that a change is needed. If not, an implementation of new routines has little hope of success. We wanted to investigate their views on assessment frameworks in general, and obtain information about whether they regard the frameworks as helpful in terms of gathering information in child protection The majority of managwers (68%) in all Norwegian Child Protection Agencies responded to our survey.
Overall, the view that standardized assessment frameworks are disadvantageous for workflow or inhibit the ability to use professional discretion in decision-making was not widely supported.
The results indicate that the introduction of a common assessment framework in Norway should take into consideration that agencies in large cities may have a greater need for structuring workflow through routines and standards than do smaller rural agencies that investigate relatively few cases.
The most important factor that may determine whether use of assessment frame- works improves user participation seems to be the level of training that is provided. This finding supports the argument that the introduction of routines and structures without proper considerations regarding implementation cannot be recommended.
Read the article in upcoming edition of the journal Child Care in Practice